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Chapter Text

Chapter Text

It Wasn’t Part of the Plan

She hadn’t planned to fall in love with him.
She hadn’t planned to touch him.
Kiss him.
Shag him.
Do anything with him.

But then there was a Halloween party. A cat costume with ears that looked almost too real. Zombie makeup smeared across his pale skin. White hair in disarray, fake blood streaked across his cheek. Rough hands, alcohol, and laughter that rattled through the air, thick and intoxicating.

So much laughter that she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d laughed that hard. It echoed in her chest, leaving her dizzy, alive, and slightly afraid of how much she craved it.

And then when they came together, it was like fireworks. Stars exploding, golden light spilling out and threading them together, binding them in something she didn’t understand but could never escape, a pulse that seemed to mark them both as irreversibly theirs.

They escaped every night into each other, until it became something else. Something like love. Something dangerous. Something that whispered to them both that it would not be tamed.

It was love, but it was consuming, and relentless. He consumed her—with his heat, his touch, his mouth, his body. It was a fever, a rollercoaster that sent her flying so high she was terrified of the crash that would inevitably come. And she wanted it anyway, even knowing the risk.

And one night, when he told her that he had been betrothed to another, she felt her heart shatter like glass into a million pieces. It felt so much worse than just normal heartbreak, something dark and invasive, sinking into her chest like a knife she couldn’t remove. He swore it was broken, but she saw the way Astoria Greengrass looked at him. Looked at her, with eyes that promised she wouldn’t let it go so easily.

So she did the only thing she understood to do. She left him.

She just didn’t expect him to chase after her. Not with the fire and hunger in his gaze that left no space for her to hide. Not with the relentless pull between them that had nothing to do with choice and everything to do with something older, something binding. Something neither of them could ever escape.

Chapter Text

Part One

A Little Intimacy

January 2005

Draco loomed over the crowded platform close to where the trains came in and left just as quickly. A lock of his white-blond hair had fallen over his brow. It was softer now with loose waves replacing the once-slicked strands of his boyhood arrogance. His face, once sharp and angular, had filled out with age. A scar cut through his right eyebrow, a jagged silver line that made his smile dangerous.

Especially when he smirked, it was cocky and crooked. It had become something of a legend over the years.  The scar was an accidental slicing hex from Theodore Nott, a minor one. Draco kept it anyway and passed it off as something far more mysterious. The smile though was the sort of smile that made women drop their knickers and regret it later. He didn’t care about bewitching those witches though. He only wanted Hermione, and she had evaded him for over a year this time.

Which was too long.

He wore all black: a long trench coat that skimmed the bottom of his boots, pressed trousers, a tailored button-down shirt, and dragon-hide boots with a dull sheen. The outfit cloaked him in the kind of anonymity that frightened most people. Which meant that they kept their distance from him.

The sound of the tube roared through the tunnels, steel on steel, a dull scream echoing off the grime-covered walls. The press of bodies shifted forward as a gust of hot wind,  heralded its arrival. Except for the regular jostling of the crowd, Draco stood completely still with his hands in the pockets of his coat.

He watched as the doors skimmed open, and a crowd of people exited it. 

She was one of the last ones to leave, in tight jeans that hugged her curves, a gray cable jumper, and a navy winter coat with a matching plaid scarf. Her long hair was plaited so that it hung over one shoulder. Wisps of dark brown hair framed her face, rebelling at the idea of her trying to contain it. She pulled her messenger bag tighter across her shoulder as she scanned the crowd. 

He knew the moment her gaze found him by the way her eyes widened. His mouth twisted up into a cruel smirk, slow and feral. She glanced around searching for places to escape him. He could almost hear the pulse of her heart ratcheting up in pace. When she looked back at where he stood he had phased himself into the crowd. His magic cloaked over him, forcing her to question whether she saw him at all. 

Mine was all he could think as he let her think just for a moment she had a chance of escaping him. Just long enough to taste the panic.

She darted towards the escalators, her brown plaited locks flying out behind her as she weaved through the crowd quickly. She moved like she knew she was prey trying to escape her hunter. He could almost smell the fear on her, and Merlin was it arousing.

He turned on his heel in one swift movement and began to follow her. The crowd seemed to part for him as if they sensed how little it would take for him to break someone’s ribs just for being in the way.

She glanced over her shoulder, searching for him. But Draco was slipping through the crowd, using the magic that thrummed through his veins to hide himself in plain sight.

She darted up the escalator, unwilling to wait for it to carry her slowly to the streets above. Draco followed without hesitation, taking the steps two at a time to keep her in sight. The crush of the crowd was suffocating, noise and movement pressing in on all sides. He watched the flash of her coat and the shape of her break free from the oppressiveness of being underground. He stepped out on the streets of London at a slow pace, giving her a false sense of security. The air was fresher above ground, the scent of rain clinging to the humidity in the air.

He was closer to her now. Close enough for her scent to reach him, subtle as it pressed into the space between them. White jasmine, red apple, and Georgia peach threaded with the quiet musk of old books and ink and something else. Something unmistakably her. It was his favorite scent. The one that had risen from his Amortentia at eighteen. It haunted his dreams now and consumed him in his waking hours. And as he breathed it in, his pulse surged, excitement coiling low in his gut.

He decided to stop and slip into the shadows, letting her get a little ways ahead. 

She glanced over her shoulder again, and upon not seeing him she relaxed. Not enough to make him think her guard was down, but just enough to find room to breathe. He watched the slow, hopeful exhale that softened her spine. 

His smile stretched like a fox, cunning and bordering on cruel.

He liked letting her believe that she still clung to some sort of illusion that she was in control.

What a shame it will be to ruin that. 

It thrilled him the idea of wrecking her fantasy of that because in reality he was always the one in control. Even when she was gone from his sight, she was never fully in control of anything because he knew he would always find her.

He disapparated and apparated right in front of her. His black cloud phased in like a plume of smoke. Her tiny body didn’t so much as slam into him but folded into him. He curled his arms around her, slipping his right hand into the warm folds of her jacket. If he had time he would have relished the feel of her warm body under his hands, but he didn’t if he didn’t want her to try to run. He gripped her wand before turning on the spot. Disapparating again into the dark woods just outside of Malfoy Manor.  

He felt the wards tense at the intrusion, but then they relaxed as they felt the Malfoy blood sing through his veins. 

It instantly relaxed him being in his own territory and having her next to him. The smell was less oppressive, and the sounds were gone. In place were the whispers of wind weaving through skeletal branches, and the sound of a lone owl hooting. The air was tinged with the smell of pine, and cold earth, underscored by the subtle, metallic tang of ancient magic that lingered around the area.

Hermione fell to the ground onto her hands and knees and vomited from the sudden movement.

She never was good at traveling in any way magically. Her hands shook as she clutched at her coat. Breath ragged, like her body was trying to convince her she still had agency. He vanished the mess off the ground immediately and watched as she searched herself in a panic. 

No doubt looking for her wand.

He whistled, a slow, low note that echoed through the din of the forest The sharp sound snapped her head up, eyes wide and wary. Emotions flooded her face but mostly anger and defeat.

Draco grinned his feral grin, white teeth flashing like a dire wolf’s, waving her wand tauntingly in front of her before placing it into a pocket inside his jacket

“Looking for this?” 

Her head sagged back down, her braid brushing across the dirt, and she muttered, “Fuck.”

“Language, Granger,” he tutted. 

He stepped closer, crouched until he was eye-level with her, and reached out to brush his finger across her cheek. Then he tilted her chin up, forcing her to meet his gaze. She didn’t flinch, just hardened her resolve, pretending he didn’t unsettle her in the slightest. But he knew he did, he knew what she felt for him did. He knew it threatened to explode out of her, her own magic sparking like fire crackers.

 “Still can’t handle a little intimacy, Little Doe?” he murmured, his thumb dragging lightly along her jaw. “Or is it something else? Is it the way your stomach twists, being this close to me… because you remember exactly what it feels like to want the thing that ruins you?”

Her plump lips pressed into a thin line, while her eyes turned mutinous. Hands whipping out, she tried to grab purchase of his skin. He relished the feeling of her nails digging in, drawing blood, and he chuckled low and cruelly. There was something deeply satisfying in her resistance. It made the whole chase more worthwhile.

Because if she just gave in like a meek little bunny she wouldn’t be worth the hunt. She wouldn’t be his to claim, to unravel, and to remold in the only way he wanted.

He wrapped his hands around her wrists tightly and pulled her away from him, gently.

“Come now, answer my question,” He drawled, “And remember, I know when you’re lying.”

She spat in his face, it hit his cheek and dripped down to his chin. Draco stood in one fluid movement, taking her with him so that she had to stand on the tips of her shoes. Warpping one arm around her waist firmly, he let the other drift into her coat and move along her curves. Stopping so that his thumb brushed under the curve of her breast, feeling the rabbit quickness of her heart. His breath hitched at the warmth of her body underneath her clothes, and up against him. He moved his hand along and landed with it around her throat pressing gently enough to assert control.

“Want to do that again?” He hummed low and sultry, “You know how hard it makes me when you do feral things,”

“Fuck you,” She growled out, her sweet breath blowing across his face. He took it all in, relishing it, and he thought somewhere deep down she knew he loved it.  

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” His voice was all sharp teeth and heat. “Don’t pretend otherwise.”

She could pretend all she wanted that she didn’t like the things they did together. The things he did to her.  That she didn’t know how it felt to have him inside of her, making her find the next side of ecstasy. That no one else had ever made her fall apart underneath them in the way he did. 

“I’d rather Avada myself,” She hissed, clearly lying. Digging into his shoulders with her hands, she started to try pushing him away again, but he just pulled her closer. Squeezed a little tighter, the air coming out of her in a rapid wheeze, while her chest heaved. 

“Didn’t I just say I know when you’re lying Granger?”

She slumped just slightly, seeking the smallest relief from the pressure at her throat. He watched, waiting to see if the fire would fade from her eyes, but it didn’t. She was still in there, still fighting. Stubborn as ever.

He loosened his grip and slid his hand to the back of her head. Fingers tangling in her hair, pulling at the strands that were plaited.  They twisted then around the braid and with a firm pull, he tilted her chin up to face him.

He lowered his head and let his mouth brush against hers, barely touching them. Just enough to feel the slight tremble of her bottom lip. She made a sound, sharp and strangled, something between a gasp and a hiss. But her body did what it always did: betrayed her. It leaned into him, softened, just enough to count. She wasn’t surrendering, but there was a crack in her strong resolve.

Still frozen but starting to melt.

Something deep inside him purred at the shift. He could feel it, her slipping, inch by inch, back towards him. 

“Draco..” She rasped out in subtle desperation, the word ghosted into his mouth. It made his body sing, blood pumping to all the right places when she called him that.  

“Yes, Hermione?” He hummed. 

Her name dripped off his tongue like honey, it was a song in itself. A bird’s haunting tune in the morning. The golden sun splashed across his bed in the morning hour landing across her golden skin. 

“Please if you ever cared about me just let me go.” She begged.

It was sweet the way she said it like she believed there was a good part of him that would do that. He loosened his grip altogether but kept an arm wrapped around her, pushing their bodies closer together, like he was trying to mold them into one. Pressing his nose into her hair, he breathed the fruity scent in deep.  It made his cock twitch, and grow hard against her, making her breath hitch.

He smirked unapologetically. 

“Feel what you do to me?” He muttered deep and low. “How could I ever let someone that does that to me go? When all she’s doing is sharing the same air as me?” 

She whined, it came from deep in her belly and he knew the sound well. It was in that way that meant she was still fighting everything in her to let him win. Her body started to shake whether from cold or over stimulation he didn’t know.  He wanted to sooth her though so  he let his magic wash over her, a calming spell as well as a warming spell. She finally melted into him, her arms snaking around his waist seeking his warmth inside his jacket.

He sighed in contentment, as he rubbed her back in slow circles.

“Why do you insist on running from me?” He asked. 

He felt her shift, rising onto her tiptoes, her hands gliding slowly over the muscles beneath his shirt. Her nose traced a path up his neck, following the faded lines of his Azkaban numbers to the edge of his jaw. Her tongue flicked out, tasting his skin, drawing a guttural moan from deep in his chest. Her lips hovered near his ear, warm breath ghosting over sensitive skin as she whispered darkly, “I thought your favorite part was the chase?”

Then, with measured amount of grace, her hands slid to his chest and she shoved him.

Hard.

It caught him off guard and made him stumble back, boots crunching over dry branches. She tilted her head, just for a second, then lifted her wand with a slow, taunting twirl. And before he could recover, she spun on her heel and Disapparated, vanishing in a whisper of white smoke.

“Bloody witch!” the words tore up out of him like a knife slicing through him, leaving his throat raw with the force of it. They bled into the trees, swallowed by the mist curling low around his boots, where her footprints had already begun to fade. She was gone again, slipped through his fingers like smoke.

 Like she’d never been there at all.

2 Hours Earlier

Hermione pushed the rolling cart through the stacks of the Langford Library where she worked. It squeaked with each roll, loud and echoing throughout the library. It was a large muggle library filled with dusty books. The musk of them filtering through the air like a permanent cologne.  It was cold inside of it, like a tomb filled with ghosts of a fictional past. It didn’t normally make her feel uneasy, but tonight she felt as though she was being watched. She wished she could think that was a ridiculous notion, but it wasn’t.

In fact, being watched was a regular occurrence for her, even in the muggle world. Which was the place she had chosen to currently hide in. 

Perhaps she hadn’t gone far enough this time, but it didn’t seem to matter where she went. Someone found her, no matter what she did or where she went. Usually it was the same person that found her, Draco Malfoy. He was always relentlessly hunting for her, and she always gave in when he did find her. No it wasn't giving in, it was falling in. Always falling back into him because she couldn’t stop loving him. She couldn’t stop wanting him either, because he knew her body better than anyone she had been with. She left him, and she hid, but she never stopped loving him, and that was the most frustrating thing of all. 

This time when she ran, she had managed to make it to the one year mark. She had even made a few friends, found favorite places to haunt. Perhaps she realized she had grown a little too comfortable in thinking that this time she could stay awhile.

Confundus charms worked wonders when she needed a job, and libraries were her favorite places to use them. She knew that was also a predictable choice so sometimes she would work in cafes and dye her hair black. Sometimes there wasn’t a job at all, but she created one for herself. 

It worked just as well for empty flats. 

She couldn’t help but love the way her target’s mind would look confused as she whispered the charm, her wand under the table. The way their facial expressions would change as she convinced them that she was meant for the job that needed to be filled.

She stopped, the cart coming to a squeaking halt. She looked around just to be sure but when she found she was alone she out her wand. With a wave of it she started putting the books back in their respective places.

They floated up one by one to each spot and made a satisfying sound as they slid home with a faint thunk. The shelves swallowing them like secrets waiting to be discovered once again. There was a pause then, followed by a thick and heavy silence. The kind that settles in old libraries and unspoken thoughts. Her fingers lingered on the last book for a moment longer then the rest, as if she was reluctant to let it go.

A strange cooling feeling brushed across the back of her neck as she ran her fingers over the cover. But when she turned to scan the area around her she found nothing.

Heard nothing.

It didn’t mean anything.

She was a witch, and she knew better than to believe in coincidences.

She gripped her wand a little more tightly and slid the last book into place. It settled with a soft, satisfying click. The gentle sound of leather against the wood and centuries-old magic slotting into alignment. Of course it wasn’t real magic in the muggle library, but books themselves brought magic to anyone.

She rolled the cart back to the front of the library at a slow pace, each roll snicking against the threadbare carpet. The lights started to shut off as she made her way to the front. It was empty except for one girl now, several books open surrounding her. Notebooks were also scattered around her. Her glasses were perched on her nose, and her hair was a riot mess. Ink was stained on her hands and across her cheek.

Hermione recognized herself in that girl.

Someone she once was, before the weight of the world pressed down. Someone untouched by fear, unburdened by judgment. Someone who moved through life without the need to hide, to shrink, or to silence pieces of herself.

What would it feel like to live that way again?

She stopped the cart and stepped away quietly. Black Converse sneakers padded softly across the worn carpet as she made her way toward the girl. She cleared her throat, and the girl's head jerked up to glare at her. She was clearly in full swot mode.

“What?” She snapped.

It didn’t phase Hermione, who knew she was the biggest swot of all. So she smiled softly and said in her quiet librarian voice, “Library is closing in the next fifteen minutes.”

The girl had the decency to look a little sheepish. Her scowl faltered, replaced by a flicker of embarrassment as she glanced at the watch on her ink-stained wrist. Hermione didn’t bother to wait to see how she would react. She pushed the empty cart again until she slid it into the space for the book return.

Her bag was in a locker in the employee's lounge so she moved towards the door located behind the main command center of the library. It opened with a hushed creak, and the telltale scent of lunch or dinner that had been recently microwaved inside soothed Hermione’s soul. Strange that familiar cents like that had the ability to do so. It counter balanced how eerily quiet the night was though, as if it were a sign of something ominous coming.

The locker she used always jammed, and tonight was no different. The door flung open and reverberated off the one next to it, startling her even though she knew to expect it. Her bag wasn’t hanging on the hook she always put it on, instead it was on the bottom with the flap open. She looked around again, searching for someone or something that could be waiting in the shadows.

Carefully, she lifted the bag and slung it across her body. The familiar weight settling comfortably against her side. She rooted through it quickly to make sure nothing was missing. But everything appeared to be intact. She turned toward the coat rack by the door and grabbed her jacket. Slipping it on she pushed the employee lounge door open again and then went to weave through the cases one last time before she left. She wanted a book or two to read for the next few nights in her tiny flat.  It was a single room, one bathroom. She didn’t keep much in it except Crookshanks. She left the window open a crack wide enough for him to slip through should she not return.

 He always found her, no matter how far she went.

Crookshanks that is.

But if she were being honest with herself so did Draco.

She took two books today and checked them out for herself, despite the fact that she had a feeling she would not be returning.

Beth, the head librarian, emerged from the stacks. She had on a long gray cardigan and gold framed glasses, her blonde hair in a neat bun. She reminded Hermione of Madam Pince. A lady who cared very deeply about the librarian system and upholding it to a higher standard than most. She

“Are you off then Jean?” She asked as she strolled up to the counter where Hermione stood.

“Afraid I have to be off,” Hermione replied with a false smile, “I have a fat cat that believes he’s being starved to death.

“Okay, well, it’s late, so be careful out there on your own,” Beth said with a playful smile. “And watch out for any monsters lurking in the shadows.”

Hermione knew it was meant to be a joke, but she couldn’t help the shiver that went down her spine. Beth couldn’t know monsters were real, always lurking in plain sight.

Always waiting to snatch you up.

1 Hour Earlier

The tube moved underneath her feet, a fast-clicking sound as it rolled toward her stop. She wore earbuds, music blaring in her ears, and had taken out one of the books she borrowed. She did it to appear completely standoffish. Normally it worked but she had a hot feeling on the side of her face that told her someone was watching her.

A man close to her age was sitting down across the aisle, shaggy brown hair falling into his face. His eyes were a piercing blue—almost unnaturally bright. He had smiled at her when they boarded the train, the skin crinkling around his eyes.

She had given him a vague smile in return, then crossed to sit on the opposite side of the carriage. It didn’t stop him from watching. His gaze stayed on her, unwavering, like he was trying to memorize the shape of her. It burned into her and made her skin prickle. She flushed red, the blush going down her cheeks and neck.

Drifting her hand into her coat, she brushed them against the wand she had hidden there. And she knew it would be there but still, the panic had crept in. What if it had fallen out? What if she reached for it and found nothing?

As she was checking for it again for second time she dropped her book. It fell page down, and when she went to reach for it another hand picked it up for her. It was the man, smiling at her again, a grin showing all his teeth. He cocked his eyebrow at her as he handed it to her.

“Thanks,” She mumbled, the flush of red turning an even deeper shade of red.

Bloody hell Hermione, get it together.

“You should take better care of...” He trailed off as he flipped the book over “Books from the Langford Library,”

The tube blew into the next stop, coming to a screeching halt.

The doors hissed open with a pressurized sigh, releasing a blast of stale, warm air. It was tinged with that musty smell that happened when underground, mixed together with stale newspapers. The fluorescent lights above flickered slightly as the gust stirred her coat and ruffled the corners of her book.

“Well this is my stop.” He said.

He walked towards the doors but paused and turned to look at her, “Hope to see you again.....Jean.”

Hermione’s heart stopped, her breath catching in her throat as she croaked out, "How did you know my name?"

"It's on your name tag."

She looked down at her chest and found it still on a lantern around her neck, "Oh right." 

He got off the train with one last smile towards her, but she couldn't shake the uneasy feeling she had. Nor could she calm her racing her heart, her stop was next so she stood up. This way she could make a mad dash if she needed to. It felt like time slowed down then to the point that she could hear the beat of her heart in her ears. A loud beat playing out, everything else drowning out, and when the tube got to her stop she was afraid to get off.

She watched the passengers move through the carriage, flooding out, and right before the doors closed she stepped out.

She scanned the crowd, her palms growing sweaty, and still, her heart played like a metronome. A beat that only one person could cause her heart to play, and when her gaze landed on him her eyes widened.

“Draco.” She whispered quietly to herself.

She wasn't surprised, the feeling had been there for the last few hours after all. It didn't stop her from wanting to run though.

He stood taller than most of the people around him wearing all black as if he were trying to blend in. He didn't glamour his hair though, no she thought if it really was him he'd want her to see him.

She looked towards the escalators judging how quickly she could get to them before he caught her. She looked back, but he was gone like he was never there. She bit her lip and decided to move quickly because she knew he liked playing games.

Weaving through the crowd she moved towards the escalator and then darted up as quick as she could. Breaking free from being underground, she breathed in deep. It had rained recently and felt as though it had washed the world clean. She looked back again but saw only strangers, but she didn’t let relief settle in.

She looked behind herself but only saw dark shadows in the deep dark of night weaving through the dim gaslit lamps.

But then a loud pop of apparation sounded as she turned her gaze forward again. A plume of dark smoke materialized before her eyes. And she fell right into him, his familiar arms wrapping around her. His scent was a fierce blend of fresh and invigorating citrus and green leaves, wrapped in the deep warmth of cedarwood and smoke, like dark magic woven into the air around him. A million memories fogged her mind in a chaotic mess.

She felt his cold hands go in her coat, running across her body as he turned them both and disapparated them into thin air.

It turned her world onto its axis, making her stomach churn from the sudden movement. Her breath lodged somewhere between her lungs and her mouth. Hitching painfully in her chest as they spun through time and space.

And she would never admit to him how she longed to feel his body against hers even when she was running. That he was the only one that she craved and he had ruined her for anyone else. She would never tell him how warm and safe he could make her believe she was.

She would never let him know any of it  

Because he was the only one that knew the designs of her heart, every crack and crevice of it. But also knew how to dismantle it like a man pulling a thread from silk

Chapter Text

 Draco Is Not A Proper Lunatic

January 2005

She had done extensive studying up on wards since the last time he had found her. In fact each time he found her, she seemed to excel even more at doing them. This time it had taken over a month for him to break down every single one of them. 

He wasn’t hasty about it, not with her. He took his time unraveling them and taking mere glimpses of her to satisfy his need for her. He liked watching her settle into life, making friends, and creating a space for herself. He’d watched her in her place of work, keeping to the shadows as she’d moved so innocently through the stacks. 

He’d gone through her bag, read her journal, and flirted with the older librarian. Not as himself of course, but as a man he saw working in the bakery nearby.

He watched her go out.

Most of the time she went to quiet places, coffee with a friend, or wandered through a book store. On occasion though, she went to pubs, and sometimes noisy clubs full of strangers, and he let her. Gave her space to breathe. Of course, sometimes a man thought he could touch what wasn’t his. 

When that happened, Draco removed them from the earth.

The last time it had happened she’d gotten far too drunk and let a Muggle fuck her against a filthy alley wall behind some hole in the wall pub. He’d watched the whole thing from across the street, fists clenched in his coat pockets, jaw locked until it ached. It was so unlike her to do something like that, that Draco was convinced she’d done it just to provoke him.

Like she knew he had been watching her.

The muggle had had a pretentious name, Smith. What kind of parents named their child Smith?

Apparently Muggles, and that did not surprise Draco. 

Smith met an untimely end.  Both because of his name and the fact that he couldn’t even treat Hermione in the way she was meant to be treated.

Like a lady.

What a shame? 

Perhaps Smith shouldn’t have stuck his cock inside someone that didn’t belong to him. If he hadn’t done that he’d still be alive today. Laughing with his mates, buying cheap drinks, living a life that had nothing to do with Hermione Granger.

Draco walked into the single room flat she had been living in for the past year. It was very modest which only served to irritate him more when he knew he could offer her the entire world on a platter made of gold. 

There was nothing in it. Just a fold-out bed, a chair with a lamp, and a pile of books. A tiny potion station was near the bathroom that currently was brewing Dreamless Sleep.

The kitchen only had the bare minimum in it. The bowl she ate oatmeal and strawberries out of that morning along with her mug that had dregs of coffee still lay inside the aluminum kitchen sink.  The faucet had been dripping all day into the bowl. It made a steady, mocking metronome sound that echoed through the flat.

There was a cat bowl of water and a smaller bowl that had been licked clean by a cracked open window above the sink. 

A single aloe vera plant sat on the sill, pale and over-watered, as if it too had been waiting for her return.

In the small bathroom, there was just a small shower, pedestal sink, and toilet. All that was there was the expensive shampoo and conditioner she used in her hair, her favorite body wash, and a muggle toothbrush with toothpaste. 

And the body spray she often wore, the one that made him think of her no matter where he smelled it. Even if it was on other muggle women or witches, it was her that he thought of.  

Draco took it and shoved it deep into his coat pocket.

There were no pictures. No mementos from traveling, nothing that meant anything. It was all in her bag.

He of course had gone through it extensively when she wasn’t looking. He went through every pocket. Every folded jumper. Every tucked-away compartment filled with meticulously labeled vials, and handwritten notes. And the books she refused to leave behind.

He paced the flat, one wall to the other wall. The floors creaking under his boots as he ran his hands through his hair in agitation. She wouldn’t come back, he knew that. Still, he went to it. It still smelled like her. Her very essence seeped into the furniture, the pillow on her bed, and the blanket that was folded carefully atop it. 

He sat down in the blue chair that he knew she used for reading. There was stack of books, and he picked the one off the top up. Flipping through the pages idly as he felt his rage start simmer to a boil.

Her ridiculous half kneazle of a cat sauntered across the room like it owned the place. He turned, and Draco could practically see the sneer on its face right before it escaped out of the crack of the window. He would have sneered back but it was thanks to the cat that he often found her. She couldn’t seem to part with the silly little creature, and Draco never took it upon himself to inform Hermione of this.

He sat in her flat for several hours waiting for her to be stupid enough to come back, but she wasn’t stupid. 

She wasn’t naive or ignorant. 

She was the most intelligent person he had ever met. 

She was his equal, and with a rage that flooded through him, hot like lava he stood up and destroyed the tiny flat. 

The fold-out that she slept in exploded with cotton and down feathers. The pages of the books turned to cinders. The springs of the chair he’d been sitting in screamed as it collapsed under the weight of his fury. Anything breakable turned into shards of glittering ruin across the floor. Her mug shattered in the sink. The window cracked and then shattered altogether. The scent of burnt paper and feathers and his furry thickened throughout the air.

He disapparated out of her flat straight into his study in Malfoy Manor with the angriest fucking crack that he’d done in a long time.

He had been so close.

Close enough to feel her warmth again, smell her breath as his lips ghosted across hers. So close to tasting her again and have her again in all the ways that mattered. And it had been so long that the craving for her was almost painful. It had done things to him. Made him feel things, and if she had just behaved she would be writhing underneath him. Trembling, blissed out-utterly ruined by him.

A pretentious chuckle sounded from the area towards the fireplace that was already burning.  There was a clink of ice in an empty tumbler that sounded in the room, irritating Draco’s nerves. He turned to find Theo sitting in a chair looking at him with the most insufferable grin, blue eyes twinkling. He stood up and sauntered over to Draco and plucked a stray feather from his coat. 

“How did it go?”

He held the feather up to Draco’s face and smirked.

Draco snatched the feather angrily out of his hand, and muttered sarcastically, “Brilliant so brilliant in fact that maybe you should take your leave as I wouldn’t want to scar your eyes with the things I plan to do to her.”

He stalked over to the drink cart in his study and lifted his most expensive bottle of Firewhiskey from its cradle. He only brought it out when he needed to dull the edge of his fury. Pouring himself a generous measure, he downed it in one sharp swallow. Letting the burn anchor him back into his skin. He slammed the glass down hard onto the tabletop and turned to look at Theo who was looking at him with a bemused expression.

“So you’ve gone mad then?” Theo asked with a slight curl of his lip.

Draco ran a hand through his hair, his jaw tight. “Bloody witch is driving me to it.”

Theo gave a dramatic sigh. “Poor Draco, may his blue balls rest in peace.”

Draco shot him a glare. “Don’t you have somewhere better to be?”

Theo smirked. “Undoubtedly. But watching you unravel like a badly tied cravat is infinitely more entertaining.” He walked back to the chair, and threw himself in it, “Now tell me how you did it this time, don’t leave out any details.”

Draco muttered, barely containing his agitation. “I snatched her at her train stop.”

Theo raised an eyebrow. “You went through all the trouble to break down her wards, and didn’t just wait in her flat like a proper lunatic?”

Draco shrugged, “I have to switch it up sometimes so I’m not too predictable.”

Theo laughed under his breath. “Right and relentlessly hunting the same woman for years doesn’t scream predictable at all.”

“Leave!” Draco snapped.

“Fine, fine. I’ll let you spiral in solitude. Enjoy your little pity party and your post-rage wank,” Theo said as he stood, brushing a stray feather off his coat.

Draco sneered at him, as he strode to the Floo. The green flames erupted with a sharp hiss, casting flickering shadows along the walls, and swallowed Theo instantly.

Then silence fell.

It was too quiet.

It always was when she was not with him. She made the Manor feel less haunted, less empty. She made him feel less empty.  She was the only one who could fill him up and take away the painful thoughts that threatened to overtake him. The intrusive voices scraped against the inside of his skull when he was alone for too long.

And why didn’t she see that?
Why didn’t she see that he needed her?

She also needed him, whether she wanted to admit it or not. He was the only one who knew her inside and out. Knew all her dark thoughts, the things that kept her up at night. The way she clenched her jaw when she lied to herself. The way her hands trembled after certain dreams.

He was the only one who could keep her nightmares at bay. She had clearly developed an addiction to Dreamless Sleep without him. The smell from the cauldron it had been in had clung to the air as if she was regularly brewing it.

Draco paced his study.

The warm glow of his lamps cast his long shadow across the floor. The fire crackled quietly, a low, mocking sound beneath the harsh tap of his boots against the hard wood floor. Summoning the whiskey he felt the cool class of the bottle in his palm. The deep sip he took burned again, as it slipped down into his empty stomach.  The silence pressed in almost as if it were suffocating him as he ran his hand through his hair, pulling at the strands of it.

He loosened his fingers but still pulled out a couple of strands. The pinch at the nape of his neck prickling down his spine. It was pain, but not the kind of deep emotional pain he felt every time Hermione slipped through his fingers.

He needed sleep or at the very least to lie down but his body thrummed with restless energy, magic pressing at the edges, threatening to break free again. Destroying her flat had dulled only a fraction of it. He rolled his neck until it cracked under the pressure, then shifted to rolling and flexing his shoulders.

There was a sudden need to ground himself, so he rubbed a hand over his face. It helped loosen the tightness in his jaw but didn’t relieve the fatigue he felt. It didn’t remove the ache behind his eyes that was dull and persistent.

The silence was pressing in harshly, all around him, thick and oppressive. He needed to get out of the Manor and let the magic out that was threatening to swallow him whole. It was dark malignant. He knew there was on place she may go to but it wasn’t guaranteed. Still he decided that was where he would go.

 With a scowl and a sharp twist, he disapparated from the Manor in another furious crack that split the stillness of the night.

Morning

Number 12 Grimmauld Place was under a new Fidelius Charm, was heavily warded, and had exactly one Apparition point that only a few knew about. It was underneath a gothic-style dark wooden gazebo, adorned with greenery and flowers that never died. Bright red and white roses, with ivies curling around the lattice work of it.  It had been built for Harry and Pansy’s small wedding and remained in the backyard still.

Hermione Apparated in with a loud crack. It was louder than she meant it to be. She fell in a heap in the center of the gazebo, landing hard on her arm. She screamed out in pain as the bones in her wrist fractured and broke. A shout of surprise from the kitchen echoed across the backyard.

She curled up into a ball, still feeling Draco’s arms wrapped around her. His scent was stuck on her like smoke from a fire. It clung to her skin, her hair, and the inside of her lungs. She couldn’t shake it. Couldn’t scrub out the phantom heat of his breath at her neck. The press of his fingers at her ribs. It made her shiver in a way that had nothing to do with the cold.

And she missed it already.

She was becoming more sure that there wouldn’t be a a time when she wouldn’t, like she was just now realizing he had slithered his way into her veins. Moving through the blood until it got to her heart, making it pump.

Like he was the one keeping her alive.

The sound of people darting out toward the gazebo moved over her. Familiar and comforting footsteps she hadn’t heard in over a year, racing towards her.

“It’s Hermione,” Pansy said breathlessly.

Harry swore something vicious, words he’d regret saying in front of his child, who was surely still awake.

He reached Hermione first and gathered her in his arms. The rough warmth of his hands pressed into her jumper, and it calmed her instantly. He could always do that for her, even when they were 12 years old he could sense something inside of her and make it better. They were connected in a different way, the way only friends could be connected. There was a soothing sort of magic pouring of him as he picked her up and pulled him into his arms. The weight of his touch was a steady and soothing feeling, that calmed her racing her heart. He brushed the strands of hair that Draco had broken free from her braid out of her eyes, away from her face.

Hermione had used every bit of her magic just to Apparate to them, and now her vision blackened at the edges. Pansy leaned over Harry, her black hair spilling over his shoulder. The last thing Hermione heard was Harry growling furiously, a curse about Draco.

“I’m going to kill Malfoy.”

She barked out a sarcastic laugh.

And then she passed out altogether.

She woke to golden sunlight streaming through the window of a room she hadn’t seen in a long time. It had once been hers, years ago, but now was just a guest room. Still, it held a scent that only Grimmauld Place possessed: burnt toast, Floo powder, Chanel number five, broom wax, and the faint, lingering trace of old parchment and ancient Black family spells.

The recognizable murmur of Kreacher’s displeasure about guests carried like a lullaby from her past. He still didn’t like Hermione and let her know it every time he was near.

It was late morning, and he was muttering about the laundry he would surely have to do later. Never mind that neither Harry nor Pansy made him do it. He chose to, but he still grumbled.

She shifted, stretching out her body. Her wrist was stiff, but she could tell someone had healed it. Still like all breaks there was a phantom pain that threatened to let her know about what had happened. There was stil the adrenalin coursing through her body, the dizzying sensation of Apparating twice, and feeling Draco’s heart beat up against hers. They were always out of sync at first, but the moment the stepped into each other the hearts skipped beats, or were rapid until they matched.

She could feel every time, overwhelming her, and suffocating her until it didn’t. Until she felt like she could breathe again, like being near him reminded her that she wasn’t breathing at all. Not normally anyway.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” she mumbled aloud to no one in particular.

“You regret visiting us, Auntie Hermione?”

A child’s voice startled her. She felt a painful breath catch in her throat as she turned over to find the beautiful face of James Potter watching her. His big green eyes, like his father's, were solemn. However the rest of him was Pansy all the way

“Oh no, never!” she said smiling and reached out for his small hand.

He took it instantly.

She pulled him up onto the bed with her, curling around his tiny body. He was warm and sticky, and he smelled like maple syrup.

“Waffles or French toast for breakfast?” Hermione asked softly.

“Neither.” he giggled, the sound vibrating comfortingly against her. “Pancakes and sausage. Mummy made them.”

“And I’m sure you gobbled all of them up and left none for me,” Hermione said conspiratorially, a genuine smile blooming on her face.

Merlin, she missed this. The quiet ease of Harry and Pansy’s child. The Potters in general. The ones who made her feel like she still had family. It was like waking up on a Saturday morning and dragging herself down the stairs to watch cartoons while the smell of breakfast started drifting through the air.

The door swung open, and Pansy swooped in, the smell of her shampoo and pancakes wafting in with her.

“There you are, James,” she scolded gently and yet Hermione could tell she was not at all surprised. There was a smile tugging at her lips that read exactly as an affectionate mother would tell. “Didn’t I tell you to leave your Auntie alone?”

James slipped off the bed and out of Hermione’s grasp.

“You did, Mum,” he said, grinning, and then moved a bit closer to Pansy. He looked back at Hermione like he was about to tell a secret, but his voice was loud and obvious “But I heard her tummy growling loud like a dragon’s!”

“It’s true,” Hermione said warmly, moving her face down in pretend embarrassment.

She didn’t feel it, not really, but she knew how to pretend. She knew how to pretend in so many ways, and she wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not.  Pansy smiled back, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She knew Hermione too well, the depth of her feelings and emotions that she hid.

“Okay, darling. Go see your dad. He’s waiting out in the yard with a toy broom that I absolutely was against you having.” She said, affection in her tone while her hand drifted through the black wild short black locks of James’s hair.  

James darted from the room, and Pansy’s gaze followed him while she yelled out, “Be sure to put on a coat!”

She looked back at Hermione, her face twisting in something like regret. She had to tell Hermione something, but  she already knew what it was. Hermione swallowed hard, her stomach sinking while guilt settled in for feeling any sort of happiness in the situation she brought upon the Potter house.

“He’s already been here, hasn’t he?”

He came here a lot looking for her, she knew that. She hadn’t come in awhile for that very reason. She hadn’t visited most of her friends in the past year, because she felt guilty about it all. She wasn’t sure who she was avoiding any more though, Draco or herself.

“Exploded all the lamps on the street,” Pansy replied quietly.

“And Harry didn’t rush out to Avada him?” Hermione’s brow curved up with question.

“You know I wouldn’t let him do that Hermione, not when you still love Draco.” 

Hermione felt something in her crack and she moved her gaze away, refusing to look at Pansy. It was like she was suddenly drowning, and again she felt like she could only breathe properly once his arms were around her again. Yet, something inside of her refused to let him, it was like she was convinced that there was still heartbreak there between them.

“I’m sorry, Pans,” Hermione said again and looked down, fiddling with a loose thread on the quilt that laid across the bed. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

“Don’t you ever say that” Pansy said fiercely, her voice suddenly sharp, trembling with emotion as she moved forward. “You are always welcome here no matter the circumstances.”

“But I might never stop loving him Pans,” Hermione said full of anguish. “Why should I drag you into one of his temper tantrums?”

“You think I’m not used to Draco’s tantrums, please I’ve been around them since we were kids. I know how he gets.”

“I know you do which is why you shouldn’t want me around, especially when he seems so relentless in this hunt.”  Hermione looked away, “One of these days I’ll just give in to him and stay permanently.”

Pansy took in a deep sigh and then sat down next to Hermione putting her arm around her. She pulled her into a warm hug something she didn’t know she needed until it happened. She held a warmth that she didn’t let many people know about. It was like Pansy stored it up for only a select few people, and Hermione knew she was lucky that she counted to her in that way.

“I’ll be honest, Hermione,” Pansy said softly. “If I know Draco, and I like to think I do, then I know he won’t give up easily. He’s always known what he wanted, and he’s rarely let anything stand in his way. Having you, and losing you over and over, just keeps adding fuel to whatever fire is already burning inside him.” She paused, voice tightening. “But he needs to face himself first. He needs to figure out who he is without you before he could ever hope to deserve you.”

There was no snow on the ground, something Hermione hadn’t noticed when she first apparated in. Yet it was so cold that it seeped deep into her bones as if it had frozen all of her limbs. Ice in her veins, freezing the blood that pumped through them. Making her cheeks burn, and her finger tips and toes feel numb. She sat on the steps watching James fly around on his toy broom, his scarf flying behind him as he zoomed through the gazebo and then around the tress that to the left of it.

Every so often he let out an excited whoop, and Harry watched his son with a warm look in his green eyes. Hermione could still see the boy she met years ago in the face of the man who smiled before her. He looked older, and taller yet still just exactly like what he’d looked like when she walked into his train compartment asking about a frog named Trevor.

He has muscle now on his arms, but his hair was still just as black and just as messy. He still had that open and friendly smile, with a hint of the world weight down on him. He was her Harry, and no amount of time would change that for her. She felt warm feeling fondness and affection deep down pass her heart and into her stomach.

It felt like the first day of fall, blowing out birthday candles and the smell of pine trees at Christmas.

She held a hot cup of coffee between her two gloved hands while she watched her best friend with his son. The steam rose into the winter air with the aroma of the roast twisting and curling in a comforting way. It was all these simple things that that she used to ground herself when everything else in her world felt chaotic. 

Harry looked at her with a mixture of protective older brother, and someone that wanted to give her the independence she deserved. It was how he always was with her. He walked a fine line, and sometimes he crossed it. Other times he stood so far back she felt he didn’t care at all. Pansy had been the one to really see him, to be able to dig down deep into the mountains and hills that he struggled to walk up. It would have surprised Hermione, but getting to know Pansy while they were only dating made it all make sense.

Hermione sighed so deeply that she couldn’t even hide it.

“I know what you’re thinking Harry.”

“No I don’t think you do, because you have that look like you think I’m judging you.” He cut her off and then he moved closer to her, but still kept one eyes on his son who had just twisted and twirled on the broom, barely missing the top of the gazebo. “So this is actually what I was thinking....I was thinking I miss you.”

Hermione felt an emotion that she didn’t like to feel. One that slipped down her throat, making it feel thick with loneliness. She looked away from him as a strange wetness formed and pooled in the corner of her eyes.

“Damn you Harry for making me feel guilty.” She said softly, as she rubbed away the tears she swore were not there.

“No,” he said gently, “the blame lands solely with that git of a wizard, Malfoy.”

“He is a git isn’t he?” She grinned a smile that only Harry could pull from her.

“A right foul git,” he agreed. “Are you sure you don’t want me to Avada him? Because I will. Just say the word.”

“No, Harry. I wouldn’t want you to lose your morals over murdering Draco.”

He shrugged. “It’d be worth it.”

“Unfortunately I still love that git so I’m going to have to pass this time.”

“He doesn’t deserve your love.” Harry insisted as he walked over and sat next to her. He bumped his shoulder against her. “You deserve someone that doesn’t hurt you or make you feel the need to run.”

His warmth was familiar, a steady thing she knew she would be able to turn to. He was safe to her and always would be.

Hermione blinked the sharp sting in her eyes again, the painful thump of appreciation in her chest.

“I know,” she whispered, voice thick. “But knowing and believing are two different things.”

8 hours earlier

This time when Draco apparated, he did it quietly around Number 12 Grimmauld Place. It had been a while since she chose to go to Potter’s house, but he always came there first. He knew she thrived on familiarity and much to Draco’s chagrin Harry bloody Potter provided that for her. He couldn’t deny the sting he felt when she didn’t choose him as something familiar. 

He stood outside the house or rather the general area of where it was. He couldn’t see it, but he still he knew instantly that she had come there. Her magic was pulsing through the confines of the brick of the homes, through lamp posts and streets. It surged into him fluttered like the rhythm of his heart inside of his ribcage. His magic vibrated through his body and out of his fingertips and feet. It spread like lightning, violent and chaotic as it blew the street lamps that surrounded the area.

The wards were keeping him out, it was ancient, and heavy dark magic that he had no hope of breaking into. Even with Black family blood flooding his veins, he was unable to do so.

A door materialized out of nothing, wooden with an old Christmas wreath on it. A tiny figure walked out. She stepped delicately down the steps with a determined look on her face. There was no mistaking who the face belonged to, he recognized her instantly. She wore the expression of someone about to berate a child for loitering on her lawn.

It almost amused him, but he also knew the damage the witch could do if she wanted to.

Pansy Parkinson marched toward him, fury burning off her in waves. She was a miniature storm, sharp eyes, and swishing clothes. And even though she barely reached his shoulder, she looked up at him like she could bring him to his knees with a single word. He knew she could, and she would if she needed too because she had done it before.

She was a mini tornado, not to be reckoned with.

“Nice of you to cut the power on the street,” She drawled coldly without so much as a hello, while cocking her head up at him. Her face was full of determination, and something else. Something like someone who was protecting what she knew to be hers, “Really saves on electricity for all the muggles who live here too.”

“Everything I do is for the greater good Pans.” He deadpanned.

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“You wound me,” He said with faux indignation.

“Draco you...” She said his name like a professor who is about to discipline a student

“I’m not leaving until I feel her leave.” He snapped, cutting her off before she could get a word out.

“She won’t come out,”

“Because you and Potter won’t let her?” He sneered down at her.

It was something he felt deep withing himself sometimes, that the people around them simply wouldn’t just let them be.

“No, because she doesn’t want to”

“She does want to,” He growled, because he could feel it. It was there right now slipping through the snow covered streets up into the heels of his shoes, and all the way into his heart, “I can feel how much she wants to, and she can’t bloody hide it from me!”

“You act as if you share some unspoken bond, like you can read her every thought, every feeling,” Pansy snapped, eyes flashing with disbelief which only let Draco know that Hermione still either was unwilling to admit what was between them.

Or she didn’t know.

Draco’s smirk deepened as he looked down at Pansy, a dangerous glint flickering in his gaze. “Would it shock you to hear that we do?”

Pansy’s lips curled into a bitter smile, the sharp edge of skepticism cutting through her voice. “At this point, nothing would shock me Draco, not when it comes to you. I dont know if I would believe it though. That kind of bond would probably take blood magic, or something ancient and I can’t believe Hermione would ever do something like that.”

It was almost true about Hermione. But Draco knew first hand that ancient magic, ancient bonds that were written in stone long before some were alive couldn’t be changed. He also knew Hermione better than anyone, that she would open herself to such magic if she lost control with who she was with.

She had lost control with Draco since the first moment they were together.

He said almost nonchalantly like he was talking about the weather, “You’d be surprised at how little either you or Potter know or understand anything about her.”

“Oh, please, Draco,” Pansy retorted, her voice thick with sarcasm and disbelief. “Spare me the your usual theatrics.”

Draco shrugged, “Believe what you want, but I do know her better than anyone else, and in more ways than one.”

Pansy shoved a deep sigh through her teeth and moved her hands to her hips, “Fine you know her, but that means you also know that standing here like a stalker isn’t going to find your way back into her heart.”

Draco’s jaw tightened because he knew he had never left her heart. He was still there wrapped around it and intertwined with it. Every beat of it held his essence inside of it. Blood pumping, breath pulling and releasing in a steady pattern. He knew when she was cold and needed his warmth.

“I don’t need to find my way back into her heart. I need her to stop running.” He snapped, dark magic sparking off the palms of his hands. “I need her to come back home...where she belongs.”

Pansy didn’t flinch at the heat of the magic rolling off of him. She’d grown up with it. Learned how to stare down Malfoy's tantrums before she learned how to cast a proper Shield Charm.

“She’s not a possession, Draco,” she said coolly, her hands coming to her hips in that ways that women did. Like his mum scolding him for putting his hand in the cookie jar when he was told not to, “You can’t summon her like a bloody house elf and call it love.”

“I’m not summoning her,” he snarled in retaliation, because he didn’t feel like he was. He thought he gave her space, and yes he caught up to her. Yes he tried to get her into his space, but when she bolted he always waited to see if she would come out on her own, “I’m waiting.”

“No, you’re looming,” she snapped back, stepping closer. “You’re circling this place like a cursed hawk and expecting her to just… surrender. She’s not going to do that so go home and cool off.”

His magic slipped off of him, crackling wild and untamed.

“So that she can just bolt again?”

“No, so that she can breathe, Draco,” Pansy said empathically, like she was imploring him to hear her. “So she can remember who she is without you chasing her down like prey.”

Pansy’s words rang like ward alarms in his ears, but Draco couldn’t hear them.

Not really.

He was still locked in the sensation of Hermione’s magic thrumming through the house like a living thing. It called to him or maybe haunted him. He could never tell the difference anymore.

“I just want her safe,” he said, and it came out wrong, like an excuse to stay right where he was.

Maybe it wasn’t though, because he always wanted to be near her even if he couldn’t talk to her or touch her. Just being near her was what breathed life into him. Pansy’s eyes softened in the way that always made him furious. Like she pitied him and knew something about Hermione that he didn’t which was ridiculous in his mind.

“She is safe at Grimmauld Place with us,” she said. “Go back to the Manor, and do whatever you need to do, vent, break something, or scream. I don’t care, but if you really want her to come back to you, Draco, don’t come here again. Not until she asks for you.”

“I’ll go for now.” He muttered, but he wouldn’t listen to Pansy.

He couldn’t listen to her. He had to search for Hermione, had to stay near her because the alternative was madness. Tearing apart London to find her wasn’t a game; it was the only thing keeping him sane.

Because without Hermione, he was certain he would unravel completely.

He turned on the spot and Disapparated without so much as a goodbye. The crack that let out as he vanished was like a scream he wanted to let out, but felt stifled to do so. 

Chapter Text

Don't leave me this way

June 2000

It was dark, so dark because there was no moon pressing through the cracks of the curtains in Draco’s Villa, which was just off the French Riviera.  Summer heat drifted in through the open windows, carrying the sound of the ocean tide moving in. A whoosh as the water moved in, and a hiss like someone getting their breath knocked out of them as it moved back out.

Hermione had been staring at the white painted ceiling as she listened to it. Closing her eyes, she thought the sounds were like a rhythm, and she started to time the rush of her oxygen against.

It lulled her into the safety of Draco’s heart beating in his chest.

“You’re doing that tongue clicking thing,” He said suddenly, his voice sleepy yet amused.

“What tongue clicking thing?” Hermione asked because she wasn’t aware of all of her habits sometimes.

She often found out about them from other people, like when Harry told her she talked in her sleep sometimes when they were alone in a tent for several months. Or Ron telling her that her mouth moved as she read books.

“You know when you make music by touching your tongue to the roof of your mouth,” He murmured like it was obvious.

She shifted her head on his chest so that she was looking at him with that expression that he gave her all the time. The half-amused, half-aroused one.  Because when you’re shagging a person, giving that much of yourself to that one person, and they’ve picked up on parts that are so intrinsically you? Well, that means so much more than the family you’ve grown up with.

She didn’t know what he was referring to in the beginning, but she knew exactly what he was talking about after he described it.

“You mean this one?” She said with a saucy, suggestive tone. Then she touched her tongue to the roof of her mouth and emitted soft musical noises. A song with no point.

He raised an eyebrow, his palm that was wrapped around the spot where her ribs started.

“Yeah, that one. “

She stopped looking at him, her head drifting to the point of the window that was cracked open. The curtain kept fluttering as the ocean wind blew in.

“Sorry. “

“I didn’t say anything. “

He squeezed her side as if to make a point.

“No, but your eyebrow did.” She said, which was her point.

“My…” he trailed off, sounding incredulous, but kept going, “Eyebrow?”

She sat up so that she was leaning on her elbow, her arm caught between them.  Her pinky finger was growing numb from the pressure. She shifted, her hips moving closer first and then her feet pressing under his legs. Her free hand reached over and brushed a finger across his eyebrow. His eyes fluttered closed as she did it, and a soft hum of pleasure escaped him.

He was leaning further into her, almost as if he was begging her with his actions to love him.

“Yeah, it’s very expressive.” She said so softly that she wasn’t sure he could have heard her.

When his arms snaked around her, though, pulling her so fucking close that she knew he had heard her. Even more so when his mouth pressed against her collarbone, teeth scraping just sharp enough to pierce the skin. Just enough to push part of himself into her.

She hissed at the contact, then let a moan escape as his tongue moved hot and wet against the part he had just opened up upon her. There was sucking and licking and his arms wrapping even tighter, a hand drifting up under her shirt. Five fingers splayed across her back, brushing up along the bones of her spine.

It was the beginning of something without words, just touches and emotions.

She rocked her hips up against him, already feeling a hardness pressing into her. Her hand was quick-moving between them, slipping into his joggers, then past his boxers and brushing across the bare skin of him.

Hermione’s hand flexed for a moment before her fingers slipped around his half-hard length. She pumped as his tongue finally dived into her mouth, making him grunt up against her. Teeth clashing together, a hiss of breath sneaking out.

There was power in this moment for her as she thoroughly wrecked him with her hand, but she knew she could undo him entirely with her mouth. She didn’t want that tonight. She just wanted him. He was whispering nonsense into her ear now, things like “so good” and “fucking merlin,” and “love” as she moved up and down him long and slow, almost dragging the moment out.

He pulled away suddenly, and she felt the loss of his heat like she had lost something vital to her survival. Shifting them, he moved so that he hovered over her, two hands on either side of her, digging into the mattress.

“You’re entirely too dressed for this.” He murmured.

“What are you going to do about that?”

He smirked and then vanished both their clothes altogether, his eyebrow raised in a challenge.

“Your eyebrow is talking for you again.”

“Shut up, Hermione.” He murmured as he lowered himself back onto her, his body pressing up against hers and his mouth claiming hers again.

And she sighed into it.

Draco rolled over, eyes still closed, his hand searching the bed for Hermione. It came up empty, and his fingers clenched at the white sheets, knuckles cracking with the force of his grip. Anger started to roll through him as his eyes flew open. The sun was already pouring through the cracks of the curtain, golden rays suggesting it was far later in the morning than he normally woke up.

He rose quickly, looking for pants to shove on while curses at Hermione bloody Granger flew out of his mouth, because she had left him again. But then, as he charged down the stairs, he heard a crash of dishes in the kitchen. Hermione’s own curses echoed up to him, and he instantly slumped down onto a step on the staircase. Fingers digging into his hair, dragging at the strands, and yanking them, he tried to calm his beating heart and his simmering anger.

“Oh, you’re awake,” she said, and he looked up at her. “Are you ok?”

She stood barefoot, wearing his green button-down shirt, the sleeves too long on her. Her brown hair was a wild, chaotic mess — the kind of mess that spoke of the best shag of her life. And he loved the way it looked on her, loved that it was him who had thoroughly wrecked her and put her back together.

He huffed out a laugh and stood up in one fluid movement. “Yeah.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, biting her lip.

“Yes. What were you doing?”

“Pouring milk into a bowl of cereal when Crookshanks decided he wanted it for himself.”

“Ahh, that half-kneazle is a menace,” he drawled, moving around her and brushing up against her as he walked toward the fridge.

He heard her feet padding behind him, hesitating at the doorway as he dug through the fridge for something to eat. He found a bottle of orange juice, and a glass was summoned, flying into his hand. He poured it to the top. There was still a tremor running through him, magic coursing through his veins like hot lightning.

“Draco…”

“Hmm?”

“I know you, and I can feel that you are not ok.”

He froze, the glass of orange juice halfway to his mouth, then set it back down on the counter with a soft clink. Crookshanks circled his ankles, rubbing against him in an effort to trick Draco into believing the cat liked him. He nudged him away because he wasn’t ignorant of the games Crookshanks liked to play.

“I thought you had left again,” he said without looking at her.

She stepped around him so quietly he thought maybe she had left this time. But then she was in front of him. Looking up at him, he knew she was searching his face for some kind of reaction, but he refused to look at her. It wasn’t a stretch for him to assume she left because she did it all the time. She left him and hid. The more she did, the more relentless he became in chasing her.

Her hands reached up, dragging up his neck to cup his cheeks, thumps brushing the apples of them. They were cold against his skin, and she tugged gently as if she were begging him to look down at her. But he refused to do it; he kept staring just above her head at a spot on the wall. Gaze blurring into nothing, the heat of anger and longing warring inside him, until the faint brush of her thumbs against his skin finally broke him, and he tilted his head just enough to meet her eyes.

His own hands wrapped around her wrists and pulled them down and away.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” She asked.

“Don’t pretend you haven’t done just that.” He muttered.

Hermione sighed, “But don’t I always let you catch me?”

He stared at her for a heartbeat, eyes darkening, voice tight. “You could just fucking stay, Hermione.”

“I’ll stay for now.”

But he needed her to stay forever, not just for now. And not just because he wanted her for himself, but keeping her close to him was the only way he knew how to keep her safe. When she ran and was gone, it was harder for him to stop monsters from hiding in the shadows that hung around her.

Astoria was the one he trusted the least. Her anger over losing Draco to Hermione simmered constantly, flaring occasionally into sharp bursts of vengeance. He didn’t trust her and knew she was likely plotting, but for his mother and for Daphne he didn't touch her, only threatened her. And if he was honest with himself, though, he found it quietly amusing that Astoria believed she could ever touch Hermione. That Draco would let her.

That Draco would ever let her was unthinkable. Even if she tried, she would fail. Every plot, every rage, every desperate scheme meant nothing because his heart had already chosen. No betrothal, no claim, no vow could compete with what Hermione had: she had him utterly, completely, and irrevocably, and he would never, ever turn away from her..

The bond between them could not be voided.

And that bond was the reason why his anger seemed to grow more and more each time she ran from him.

Chapter Text

Unwanted Guests and Other Ways to Spoil the Mood

The Last Day of February 2005 

Draco shot upright so fast his vision blurred as the wards bent around the floo. They contracted once, trying to shove the intruder back like an insolent guest, then relented—someone pushed through with an almost obscene amount of magical force.

He knew at once who it was. Her magic crawled down the hall like poison, slithering and patient like Voldemort’s snake. He tasted copper at the back of his throat, a rising pulse of anger that tightened the muscles along his jaw.

“Floo privileges will now be revoked for both Zabinis.” He muttered under his breath to exactly no one.

Because he did leave Hermione at Grimmauld, and only because he knew she was safe there. Even if it was with Saint Bloody Potter.

Kicking off the blankets, he stood and summoned a shirt, pulling it on roughly. The motion made his hair spike even more than it already was, as though mirroring the electricity thrumming through him. He felt the hum at his skin, the small static prickle that always came when his temper ran hot.

“Tilly!” Draco barked out for his house elf.

She apparated in quickly with a quiet pop. Dressed in a polka dot pinafore dress, she looked up at him with her big green eyes, “How can I help you?”

“Bring whatever is necessary for our unwanted guest to the drawing room.”

“Yes, Master Malfoy.”

He sauntered down the hall, not at all calmly but a little bit collected. His feet slapping on the marble floor like a warning to the last woman he ever wanted to see. He heard the faint snap of Tilly apparating into his drawing room and Astoria’s unmistakable drawl.

He stood near the door, running his hand through his hair, sparks of magic splintering off his fingertips like ice shards. He growled under his breath, curses about bloody witches, and how they would definitely be the death of him. The old anger warmed behind his ribs — a coiled thing he’d learned to keep close, because it kept people from testing him.

“Master Malfoy?” Tilly asked, suddenly behind, having apparated in so quietly that he didn’t hear her.

“What?” He hissed without meaning to.

“It’s Miss Greengrass. Should I tell her to leave?” Tilly asked, hope written across her face, hands raised as if pleading.

Draco considered it for a heartbeat, then shook his head, waving his hand; the doors flew open.

“No, Tilly, give her what she wants and I’ll take care of her.” He said before moving into his study.

She stood at the drink cart, mixing some kind of red-looking concoction into a glass that looked disgusting to Draco.

“It’s a bit early to be drinking, don’t you think?” He drawled nastily.

“As the Muggles say, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere, darling.” She said acidly as she poured a heavy splash of vodka on the top. The sweet scent of the tomato juice filled the air  

Tilly arrived back from the kitchen, a plate of vegetables and a lemon in her hand, which she handed over to Astoria.

Astoria took the lemon and squeezed it over the glass with finesse before tossing it onto the counter, ignoring the glare from Tilly, who started to mutter under her breath about rude house guests.

“Besides, this is a morning drink...they call it a Bloody Mary,” Astoria said.

She stirred it once, then added a celery stalk from the plate of crudités.

The blonde witch turned around in almost a delicate manner, her heels making little to no sound as she did it. Draco watched as she brought the drink up to her crimson lips and took a long sip. His eyes followed the movement of her throat as the liquid slipped down it. It might have been sensual once, maybe even if it was someone else.

Instead, only irritation was stirring inside his chest. He reminded himself of why he hated her. The smugness, the way she smelled faintly of expensive perfume and entitlement, all the things Hermione was not.

“So,” she said, dabbing her lip with her thumb. “Are you alone?”

“Clearly not,” he sneered, “since you’ve decided to grace me with your very unwanted presence at such an early hour.”

“Be kind to me, Draco.” She purred as she pranced towards him, and he instantly flinched back. “If you are, then maybe I’ll let you fuck me nice and slow later,” She moved closer to him, her gaze moving along his body, “Merlin knows you probably need it since how long has she evaded you this time? A year?”

“I’d rather fuck my fist.” He snapped.

“Is that any way to talk to your ex-fiancé, Draco? Especially one whose body you used to enjoy quite a bit.” She said with a saccharine voice and took another sip of her drink.

“That was before I found someone I wanted to love.”

She cocked her head while putting the drink down on the table, “And did you go see her yesterday? Did you watch her play her little role of Muggle librarian, as if she were safe? As if I couldn’t stroll up to her on the Tube wearing someone else’s face?”

The blood in Draco’s veins had been simmering to a near boil, but now it flowed over, and everything in the room surged for a brief moment. His wand slipped in his hand, and he surged forward, his hand wrapping around Astoria’s throat while he took his wand and jabbed into the spot above her heart.

The lights glowed bright, a soft humming sound emitting from them.

“Tell me, did you step through my floo looking for death, or did idiocy just bring you?” He said with a low voice, so cold it seemed to make the air itself freeze.

Astoria’s face remained blank. Almost bored as she took her hands and dug her nails into the backs of his hands, making him loosen his grip just enough for her to drawl out, “So fucking dramatic.”

Draco’s eyes narrowed onto her, “You underestimate what I’m willing to do if anything harms Hermione.”  

He let a pulse of magic move down his wand, a spark that zapped Astoria like static electricity.

But she didn’t flinch, instead she grinned,

“I won’t harm even a single hair on that overly inflated head of hers.” Astoria grinned, feline and predatory.

It was between the words that lay her real message, the thing she wasn’t saying, that made him squeeze his fingers tighter again. Just enough to leave marks behind, but not enough to take all of her oxygen. The charged silence hung for only a heartbeat before the familiar hum of the floo erupted, green flames snapping to life and washing the drawing room in green light.

He didn’t have to look to know who it was. He knew it was Daphne, just by the way the wards reacted to her magical signature. His wand flew out of his hand before he could react, and when he turned, he found Daphne standing there with a hand on her hip, holding his wand.

“I don’t need my wand to murder your sister Daphne,” Draco growled.

“No, I’m well aware of that, but I’d rather you not do so if you can help it.” She replied with a certain amount of amusement that didn’t quite reach her eyes, “I know she’s a royal pain, but I’m rather fond of her, and since you are rather fond of me, I would think you wouldn’t’ wipe her from this earth, especially when I am in such a delicate state.”

She motioned down her body and stopped at the round bump of her stomach. She was seven months pregnant, and often the only thing that kept her temper reined in was the small, stubborn life kicking under her ribs.

“So, unless you want to explain to my Healer why you decided to hex my sister in your own study,” she said coolly, “I’d suggest you restrain yourself. I’d rather not give birth in a cloud of plaster dust and broken glass, and I don’t think you want to deal with Blaise’s wrath either.”

Draco let out a deep sigh, tilting his head back, his eyes closed in silent irritation. He was not afraid of Blaise, but he also did not want to upset either of the Zabinis. He loosened his grip from around Astoria’s throat altogether and dropped his hand down to his side. She stood before him as if she wasn’t affected at all, because he could tell it was all an act.

Astoria’s chest was heaving as she caught her breath, and then tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder, “Thank Merlin you showed up when you did, otherwise I would have had to have suffered through another one of Draco’s temper tantrums.”

“Something tells me you probably deserved whatever you said, although I don’t know if you deserved such a violent reaction.”

“She did,” Draco said, leaving no room for argument, and then, because he was suddenly exhausted, he decided to put an end to their visit, “And as much as I enjoyed this little reunion, I must tell you to get the fuck out of my Manor.”

“Such rude manners, your Mother would be disappointed.” Astoria sniffed, but she moved around him and walked over to her sister.

“I learned such manners from my Mother, and she would be very proud.”

The Beginning of March 2005

Draco was sitting on a bench in Muggle London, waiting for his weekly morning chat with Blaise before they headed into the ministry. In his hand was a to-go cup of some fancy coffee with too much sugar from a café that was nearby. It was still too hot to drink, and the steam was coming out of the small hole that was meant for sipping.

The chill cut through his coat, painting his cheeks pink, and he shoved his other hand deep into his pocket. Pigeons pecked nervously at the ground near the small lake, bread scattered about. It was probably terrible for the ducks nearby, but the children tossing it didn’t care. Their mother’s watchful eye did little to stop the chaos. Draco’s gaze lingered longer than he intended on the small, frantic movements of the birds, and a faint ache knotted in his chest.

Blaise approached, boots crunching over the thin layer of frost and scattered twigs, and sat beside him with a paper bag that crinkled in his grip, grease spotting the bottom. The scent of bacon rolled over Draco, tempting him and making his stomach growl suddenly.

“Daphne had a craving for a bacon breakfast sandwich,” Blaise said with a shrug, while Draco narrowed his eyes at it.

“So you didn’t bring anything to share?” Draco’s eyebrow lifted, and in the back of his head, he heard Hermione’s voice. How she had teased him about his eyebrows, and how they gave away more than he realized.

“I’m afraid not.” Blaise’s lip quirked at one side.

“Pity. It’s the least you could’ve done after letting Daphne’s cow of a sister through your floo.”

Draco finally took a sip of his coffee, but it still burned down his throat as he drank it. It was sweet, though with milk, and white chocolate, possibly some dark caramel, and he would tell no one that he drank cake in a cup. If anyone asked, it was black coffee, black like death, and how his soul was when Hermione wasn’t where he wanted her.

With him.

Blaise chuckled, “I had nothing to do with that, and Daph swears she only left her alone in our home for a few minutes.”

“Well, in those few minutes, Tori ruined my morning lie-in that I was rather enjoying and cost you two Floo privileges until I decide to forgive you.”

“Wasn’t it 10:30 in the morning?”

“Yes. Well, I was nursing my wounds over losing my witch again to the Potter household,” Draco said bitterly. His fingers flexed against the paper cup as if it were a wand, as if he could summon her from the city streets into his arms.

“And I take it you plan to spend the rest of the afternoon sitting outside Grimmauld Place like a little lost puppy, hoping she’ll take pity on you and let you in?”

Draco’s lips twitched, a mixture of annoyance and something far less controlled, and said nothing. That was exactly what he planned to do after his investment meeting with the Department of Magical Creatures, but he didn’t need Blaise’s opinions on the matter. He took another sip, wishing the sugar could dull more than the burn instead.

“That look on your face tells me everything I need to know,” Blaise grinned. Draco scowled, which only amused Blaise more. He stood up and looked down at Draco, and nodded his head towards the telephone booth to get into the Ministry, “Well, should we get on then?”

“Might as well.”

Draco stood and followed behind him, the bacon still drifting back to him. It was a shame that the bag would be going in the opposite direction from Daphne, who worked as Kinglsey Shacklebolt’s assistant.

He sighed and then moved towards the lifts to start the day.

James stood on a stool next to Hermione in the kitchen as she made pizza sauce from scratch. He was tall enough now to meet her chin while on the stool, but that didn’t say much, as Hermione was short to begin with.

She smashed the whole tomatoes until they became crushed into a smooth, vibrant color. She stirred in some beef broth, used her wand to get the jar of sugar, and added a dash of it to the slowly simmering sauce. The last thing she did was mince garlic, fresh basil, and oregano, and let James toss it into the pot.

Adding salt and pepper as the final touch.

The fragrance started to drift around the kitchen like music, along with the fresh garlic cheesy bread Hermione had just pulled out. A stasis charm kept it warm and crispy on the table where they would be eating.  

“You ready to make pizzas?” She asked the black haired boy whose green eyes held a sheen of excitement over having a pizza night with his aunt. She wasn’t his aunt by blood, but that didn’t matter. She was still his on some other level.

“Yes, please!” He chirped.

The Floo in the other room roared to life, and the familiar stomps of feet and hands brushing off floo residue followed after. Harry strode in and raised his eyebrow at Hermione. A questioning look about the wizard that she already knew was sitting outside the wards, waiting for her to let him in. She felt him the moment he showed up over an hour ago. His magic was dull right now, as if he was just watching and waiting, but she knew the longer she waited, the more volatile he would get.

She would have to acknowledge him soon.

“I know I said I’d hex him, Hermione, but are you really going to make him stand out in the cold when it’s so warm and inviting in here?” Harry said lightly, he was moving towards the back part of the kitchen near the door that led out the back door to hang his coat.

Hermione shrugged but didn’t say anything.

She turned away from the green-eyed man boring holes into her skin and put her attention on stirring the sauce until it thickened a bit.

“Hermione..” Harry admonished her.

She stiffened the wooden spoon froze in her hand.

“Auntie Hermione..” James trailed off, his little face looking up at her before he said anything else, “I like Draco.”

Hermione looked down at him, searching his green eyes, and then nodded, “Ok, kid.”

Then she looked at Harry, “The dough for the pizza crusts is over there on the counter. They should be ready to be rolled out,” She narrowed her eyes and added, “And James is going to help, so no magical shortcuts.”

She wiped her hand on the apron she wore around her hips and then took her wand to fix her hair. It had become a wild and untamable mess while they had been working in the kitchen.

“I’ll be be back with one white haired menace." 

He stood right outside the gate, on the stairs, because the bond was starting to let him see bits and pieces of where she was. The bond that she pretended didn’t exist. But the longer he knew where she was, the stronger it would grow.

She stood back for just a moment anyway, to take him in: white, blonde hair in disarray as if he had just woken up, a scowl or a smolder, his lips begging to be kissed. His eyes were almost dark, and the reason for that could be anything. It happened when he was aroused, angry, longing, and sometimes just when he was looking at her because he loved her.

She squared her shoulders and then stepped through the wards, stopping on the step just in front of the gate he was leaning on.

“Are you going to come in or just hang out here and pout all night?”

He moved so that he stood tall and shoved his hands into his pockets. He did this all the time, a dominant move, but Hermione knew if she just stepped next to him, pressed her body against him, that she could turn him into jello. That didn’t mean he didn’t have an edge to himself. That cruelty wasn’t a layer just beneath his skin that he had the ability to break her. It just meant that she knew how to soften him even when he wanted to go to war.

He didn’t look at her when he muttered, “Potter is letting me in?”

“Would you hear me if he wasn’t?”

Draco didn’t answer; instead, he just turned around his hand already outstretched, looking for hers. She put it out and let his grip touch hers. Her eyes fluttered shut as she felt the palm of his hand. The callouses of his fingers, and his skin warm, rough, and firm against hers. It zinged across her pinky, zig-zagged up her arm to that delicate spot around her elbow, to her neck, where she arched it, and then back down into her heart.

Quickening it like the butterflies in her stomach.

“I hate what you do to me,” She breathed out, and his grasp gripped her harshly, almost gently tugging her closer to him.

Honest words escaped her before she realized any of the consequences.

“It’s just my hand, Hermione.”

He was smirking, and she knew it, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him know she did.

“We’re making homemade pizza, and I’m not sharing mine,” She said, dragging him forward through the wards.

“That’s ok,” He said so low that his tone almost had a predatory quality to it. “I have other ideas of what I want you to share with me,”

He was on her before she could speak, his arms wrapping around her and moving her up against the brick wall of the home. He moved to kiss her, but she turned her head away so that he only got her cheek. But even that threatened to undo her, the softness of his lips pressing into her skin. It sent shivers down her spine, a soft gasp escaping.

Instead of pulling away, he just moved and pressed soft kisses along her jaw down her neck to her collarbone, hands roaming up the shirt she wore.

She almost gave in but then found strength and moved her hands between them, pressing on the firmness of his chest, she pushed him back.

“Stop”

“You don’t really want me to do that,” He murmured as he moved forward again, this time finding her mouth while his hands cupped her face.

And she couldn’t hold back, not when there was a heat between them, and when they got close, it threatened to explode right out of her. She kissed him back, opening her mouth for him, his tongue licking the roof, and along her teeth until it found hers. There was a hardness growing against her stomach, and he pressed even closer to her, making her moan as he deepened the kiss to something hungrier, something like the kiss itself was a lifeline for him—his hands had moved and were gripping her backside.

It threatened to overwhelm her; it always did, but she always fell into it, because if she didn’t, she might not survive it either. It made her jump up and wrap her legs around him, making him groan out with something feral and happy.

And she would have probably kept going, kept letting him consume her until he had consumed her entirely. But the door swung open, and Harry let out a groan that suggested he would much rather be witnessing anything else, including Filch running around in a pink tutu.

Draco cursed under his breath as she broke the kiss; his grip tightened as she tried to separate herself from him. The fierce look on his face, though, told her that he wasn’t going to let her go. Underneath the surface of his hold was possessive, with a hint of fear that told her he was afraid to let her go.

That she would slip through his fingers if he did, because she would. She always did, and she wasn’t sure what would make her stay for good other than the fact that it was getting harder and harder to leave him.

“I came to see what was taking so long, and honestly, I should have known what was going so it’s really my own fault that I just walked out on that,” Harry muttered, his hands covering his eyes. “Anyway, James is very insistent that you come help with the pizzas, Hermione.”

He turned quickly and shut the door again with a soft click.

“Can I hex him?” Draco said, practically begging his forehead against hers, “Please say I can.”

“He asks me the same thing about you; in fact, he just brought it up,” Hermione smirked.

“Nothing about Potter frightens me.”

“You’d be surprised at the rage that he can unleash when those he cares about are getting hurt.”  

“I assure you there is nothing about Potter that would surprise me at this point.” He deadpanned.

Hermione rolled her eyes and reached for his hand, fingers intertwining with his, “Come on, let’s go inside.”

The moon was full, and it spread its light over Draco’s bare chest. He had one hand on it and his chest rising and falling in the steady pattern of someone who was satiated and asleep. She wanted to kiss him one more time, run her hand through his hair, but she didn’t.

She didn’t say goodbye either, because she knew he would find her. He always did, no matter what she did. No matter how far she went, and maybe she could leave the continent altogether, the idea of him not being able to find her frightened her.

It frightened her more than what she felt for him, the thing she hadn’t told him yet. The thing that scared her to say.

But it was love, even if it was messy and angry sometimes.

And he was going to be angry that she left him at Harry and Pansy’s house.

Hermione stepped down the stairs quietly and then out the door with a quiet snick. The cold air felt sharp in her chest, making her lungs hurt as she breathed in and out. Smoke created by her warm breath curled up in short puffs as she moved quickly down the dark street—the lamps had been turned off for the night.

She chose to go farther away rather than leave through the apparation point in the backyard. Somewhere far enough so that her disappearance could not be heard by the people sleeping softly in the house.

It was so quiet that even the scuff of a boot could be heard around the corner. She felt that feeling again, the one where she felt like she was being watched. The different sort of feeling that Draco didn’t give her. He was still safe, warm, and asleep in her bed at Grimmauld Place. She stopped short, knowing she probably shouldn’t, but she did, and she pulled her wand out of her coat, gripping it tight.

She moved slowly around, but saw nothing, and when she turned back around, a soft whistling sounded somewhere far behind her. A haunting tune that she recognized but couldn’t quite place. It was eerie and made the hair on the back of her neck stand up, but there was no one that she could see.

She decided then she was far enough away to Disapperate, and because the streets seemed empty, she turned on her heel and disappeared with a sharp crack.  

Chapter Text

Short Hair Problems

End of March 2005

A woman with a severe look sat before her. Her gray hair was pulled into a tight, immaculate bun, not a strand out of place. The skin of her face seemed stretched taut, like plastic wrap holding everything in check, and her lips were pale and pressed into a thin line.

There was no makeup on Ms. Jennings’ face, and no hint of empathy either. Her hands gripped a stack of papers. Hermione wondered if it was a stack of blank paper made to look important, because the place they were in was a place called “The Corner Market”.

It was a small market near Portree, Scotland, tucked into a quiet wizarding district. Just off the water, yet Hermione had liked the rolling hills the moment she arrived using a portkey Pansy had smuggled to her from Muggle London, a week after she had left Grimmauld Place. They had had lunch together, and as of now, Pansy was the only one who knew where she had gone.

“Miss Plutarch, if that’s even your real name, which somehow I doubt, you seem a bit overqualified for this job,” the woman mused aloud, using the name Hermione had given her. Taking the stack of papers in her hand, she tapped them on the hard wooden desk until they aligned perfectly, as if to make some kind of point.

Hermione shifted in the hard plastic chair, her hand slipping inside her jacket near where her wand was kept. She couldn’t decide if she should confound the woman or not. She needed the job, though, so she wrapped her fingers around it.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the woman said, arching an eyebrow at Hermione. “Not if you’re really looking to hide.”

“I’m not trying to...”

“You are, though, aren’t you?” Ms. Jennings cut her off. “I’ve seen girls like you before. You’re skittish, and your hand hasn’t left the spot you keep your wand in.”

“Well, when one was once in a war, one tends to be cautious. Not because one is hiding,” Hermione replied flatly.

Ms. Jennings’ face softened just a bit, something Hermione wasn’t sure she was capable of noticing until it happened. It was there, and then gone again, replaced by the same no-nonsense expression.

“Why do you want this job if you’re not hiding?”

“I just need a job for now, to cover the home I was able to rent nearby,” Hermione said softly.

“The Ableman home?”

The perfect home, Hermione thought. The one she quite possibly wanted to live in for the rest of her life.

“…Yes?” Hermione asked, suddenly feeling wary of Ms. Jennings.

She was wary of everyone if she were honest with herself. She looked at them all with a carefuly eye, and wall built up around herself.

“Don’t look so suspicious, it’s a small town. Everyone knows everything here.” Ms. Jennings shifted in her chair and finally let go of the stack of paper in her hands, “The Ableman home was the only one up for rent. It was owned by an older woman who was moved into assisted living, and her family, who no longer reside here, were not ready to part with the family home yet.”

Hermione nodded slowly, weighing Ms. Jennings' words. “I see,” she said quietly, though she already knew most of it. She had spoken with the daughter of the previous owner, and the details Ms. Jennings mentioned matched everything she had been told. 

Ms. Jennings leaned back, then, “Have you run a til before? We have upgraded to ones like the muggles have, and so it’s a bit easier to use; still, some experience is better than none.”

“Yes, and I can also help with stocking, keeping the place tidy and clean. I’m also a quick learner.”

The woman considered her for a moment, tapping a finger against her chin. “That’s good...ok, we’ll give you a trial run under one condition.”

“What would that be?”

“You must tell me your real name, but you can put whatever name you want on your name tag.”

Hermione swallowed hard and looked away. “It’s Hermione Granger.”

“I know, you’ve been in the papers even all the way here in Scotland,” Ms. Jennings said, and then put her hand out to shake. “You can start Monday, you’ll have a locker in the back, and aprons will be supplied for you, as long as you're prompt, I believe this will work out.”

Hermione wanted to ask why she asked for her real name if she knew it the whole time, but chose not to make it a battle for her to fight. Instead, she reached over the desk and to the woman’s hand, finding it surprisingly warm.

“Thank you, I won’t disappoint you.”

April 2005

She had taken scissors to her hair and hacked it off in jagged cuts. Then she sat on the bathroom floor in shock over what she had done.

Now she followed a hairdresser in Portree who moved her to the back and swiveled her chair around for Hermione to sit in. The hairdresser’s name was Liza, with a short black bob, and she was tiny like a pixie. She ran her hand through Hermione’s hair, fingers firm but gentle.

“What is it you would like to have done?” She asked.

Hermione felt the prickling sensation again that she was going to cry. She watched her face turn red as she tried to fight it, but then the tears burst out like a dam. She cried for the loss of her hair, for the loss of a life she thought she would have, and she cried because she was tired. And she only had herself to blame. Why couldn’t she just let herself trust Draco? Of course, she knew the answer to that; it went back to how he had treated her before, but hadn’t he proven that he had changed?

Hermione knew he had, and yet she kept pushing him away. She wondered if this time she had pushed him too far away. She knew that eventually if she kept doing it, that he would probably stop chasing her. She wouldn’t blame him either. She could only blame herself.

“I didn’t mean to cut it so short, and so terribly.” Hermione sobbed.

“Oh, honey.” Liza said softly, “We’ve all been there, for some reason we think changing our hair will turn us into someone new, but the truth is, change doesn’t happen that easily.”

Hermione took the sleeves of her jumper and wiped her face with them, removing the tears, and trying to compose herself again, “I just thought... no, I needed to feel different, but I made a right mess of it.”

“I think I can fix it, and with the right products, I can help you tame it as you let it grow out again, which is what I assume you want to do?”

“Yes...that would be great,” Hermione said wetly, a soft smile on her face.

Crookshanks found her three days later on a particularly stormy night. All the lights were shut off, except for the lamp Hermione had charmed to shed a soft glow over her. She had a candle burning, a fall one she had found while digging through the drawers. She lit it, even though it was the beginning of spring, letting its warm flicker chase back the shadows.

She was curled up reading a book, a thriller, with the lamp beside her, completely immersed and oblivious to the world around her. Her home, knee-deep in wards, was the only place she felt safe enough to do that.

Outside, the storm raged, rain lashing against the windows and thunder rolling overhead. A scratch at the door went unnoticed, completely drowned out by the wind and rain. But then there was a rather angry and indignant yowl from the back door of the kitchen. If she hadn’t recognized the tone of the animal as Crookshanks, she might have felt frightened, but instead she felt relief. And it surprised her every time at how much of it she felt when he found her.

She moved slowly, her slippers padding softly against the hard wooden floor. Thunder rolled across the sky, and Crookshanks made sure to sound louder than it, just in case she hadn’t heard him the first time.

Wind whipped in, rain splattering as soon as she opened the door, and a very wet, very cranky orange cat padded inside as if she had been personally responsible for the storm itself. Crookshanks shook himself vigorously, sending droplets flying in all directions, then glared up at her as if to say, Well? Why haven’t you cast a drying charm already?

“Oh, right, sometimes I do forget my manners,” Hermione murmured, retrieving her wand and waving it in the familiar pattern to instantly dry him.

He rubbed against her leg then, purring deeply, a silent thank-you vibrating through him.

“Are you hungry, Crooks?”

He looked at her as if it were the most absurd question she could ask.

“You’re right, how silly of me to ask that.” She replied, and then walked into the kitchen, “Tuna?”

Crookshanks mewed something that sounded like obviously, and Hermione chuckled. He jumped up on the table, something that Draco hated when he did it. For a split second, she thought of shooing him off, but then let him do it anyway. Because deep in her heart, she knew the sign of Crookshanks always meant that Draco was not far behind. It only depended on how long he decided to reveal himself.

Hermione ran each item across the scanner in a perfunctory manner. Unless, of course, she had to weigh it. If she did, then she let it sit on the scale and then imputed the PLU code.

She pushed the short locks behind her ears right before she pressed the total button. She still hated it and knew she could grow it back easily with magic, but her Muggle stubbornness told her she had to deal with the consequences of her own rash decisions and actions.  Still, she was sure Draco would hate it, and if he said he didn’t, she was sure he would lie through his teeth about it.

And should she really care what he thought about it?

“Jean, you can leave early tonight if you like; it’s a bit slow.” Ms. Jennings said after the last customer left. She smiled at Hermione now, but they weren’t friends.

Hermione nodded, and went about pulling her tray from the till, and took it to the back, where all the employees counted them. She updated the register and the ledgers that held those who had accounts for the store. She did all of this like she was on autopilot, like she was waiting for something to happen. For a shoe to drop, or for the quiet of the evening to crack in some way that reminded her she couldn’t stay hidden forever.

It wasn’t dread that filled her up, but acceptance, because maybe this time she would just stay.

She chose to walk home that night; the air was just cool enough that she only needed a light jacket. The scent of the trees and flowers blooming filled their air, and she breathed it in deep. Gray clouds were drifting in that suggested a storm later that night, whether it would be gentle or a downpour remained to be seen.

The closer she got to the house, the more she felt the change in it. That someone had invaded it, and so she tested the bond this time. The one that they shared, that she often kept closed off. They couldn’t talk to each other in their minds, only felt each other. Their magical cores coming together and pulsing like one heartbeat.

It was there, soft and steady, but she didn’t trust it. She didn’t trust him not to be angry with her. Outside the home, she stopped at the wood gate, and the let her gaze She let her gaze wander slowly up the path towards the wooden steps of the house. Would she ever tell him that she left tiny leaks in her wards for just him to break?

“No.” She breathed the word out with a shaky breath as she pushed forward.

At the foot of the stairs, she looked at the door and then remembered her hair again. He would hate it, and for some reason, she felt tears trying to form. It wasn’t just tears about the loss of her hair, because how fucking ridiculous. It was also the idea of disappointing him.  What if her hair was the reason he finally gave up on her?

Which was also ridiculous. She was being ridiculous, and she refused to cry.

She stepped through the wards of the home that felt fragile at best. Broken for sure.  The moment she stepped through, though, something changed and righted itself. A warm feeling spread over her as she walked towards the kitchen.

He stood in it wearing casual clothes, tan trousers, and an off white Henley. The corded muscles of his arms moved as he chopped romaine lettuce for a salad. Hermione came to a standstill as she smelled the familiar aroma of pasta.

She couldn’t seem to move as if something had frozen her.

He threw the Romaine lettuce into the salad spinner and rinsed and washed it. Spun it fast with the palm of his hand.

It was so incredibly unfair how good he always looked. How often she wanted to throw herself at him, even when she was angry at him or if he had hurt her.

“I like your hair.” He said conversationally, breaking up the silence, as if he didn’t break into her home to make her dinner.

“Ha!” She choked out, “No, you do not.”

And then she did cry, tears pouring down her cheeks, and it was so stupid. Why cry about her hair, of all things? Why would any of it matter?

He put the knife down slowly while she sobbed openly in front of him, feeling cold and alone. The tears fell into the collar of her white shirt, and it was so fucking ridiculous that she made for the stairs. Trying to get to the room she slept in and maybe lock him out.

Something in the kitchen clattered harshly, and she expected him to charge forward to her, three strides of his long legs. Instead, he apparated like the show off he was.

And once again, she folded into him as his arms wrapped firmly around her.

“Hermione,” He breathed her name out as he held her close.

“No,” she growled as her hands punched into his chest, “don’t fucking lie to me, Draco. It looks awful.”

Later, she would realize how ridiculous it sounded to be so upset hair, when it wasn’t really the hair at all that she was angry about. It was what the loss of her hair had represented, the loss of something else like innocence. The loss of who she used to be, and now she wasn’t sure at all who she was.

“I’m not lying, but if you hate it so much, why don’t you use your magic to fix it?”

A hysterical laugh bubbled up out of her, and she knew she must look and sound insane. “I deserve to sit in the rot of my own mistakes.” She said with a hiccup.

“No, you don’t.” He said as she felt his magic wash over her, a calming sort of magic and not the dark magic he often exuded. Her curls extended down her back again, his fingers threaded through it before he stood back to look at her. His hands moved to cup her face, “Better?”

“Yes.” She said with a deep sigh, but even she didn’t fully believe herself. She wanted to wash the day off of her, and then get into pajamas, or maybe she just wanted him. “I’m going to go take a shower.”

“Want company?” He asked, his lips curling up into a smirk that bordered on lude.

“You’re cooking dinner.” She pointed out.

He snapped his fingers, and the food instantly finished cooking, plated itself, and settled under a stasis charm.

“Show-off,” she muttered, as his smirk deepened into the one that always made her knickers wet. And he knew it did, and she wasn’t going to argue with him. There was no reason to punish herself by pretending she didn’t want him, especially because she knew he could absolutely wreck her.

Make her forget everything for a bit.

“Fine.”

He followed her closely as they walked up the stairs, the heat of him pressing into her. Like he was afraid that if he didn’t stay close, she would change her mind or disappear altogether. She did this to him; she knew that. She knew she wasn’t the only one damaged by their relationship, that perhaps he was damaged more than herself.

At the top of the stairs, she turned right into the bathroom and wordlessly cast a spell to start the shower. She turned to him, and he watched her with a single eyebrow up that said he was waiting for her next move. Without any ceremony, she pulled her shirt off up over her head and ripped her trousers off in one fluid movement.

His eyes darkened with heat as they roamed her body. She didn’t flinch or blush. She’d stopped being shy around him long ago. He growled low, and with a simple motion, his clothes and what remained of hers disappeared into nothing. She shrieked as he pushed her into the shower, warm water hissing over them and mist curling in the air like smoke. His mouth was already on her, hands gripping the skin of her hips, pulling her close. The tiles beneath their feet were slick, dark, catching the flicker of light in the steam.

He marked the junction of her neck and shoulder with a gentle bite, drawing a whimper that melted under the sweep of his tongue. She ran her hands along the firm muscles of his chest, memorizing him again, every ridge, every line.

“When I said I wanted to shower, I meant wash my hair… and my body,” she murmured, almost casually, as he traced kisses up her neck, along her jaw, before pulling back to look at her.

Water dripped from the stray strands of his blonde hair, clinging to his forehead, and she felt the feeling again. The feeling that told her how much she wanted him. How much he consumed her when she was near him. Lean and strong, he pressed her against the wall, the shadows in the corners swallowing them in a private, darkened world.

He hummed low, then kissed her hard, pinning her hands between them, before reaching for the shampoo bottle.

“Turn around,” he murmured, quiet but firm, his voice blending with the hiss of water.

She stepped under the warm spray, letting herself be undone by the intimacy she hadn’t realized she needed. His long fingers worked the soap through her hair, massaging her scalp as if he were worshiping her. Conditioner followed, threaded through each strand as if he were handling something fragile. And when he washed her body, it was like she was sacred, and it made her chest ache.

He pressed a kiss to the side of her neck, sending shivers down her spine. But it wasn’t just desire, but also a deep, anchoring feeling of belonging to him. She closed her eyes, breath catching, heart heavy with the weight of it. No one had ever touched her like this. No one had ever made her feel so seen. When she opened her eyes, he was watching her, droplets clinging to his lashes, a soft, almost gentle smile on his lips. Steam swirled around them, shadows pooling in the corners, and for a heartbeat, the world outside didn’t exist.

“You’re lucky I’m a patient man,” he murmured, his lip curling into a grin.

She burst out laughing because if Draco Malfoy was anything, it was not patient.

He silenced her with a hard kiss, crashing his mouth to hers. His hands slid beneath her thighs, lifting her until her back pressed against the slick tile. Hot water streamed around them as he kissed her like he couldn’t get enough, his tongue demanding entrance. She let him in, the desperation that drifted off of him caught her off guard. He kissed her like he was afraid it would be the last time he got to do it. It wasn’t just hunger but also need. Raw and unspoken need trembling just beneath the surface.

She gasped, pulling back for air he seemed determined to steal. “Draco, I...”

Another kiss swallowed the words, fierce and consuming.

She didn’t fight him. She didn’t want to. She wanted him everywhere—inside her, around her, claiming her completely. Wrapping her legs tighter around his waist, she slipped a hand between them, closing around his cock. His answering grunt was deep, like the motion alone had undone him. As she moved along his length, he smiled against her mouth. In one swift, fluid motion, he was inside her. Her head fell back against the tile as an unrestrained moan of relief tore free from both of them.

Before she could adjust, the familiar tug of Apparition pulled in her stomach. A second later, they landed on her bed, a drying charm already cast over them. She let out a startled breath as he shifted her hips, driving deeper inside her.

“That was a risky move,” she gasped between moans, pleasure curling hot and insistent in her belly with every thrust. A wicked grin tugged at her lips. “You could have splinched your cock right off and then what use would I have for you?”

He stilled, chuckling low in his throat, and leaned over her. His gaze dropped between their bodies, watching where they were joined, hunger darkening his eyes even more.

“But I didn’t,” he said huskily, moving his head back up to look at her, pressing his forehead against hers.

“But imagine if you had,” she went on breathlessly, “and I had to explain to the St. Mungo’s healers that Draco Malfoy splinched his cock while it was inside me. Perhaps they could reattach it, since you are rather fond of it.”

Amusement flickered in his gaze. “Are you finished? Because we were in the middle of something.”

“Just one more thing...”

“Hermione.” His growl vibrated through her as his hands slid to her sides, tickling until she shrieked with laughter. The sound dissolved into a moan when he pulled out only to slam back into her, an almost punishing move.

Her breath hitched.

Each thrust was steady, claiming, heavy with everything they never said out loud. The heat wasn’t just physical; it was the weight of years, of history, of something bigger than love. Something she could never explain. Something that always scared her with how much it made her feel. When she came, she shattered, unraveling beneath him as though a dam inside her had burst. Her heart loosened, tears prickling hot at the corners of her eyes. She was sure she couldn’t keep running, that she had to stop.

Draco’s hips snapped against hers, and he shuddered. A deep groan tore from his throat as he spilled inside her. His hands tightened on her hips, anchoring himself to her as though he couldn’t let go. He collapsed against her, chest heaving, breath searing her neck.

She lay beneath him, staring up at the ceiling, chest aching with everything unsaid. It wasn’t just sex. It never was. Not with him.

And it was always too much.

Too much heat. Too much history. Too much of herself lay bare. And he knew exactly how to use it all.

She could still feel the slickness between her thighs, his heartbeat thudding against her ribs, his name caught in the back of her throat. He stayed inside her a moment longer, forehead pressed on her neck like the contact alone might tether them. As if moving meant losing her.

And he wasn’t wrong.

When he finally pulled out, slow and reluctant, the emptiness made her bite her lip. Her body clenched against the loss, hating how much it felt like grief. She turned her head to him, watching the rise and fall of his chest, the way his eyes stayed fixed on her—always fixed, like he couldn’t risk looking away.

Neither of them spoke.

She wanted to ask him why he kept coming back. Why didn’t he let her go? But the answers were obvious, weren’t they?

Because she left holes in the wards for him. Because no matter how far she ran, she was never really gone from him. Because they were tethered in a way she still didn’t understand, and he never seemed to want to tell her. Her throat tightened. She turned onto her side, curling toward the edge of the bed. She didn’t want him to see her face.

He shifted beside her, his palm brushing the bare curve of her back before curling around her hip. She settled back into him, and he pulled her even closer. His arm snaking around her waist, and his hand splayed just under the swell of her breast.

“Please stop running from me.” He begged quietly, the words ghosted across her ear. It was something about the way he said them that made her feel like there was more to the words than just his need to own her. There was a layer of anger underneath them as well; she was sure she could feel it there just beneath the surface.

She was too afraid to ask what it all meant. Because what if this time he answered her?

And what if the answers were far more frightening than she could imagine?

She turned around and snuggled into him, her head pressing under his chin. Her fingers were digging into his chest, anchoring herself to him, but she didn’t say anything. She just stayed there until she fell asleep against him.

And in the back of her mind, words kept repeating themselves.

I’ll try not to.

Chapter Text

I Want Money and All Your Power, All Your Glory

September 1998

Astoria stood in front of the Prefects’ Bathroom mirror. She wasn’t a prefect, but that had never stopped her before. Status and beauty had a way of opening doors, and she was skilled at using both to get what she wanted. It was how she was raised, always taught that if she wanted it, she deserved it.

And she deserved luxury whenever she desired it.

She had just taken a long bath in the large tub, using lavender and vanilla bath salts and lathering herself with the rich, perfumed soap she brought from home. She had finished with a few drops of hair-smoothing and shine potions and then dried it and curled it so that it hung down her back in smooth, perfect ringlets. Of course, like so many times before, she found herself wondering what she might look like with blonde hair.

Tilting her head, she pulled a glossy lock of brown hair between her fingers, scrutinizing it with a frown. Daphne and her looked almost like in every way, down to their noses and the bow of their lips, but Daphne had blonde hair. It wasn’t white, blonde like a Veela’s, but a warm, honey blonde streaked with golden highlights that always caught the light. She never told Daphne this, but she had always envied her hair.

Perhaps she’d go white, blonde, to set herself apart from her sister.

White, blonde like her betrothed, Draco, the one who was meant to be her beloved.

She scrunched her nose at the word and let out a short, amused laugh. He would never be her beloved; she wasn’t naïve, but she did think they were a good match for each other. She thought that together they could be formidable. There wasn’t a contract yet, but words had been exchanged between Astoria’s parents and Draco’s parents, which in pureblood society was as good as a done deal.

Not that it was a deal, no, it was a marriage. A joining of two great families together, not to mention the beautiful children Astoria was convinced the two of them would make.

She knew Draco was resistant to it, though, that he’d been fighting and clawing against it. But Astoria did not back down when she wanted something. She was raised to be strong, independent, and calculating. She knew how to manipulate people, bend them to her will.

Draco was not an exception.

Just another dumb boy, she thought, rolling her eyes as she recalled watching him talking with Hermione Granger with that smirk he used when he was trying to lure witches into bed.

She was just a distraction; Astoria was fine with that, because in the end, she would be the one who met Draco at the end of the aisle.

A rather elegantly decorated aisle, with white and pink roses twined along the runner, silver ribbons cascading from every chair, and tall glass vases filled with floating candles casting a soft golden glow—an aisle that led not to love, but to victory.

She flicked her wand with a sharp twist, casting a quick glamour. Her brown hair shimmered and paled, transforming into a white-blonde sheen, the exact shade of his. She tilted her head as Draco’s arm appeared in the illusion, wrapping around her slim waist, pulling her closer to him. He squeezed her hip, not roughly, but like he adored her. When he looked down to smile at Astoria, it made her breath catch in her chest.

A frantic fluttering that made her wonder if this was something more than what she kept telling herself that she felt.

She stuffed that feeling down, stamping out quickly, because she had no room to catch feelings for him. That would only cause her problems in the long run. No, this had to be just a transaction between the two of them, a marriage of convenience that gave her all the things she wanted. Money, status, and power.

She leaned ever so slightly into the vision, willing it to become real, her breath fogging the glass. “See, Draco, we look so good together,” she murmured to the mirror.

October 1998

She walked into the room, Draco shared with Theo and Blaise, three four-poster beds with green and silver curtains hanging around them. His bed was the one by the window, his school shirt and tie thrown on it as if he had taken them off in a rush. His bed was haphazardly made, meaning the elves had not yet come to change the sheets.

Astoria sat on the bed and picked up the tie, letting it slide through her fingers before wrapping it around her neck. It smelled like him, his cologne lingering in the fabric. She lay back, spreading her hair across the pillow, eyes tracing the ceiling where Draco had charmed stars into constellations. They were slowly dimming, a sign he must have done it the night before. Rolling onto her side, she pressed her face into the pillow, inhaling his scent.

The scent was faint, and mostly him, cedar, citrus, and something expensive and unmistakably masculine. There was something else, though, lingering beneath it, a light vanilla scent . It was soft, and feminine, and completely wrong.

It shouldn’t have been there.

He must have brought her here, snuck her into his bed when no one was watching, hidden her away behind the curtains as if she belonged there.

It had to belong to someone she was growing to despise more every day. Someone who made her stomach twist with rage. It was only barely simmering now, but it was a low and steady simmer, like a potion left on a slow flame. Hermione Granger, Harry Potter’s mudblood swot, had dug her swot-like claws into Draco, manipulating him with her false goodness. As if he thought it would rub off on him and give him some sort of redemption he craved.

Astoria knew girls like Hermione—girls who cloaked themselves in humility and virtue, but only so they could use it as a crown to dazzle the gullible and make men forget what they really were.

Her nails curled into the pillowcase, crumpling it as if wringing the Gryffindor girl’s neck. Astoria had given her virginity to him, even knowing he wasn’t a virgin. Still, she had thought once she had given not just her body, but all of herself to him, that it meant he would not be with anyone else. Now he had tainted himself with a mudblood, Astoria was sure of it. She took her wand out of the pocket of her school robes and let the anger burst out of her, magic surging through her arm into the wand in her hand, blowing up the pillow, feathers, and cotton flying everywhere.

Then, because she felt like it wasn’t enough, she cut the blankets into jagged strips, slashing until the fabric hung in tatters like wounds that would never heal. With another flick of her wand, she turned on the curtains, slicing through the heavy green fabric until they ripped and sagged from the rail, no longer able to shield anyone hidden inside.

She knew it would all be repaired the moment the house elves were called, every feather swept up, every rip mended as if nothing had happened. Still, a dark satisfaction coiled in her chest at the idea of him no longer being able to draw the curtains and hide Hermione away, while he fucked her into his mattress and hid her like she was a filthy secret. Because Astoria couldn’t believe it was anything else. It could only be that he was using Hermione for her body, using her to prove some twisted point, or perhaps a bet he had made.

As the wreckage settled, she brushed a stray feather from her shoulder and tried to calm the rage in her heart. It was still drumming loudly in her ears when a floorboard creaked, the door swinging open.

Astoria whirled around, wand raised, but came face to face with Theo, who stood frozen as he took in the mess she had made. His eyes swept over the ruined bed, the feathers, the shredded curtains.

“Tori…” he said slowly, and then, as politely as he could manage, “what the actual fuck?”

Astoria dropped her wand to her side, her hand hanging limply as tears sprang to her eyes, hot and fast. She let out a strangled sob, then another, letting them spill over in a loud, shaky display. The pillows were shredded, the blankets torn into jagged strips, the curtains slashed, but only his bed bore the brunt of her fury.

Theo froze in the doorway, eyes wide, unsure whether to intervene or flee. His lips twitched with amusement, half at the spectacle, half at the absurdity. “Tori…look at me,” he said cautiously as he moved towards her, his hands up as if to pull her into a hug, “Breathe for me, ok, just breathe.”

She hiccupped and let out a high, cracking wail, clutching the ruined pillow to her chest. “I just…he...he...he can’t be with...” Her voice broke, trembled, perfectly overblown, loud enough to make him think she was helplessly undone. “Her.”

Theo looked at the bed again, and then she almost smiled. She saw it there before he dropped, the trace of a smirk, and then it was replaced with pity that she wanted to hex off his face.

“Tori...”

Was her name glitching on a record player?

“No.. don’t say it, Theo...I gave him my virginity, and not for nothing.” Astoria sniffed, her tears suddenly drying up, but she wiped her face and eyes with the back of her hand anyway. “Greengrasses don’t ever do that, and I should not be treated like I was just a shag that he could throw away, not to mention the fact that we are betrothed.”   

He cupped his hand on the back of his neck before running it through his hair. His shoulders slumped as he searched for words that would only appease her. Words that agreed with her.

“You’re not betrothed, though; it’s some archaic plan both your parents had made when you were born, and it wasn’t a bond made with blood.”

“You know as well as I do that pureblood word as good as a binding contract!” She felt herself slipping back into hysteria, only this time she felt it, her voice rising an octave again.

She turned away from him, refusing to look at him, and then sat down on Draco’s bed, her arms crossed. It didn’t stop Theo from moving forward, though. He gripped her arms and pulled her up, wrapping his arms around her so that her head was near his heart. She could hear the steady thump of it, but still she pressed on him, her hands thumping on him half-heartedly.

He crushed her even closer, and then with a soft voice, he asked, “Tori, don’t you want to be with someone you love?”

Astoria wondered if that was the problem all along, that she did love him. But he had never loved her, not in the way she wanted him to, and she knew he didn’t. So instead, she kept pretending that she didn’t love him either.

“What if it is him I love?” She finally whispered brokenly.

Theo sighed, a heavy sigh, and she felt his hand move his wand, waving, fixing what she had broken.

“I am sorry, Tori.”

She didn’t believe him, because the sorry sounded as if he were telling her to give up. Telling her that there was no point in pursuing Draco anymore. As if he knew something she did not. She wouldn’t give up, though, not when she knew the life Draco could provide for her was what she deserved.

And she knew she would be good at being Mrs. Malfoy.

March 1999

It was a rare morning when Draco actually sat down in the Great Hall to eat, and the seat across from him was empty. Astoria wasted no time crossing the hall, though even though she moved quickly, she still did it with grace. She slid into the seat across from him, but he didn’t spare her a glance. His attention was fixed on a book in his hands—a worn paperback that looked decidedly Muggle.

Astoria’s mouth tightened.

She smoothed it into a bright, false smile, though, white teeth gleaming.

“Good morning,” she said, voice sweet like honey.

Draco merely nodded, eyes still on the page.

Her temper flared. She wanted to yank the book from his hands, but instead, she kicked him under the table. Her foot struck his shin, hard enough to make him drop the paperback. He shot her a look of pure irritation.

“What do you want, Tori?”

“It’s rude to ignore your betrothed, Draco,” she replied with a tone sharp enough to cut through paper.

Draco’s lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Betrothed,” he repeated, the word curling off his tongue as if it were bitter. He leaned back slightly, regarding her with his cool, gray eyes. “You mean the agreement between our families when we were kids?"

Astoria tilted her head, unfazed, her lips pulling into a languid, knowing smile. “Yes, that very one, and up until a few months ago, I was under the impression you wanted it as well.”

Draco arched a brow while smirking, and Astoria knew suddenly he was about to say something that would cut her deeply. Or maybe just make her angry, she never could tell when it came to him.

“Don’t mistake the one time we shagged Tori as something more than what it was.” He drawled, “One night to cure a moment of boredom, and nothing more.”

Astoria felt the words like a slap in the face, and even worse, the cruel way he was looking at her now.

“And are you curing your boredom now with that Gryffindor swot?”  She snapped.

A flash of anger heated in his eyes, and she knew he had gotten to him somehow. She could not decide if she was excited about that or not. Getting any kind of reaction from him did thrill her a little bit. 

He moved forward again, his voice going low, “I know you want me to say yes, Tori, that I’m just bored or I needed to get it out of my system, but unfortunately for you, that’s not it at all.

She slapped her hands on the table in anger, the plates and cups jumping from the impact. Draco’s fork fell off his empty plate, and all he did was smile at her with amusement. Which only furthered her anger.

“I insist you stop acting like you despise me, Draco,” She hissed, “And I will not let you out of this contract; we will marry by the end of the year.”

“No, I don’t despise you, but I am growing tired of your delusions.” Draco said if she was boring him, “Your insistence that I somehow belong to you because of something our parents once said is exhausting.”

He looked over Astoria’s shoulder then, his gaze zeroing on a spot behind her. Astoria followed his line of sight and found Hermione Granger striding towards where Potter and Longbottom sat. When she looked back, Draco was smirking, a lazy, infuriating curve of his lips.

“Draco..”

“I’m over this conversation.” He cut her off, standing up abruptly, “I have better things to do, and better witches to admire.”

She stood up too her legs bumping against the table. He was taller than her, and she was forced to tilt her chin to look up at him. Still, she looked up her nose at him and hissed out, “Get it out of your system, Draco. When this year is over, you’ll be through crawling into another witch’s bed. We will be married, and the sooner you accept that, the better things will be—for both of us.”

Draco’s smirk didn’t falter; if anything, it deepened into something colder.

“Better things for both of us?” he drawled. “If that were true, then you wouldn’t have to beg so hard for me to marry you.”

He left her then, drifting across the hall toward Hermione as if the room had narrowed to that single, soft orbit. When he glanced at her, his face changed. The casual coltish smirk she sometimes got, smoothed into something warmer, something he had only reserved for someone he actually cared about. Hermione returned the smile, beaming and unguarded, and the sight lodged in Astoria like a cold stone.

Jealousy flared, a bitter, hot thing, but it didn’t burn so much as settle and sharpen inside of her. Astoria felt the grip of her wand in her palm like a familiar jaw. Hexing Hermione in the heat of the hall would be satisfying, she thought, a bright, reckless thrill; but the idea left her unmoved, childish. There were subtler arts. A whisper here, a tipped rumor there, a carefully misplaced truth that would peel reputation like paint. Small cruelties arranged with patience would do far more damage than a single, loud curse.

She let the thought uncoil fully, tasting it. If she had to remove Hermione from his world, she would not fling herself at it and break. She would plan, and wait, and watch him gradually understand the cost of loving someone so easily.

Of course, if none of that worked, she wasn’t above taking Hermione out of the picture altogether.

May 1999

The train was already moving, the subtle sound of the express clicking on the tracks. Every so often, the horn would go off. Outside, the trees bled together into a green blur, a shapeless mass, while Astoria drifted through each compartment, relentless in her search for Draco.

She found two of the Golden Trio with Neville, Theo, and Ginny, but no Hermione. Which meant they were together somewhere on the train—an inevitability that only spurred her on, sharpening the ache in her chest. She pressed forward, stepping through the doors onto another cart, and there it was: a compartment with the blinds drawn tight. She didn’t know for certain he was inside, but in her bones she felt it—felt them together.

She paused there, torn between desire and dread, debating whether to fling open the door. If she did, there was always the chance she might stumble upon them entwined, possibly shagging, or at the very least, pressed together in some fevered snog. And if that was the sight awaiting her, she doubted she could keep her fury contained.

But the decision was taken from her. The door slid open, and Hermione stepped out. She was tugging her skirt back into place, fumbling with a shirt that was not hers at all but Draco’s—misbuttoned and askew. She carried his scent on her skin, heavy and unmistakable, mingled with something darker that rose like incense and struck Astoria’s senses with cruel force. Hermione all but collided with her.

“Sorry,” Hermione said, breathless. But as her eyes focused, her expression shifted into something unreadable. “Oh.”

“Yes, oh,” Astoria answered, lacing her voice with as much disdain as she could summon.

One Hour Earlier

Draco stood in the open door of the compartment when Hermione came down the aisle. She was talking with Ron and Harry and almost didn’t see him. He gripped her wrist and yanked her towards him into the compartment, making her squeak out in surprise. He closed the compartment door in the faces of the other two wizards, who raised their eyebrows at him.

Draco raised his in return, then locked the compartment with a satisfying click. Then pulled the blind down and turned to sit down.

“Was it necessary for you to accost me like that?” She asked as she sat down across from him.

“Why are you sitting there?” He asked, ignoring her question.

“Where am I to sit?”

Draco looked around casually and then smirked as he looked down at his lap and raised an eyebrow at her, even though he was bothered by her actions. When he looked back up, she was staring at him with that hard, unreadable expression that never failed to dig under his skin.

“Get over here,” He demanded.

“Draco..” she sighed.

“It wasn’t a question.”

“No, I gathered that, but I’m not fucking you on the train.”

His cock hardened suddenly, an involuntary reaction to her defiance, and he grinned slowly and wickedly, tilting his head as if savoring the way she flushed at his stare.

“Who said anything about fucking? Maybe I just want to be close to you.” He drawled with mock innocence as he leaned lazily back, spreading his legs and taking time to make her see exactly what she had done to him with her words alone.

Her gaze darted down, and she instantly looked away out the window at the passing landscape. A faint blush spread across her cheeks. He loved how sweetly innocent she still was, even after all the times he’d woken up wrapped in her warmth the last year.

“Being near you always leads to trouble.” She said softly.

“You say that like you haven’t enjoyed it.”

She bit her lip, teeth pushing into the softness of it, and he thought about pulling it between his own.

“It’s only a month, Draco, I need to go see my parents and...” she said and then trailed off.

“Hermione,” He said.

She visibly shuddered before him, goosebumps erupting over her arms, and the faint blush spread across her chest as if his fingers had brushed across her body rather than his voice saying her name.

Her fingers gripped the fabric beneath her, fighting the urge to look at him.

“Get the fuck over here,” He growled, and her gaze snapped towards him again.

He watched the war that was clearly going on in her mind before she stood slowly. She walked over with measured steps until the train bumped over something and knocked her balance off. She stumbled and fell forward so that her hand smacked into his chest, her legs stopping just short between his.

He looked down at her small hand, fingers digging into his shirt. They pulled at the buttons, and he wrapped his hand around her softly and gently moved her so that she stood looking down at him.

Giving her some power in the moment.

Her chest heaved a touch faster than normal, her eyes slightly blown wide, and he knew her heart was on its way to racing. He could practically hear it. Ever since he had come together, ever since he’d been inside of her, he and learned all of her tells. All of her emotions, he had known that it wasn’t just a fleeting romance. It was something more, something that burned them both, and it was like a drug that he couldn’t stop.

Her breath trembled as she stared down at him, and for a moment, and for some strange reason, he suddenly thought she might bolt. It was a look in her eye he hadn’t seen before, but he would not panic. Not yet.

Her hand remained on his chest, clutching at his shirt like she couldn’t quite bring herself to let go. So he anchored himself in that feeling, his hand wrapping around her wrist.

“Sit,” he murmured, so quietly that it was almost a whisper.

She hesitated and then moved to sit down next to him, but he gripped her more firmly.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“Draco..” she almost pleaded. But he gave her a look that stopped her from fighting him and moved so that she sat on his lap, legs straddling him.

Her hands came up and cupped his face. Thumbs brushing his cheeks, his eyes fluttered closed in anticipation of the feather-light feeling of her lips brushing against his.

Her lips hovered just above his, close enough that her breath fanned against his mouth. It was maddening, her hesitation, soft and sweet, as if she didn’t know he was already undone by her presence alone.

“Tease,” he murmured roughly

“I’m the tease?” She asked as she ground down into him; he could feel the smirk in her tone.

His eyes flew open as he pulled her closer, his hips thrusting up searching for friction, “I thought you weren’t fucking me on the train.”

“A girl can change her mind,” She said with a shrug.

It was moments like this that made him unsure of who was really in control of what went on between them. He was starting to believe that she was in charge of everything.

He surged upward, kissing her. A deep kiss, his tongue swooping into her mouth without asking first. A soft, breathless moan escaped her, and his cock hardened and throbbed even more. Now that he knew what it was like to slip into her, his self-control was often teetering toward non-existent when she was like this. Warm, willing, and sitting on top of him like she was made for it.

Her hips rolled again, whether unconsciously or not; he didn’t care. It drew another low growl from his throat as he broke the kiss, only to drag his mouth along the line of her jaw and down the column of her throat. He bit, then sucked, hard enough to leave a mark, before returning to her mouth.

His hands skimmed her thighs, fingers brushing lightly, and then, with a whisper of wordless magic, her knickers and shirt vanished, leaving her in only her school skirt.

She grimaced against his lips and pulled back just enough to mutter, “I’m going to need you to stop vanishing or ruining my clothes. I’m running out of them.”

“I told you I’d buy you more,” he said with a shrug and a smirk that bordered on wicked.

She sighed, and for a moment, he thought she might stop, just to be petty, but she didn’t. Instead, she lifted herself just enough for him to free his cock from his trousers, her gaze never leaving his. Molten and burning with lust for him. She sank down onto him slowly, and they both let out soft groans as they came together.

“Use me,” he rasped, gripping her hips again to help her move against him.

She didn’t hesitate. He felt her shift, slowly, searching the right angle and taking him deeper. His body shivered, goosebumps raising across his body. Her arms curled around his shoulders, fingers threading through his hair, tugging just enough to draw a low growl from his throat. When she kissed him again, he felt every heat-soaked inch of her want pressed into him. She was wound tight already, every movement a reminder of how completely she affected him.

He let his hands roam her body, tracing the swell of her breasts, then sliding back down, dipping beneath the hem of her skirt. Every touch, every brush of skin, told him how much she needed him, how much she trusted him.

He knew the moment she started to come, the way her walls fluttered, clenching around him. He shifted, instinctively seeking the spots that made her shiver, the nerves that made her gasp and grip him tighter. When she fell apart, her head tipped back, eyes rolling, and her voice broke as she cried his name.

“Draco”

The sound sent a fire straight through him. He didn’t hold back. He gripped her tighter, teeth scraping her neck, thrusting sharp and fast, letting himself be undone as his own pleasure ripped through him like a wave. His head thudded against the train wall, every nerve raw and alive.

“Fuck,” he hissed, voice ragged, heart hammering.

He closed his eyes, trying to slow his breathing, to steady himself, but all he could feel was the weight of her above him, the warmth of her hand pressed against his chest, grounding him. When he lifted his head, she was watching him, unguarded, wide-eyed, and it hit him—the vulnerability she let him see, the trust she offered in that moment.

“I think I’m in love with you,” she said softly.

He felt it like a blow straight to the chest, and the answer came naturally, without hesitation.

“I know I’m in love with you,” he replied because he knew he was. He knew it even more as he stayed buried inside her, heart and body tangled completely with hers

Hermione stepped out of the train compartment to go to the food cart. She was looking down, not paying attention to her surroundings, and was straightening her clothes, which was why she ran straight into someone else.

A slight witch whose perfume drifted off her pleasantly, almost as if it were a potion meant to lure you in.

“Sorry,” Hermione said, her hands automatically shooting out to steady herself and the other woman.

When she took stock of who she ran into, she realized quickly that it was Astoria.

“Oh,” the word slipped out with neither surprise nor disappointment, but just strange detachment.

There was something about Astoria that Hermione couldn’t put her finger on, but felt like a quiet sort of rage was always drifting off the witch.

“Yes, oh,” Astoria said snidely as she stepped out of Hermione’s grasp. Then she brushed her clothes off where Hermione had touched her, if she was removing filth.

She looked around as if he looking for someone, and her nose scrunched up as if she smelled something horrible.

“He’s reached a new low if he’s fucking you on a train,” She said with disdain.

Hermione gaped at her; she couldn’t help it.

“You smell like sex and his cologne,” She said as though it were obvious, “Where is he?”

“Where is who?” Hermione said once she recovered from the obvious insult to her.

“Don’t play dumb, Hermione Granger, I know you are not.” She said cooly, “Now where is my...”

The door opened behind Hermione then, and she felt Draco step up, interrupting whatever it was Astoria was about to say, “Tori, what do you want?”

“You,” Astoria said without hesitation or surprise.

There was tension in the air between the three of them, and she could feel how rigid Draco stood behind her, hovering as though he needed to protect her from this slight witch. Hermione was fairly certain she could defeat Astoria in a duel if forced to, but she would rather not.

Draco had told her she didn’t need to worry. Astoria was still clinging to the idea of a betrothal between the Greengrasses and Malfoy. He had sworn it would not happen; it existed only in Astoria’s head.

Hermione turned to look at him. His gaze was cold and unforgiving on Astoria, but it softened as it met hers.

“Go get some food, baby,” he said softly. She knew he was dismissing her, that he didn’t want her to hear whatever Astoria was about to say.

She also knew that the pet name was deliberate, meant to assert something to Astoria; otherwise, he rarely used it for her. Hermione fought the urge to roll her eyes and hesitated only briefly before nodding in acquiescence.

She stepped around the angry little witch, and as she walked away, she could hear Draco’s low, angry whispers and Astoria’s cool irritation. She felt that gut feeling again that even though she knew he cared about her. That he wasn’t using her, but it didn’t stop that feeling of unease that lived inside of her.

That someday he would wake up, and realize just who he had confessed loving too.

Chapter Text

Just....I Missed You, You Know

April 2005

He was still angry with her, incredibly angry, really.

It had taken less time to find her this time, like she had wanted to be found. The holes in the wards made his fingers itch to fix them; he found himself smoothing an absent-minded curse through the air.

The home was cottage-style on the outside. A stone path led up to the stairs of the front door. There was a wreath made of fresh tulips that had been charmed to never die hanging on it. The outside was a deep reddish brown brick, with a dark gray, almost back, steeply pitched roof with blue trim to match the door. The chimney puffed out, and Draco thought that the house was like Hermione.

That it was her very essence, resolute and unyielding, softened by unexpected color, and impossible to overlook. And the moment he saw it, he knew that she must love the home already, even without knowing what it looked like on the inside. He knew also, as he tapped into the bond, that this was the house that, if she could, she would live the rest of her days in. The question was did she want to spend it with him.

It wasn’t just the house either. There was a garden off to the side with two large trees and a small greenhouse just beyond it. That was what he decided to approach first on the day of his arrival, after she had left for work.

It wasn’t large, but it held an assortment of herbs, including those used in potions, lined in tidy rows. Fresh shoots of basil, thyme, and sage stretched toward the light, their leaves still delicate with early spring growth. Between them, the sharper green of dittany leaves caught his eye, and he noted wolfsbane tucked carefully in its own corner, contained and watched over.

Other plants pressed for space as well: lavender not yet in bloom, sturdy rosemary, and climbing vines that hinted at summer’s abundance. The air inside the greenhouse was warmer, holding the damp, loamy scent of soil and the faint bite of herbs crushed underfoot.

It was practical, purposeful, and yet softened by an instinct for beauty—small pots of daffodils and violets perched on shelves. Their colors were almost defiant against the pale glass walls. In the short amount of time, she had built something resolute and unyielding yet softened at the edges.

Just like her.

The house itself was two stories, and upon entering, that was a sitting room with two big windows that overlooked the front yard. One wall was all bookcases that were filled with books that must have belonged to the previous tenant. There was a chair with a lamp that hung over it in the shape of a flower, and a stack of books next to it. She had left a plate with an empty tea cup sitting on a small table next to it. On another wall was a stone fireplace, a painting of a farmhouse,  with a small couch in front of it.

There was a quilt that Draco knew immediately had been made by Molly Weasley. Seeing it confirmed his suspicions that she was getting comfortable in this home. The rest of down downstairs was a small dining room with a kitchen and another eat-in nook next to it. A small round wooden table and chairs sat in it with a vase of fresh flowers in the center.  There were stairs in the kitchen leading to the upstairs, which had two bedrooms and one bath.

Draco went into the larger room where there was a bed covered in a down purple blanket, and several pillows. There were more books here, one lying on the bed, a stack on the nightstand, and a few on the floor. An almost empty cup of water was also sitting on the nightstand, and in the corner, there was another chair that had clothes piled up on it.

It smelled like her, the Georgia Peach, along with her soft, familiar feminine scent. He had decided then that he would make her dinner, because she surely had not been eating. He could tell just by looking at her, and he had been looking at her while she worked at The Corner Market.

Which was where he discovered she’d cut off all her hair and had instantly hated it. There were words that he had wanted to use, unkind ones that he felt drifting off his tongue the moment she had walked into the home. But when he turned to look at her, there was a broken expression on her face. Any other time, he would have gotten satisfaction from how small she had looked and possibly would have rubbed it in her face. But instinct told him that this time he needed to keep his fury in check.

But now that she wasn’t lying next to him in bed and her breathing wasn’t syncing with his,  the anger had room to stretch out and simmer. When she wasn’t physically in front of him, that fury sometimes boiled over, eroding everything else he felt.

Perhaps Pansy was right. Maybe he needed to let her go, but no, he couldn’t do that. Hermione was his oxygen. Without her, he couldn’t breathe. Without her, he’d cease to exist. And he wanted to exist, if only for her.

He also knew that if he took his eye off her for one minute, one second, Astoria would pounce. She would put into motion the plan that she so eloquently threatened to do. He couldn’t allow that either. He also stubbornly refused to let Hermione know that Astoria still had a strange obsession with her.

With him.

She’d be awake soon, once she realized he wasn’t in the bed. She always came looking for him, like she thought that he would be the one to disappear after they were together. And the irony was not lost on him that she did. He would never be the one to leave her, though. He would always stay.

He waited in the kitchen for her to come to him, because he knew she needed to eat something. She never cared for herself in the ways that mattered most. She treated basic needs like eating and sleeping as inconvenient. The helplessness he felt from it pressed on his ribs. He slammed a palm against the island because otherwise he would have paced the house raw.

She came down the stairs, her hair properly mussed from the combination of their shagging and of the deep sleep she had been, and had desperately needed. She wore his old Quidditch jersey, which was faded now, and the f in Malfoy was completely gone. She looked beautiful, but she always did, which was sometimes so maddening to the point of cruelty. Like the universe was mocking him by constantly dangling this impossible girl in front of him. Her, with her clever mouth and too-big heart, and making her look like that while wearing his name. It made him ache in ways he couldn’t begin to articulate, because it wasn’t just want. It was want tangled up with guilt and fear, and that sickening hope he’d never been able to kill.

“So that’s where that went,” he drawled, nodding at the jersey as he pushed the plate of Bolognese across the island toward her. He was pretending to be annoyed, but she saw right through him and ignored it altogether.

She looked at the plate of steaming pasta but didn’t sit on the stool placed neatly in front of it.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You need to eat.”

“It’s 2 AM.”

“And you didn’t have dinner, so you need to eat.”

“I had you for dinner.” She almost smiled, but it came out more like a grimace, like the humor she felt about it got lost on its way out.

Draco didn’t laugh. Instead, he kept glaring at her with an unrelenting look. Even as his cock twitched inside the sweatpants he wore, making him want to drag her upstairs for a second round.

“You are angry then,” she sighed, finally lowering herself onto the stool.

“Of course I’m angry,” he snapped, slamming a fork down in front of her. “Why wouldn’t I be? You run from me and pretend like what’s between us doesn’t mean anything until you’re too desperate to stop yourself from wanting me. Me, the fucking Death Eater scum.”

She didn’t deny that he was or had been a Death Eater or scum. She scooted straight past it, which only served to sting him more.

“And yet you fucked me anyway,” she said flatly, her eyes looked empty like she was looking past him. “Even with all that anger in you.”

He smiled at her cruelly, “Why would I deny myself something I want, even if I’m angry?”

“Is that it, then? You just want me for my body? A toy you can play with and break whenever you feel like it?”

Draco’s jaw tightened, and he was quite certain that vein that liked to pop out when he was angry was rearing its ugly head.

“Don’t put words into my mouth, Hermione,” he growled. “You know I fucking love you for more than just your body, and I’ve proved that over and over again.”

“The way you show it sometimes leads me to question any of your feelings.” She said softly, and then looked down at the plate, and then pushed it away stubbornly. “Anyway, as I said, I’m not hungry.”

He loved and hated how stubborn she could be, how defiant she was towards him. Sometimes he thought that maybe he should find someone more submissive, with less fire, but he knew he would grow bored if he did. Of course, that didn’t change the fact that she made him enraged to mildly annoyed all of the time.

“You haven’t eaten all day!” he barked, pushing the plate roughly back toward her. The sauce splashed over the plate and onto the marble island. “And you need to eat.”

She glared at him. “You’re not my mother or father. Stop telling me what to do.”

“If I don’t tell you what to do,” he hissed, leaning over the island, waving a hand to clean the mess perhaps with a little too aggressive of a wave, “you’ll wither away into nothing.”

She pulled back, putting space between them. 

“Perhaps your life would be better if I did just that.” She said it so nonchalantly that rage erupted up out of him like a volcano.

Draco slammed his hands down on the island, the plates jumping from the impact and clattering against the marble. Hermione startled, her body flinching involuntarily at the sound. She was lucky he didn’t fly over the counter and wrap his hands around her neck. Squeeze so tight that she could only try to gasp for air and then lose it all at once. 

Because if anyone would steal the life out of her, take her soul, or suck out her last breath, it would be him. 

And he would do it while he was dying, too. 

“Don’t ever say anything like that again,” he growled, voice low and trembling with barely contained fury. His chest rose and fell in sharp bursts, like he’d just sprinted across a battlefield. “You don’t get to talk like that, not to me, because without you, I’d die right along with you.”

She pushed a harsh breath out of her mouth and pulled her bottom lip aggressively between her teeth. It was an erotic move, but he knew what it really was. It was her trying not to cry in front of him. 

And should he feel sorry for making her feel like that? The selfish part of him told himself no because that was how she made him feel every time she ran from him. 

Fuck her. 

He waited for her to finally speak, do something, do anything. 

She picked up the fork and twirled it in the pasta, and without looking at him, asked, “Any Parmesan Cheese?”

He went to the fridge and pulled the fresh brick out. He wanted to consider it a win, but he didn’t feel like it was. Not when a stray tear slipped down her cheek, and she batted it away quickly. Draco sighed, a heavy, deep sigh, and walked over to her, handing the cheese.

“I mean it,” He said softly as he looked down at her, “The bond is deep, Hermione,”

“I know, and I’m tired of fighting it.”

“So please stop,” He begged.

It was late afternoon, and they were lying in a hammock that Draco had tied up between the two large oak trees on the property near the greenhouse. The weather was just warm enough to make it pleasant outside. Big puffy white clouds drifted through the blue sky, and they both had been imagining different shapes for them.

There was a pond nearby with fish that Crookshanks had found rather fascinating. He was sitting next to it, his tail swishing in that way when he was up to something. His paw swiped the water every so often. Draco was pretty sure the cat was playing with his food before he ate it, like the little serial killer he was.

Hermione had insisted they stay in the home for at least a little one, especially because Draco had nothing pressing to get back to. He didn’t argue, and he wouldn’t because he just wanted to be with her. And if staying in the home meant she would stay with him, then he would do that for her. He would do anything to keep her at this point.

She was curled up next to him, her head on his chest, her hand absentmindedly playing with the hem of his shirt. He had wrapped one of his arms around her, his hand slowly but surely making its way to her hip. He traced slow lines along her side, letting his fingers linger on the soft skin of her hip.

He played with the hem of her cotton shorts, brushing just under them. But unfortunately for Draco, she was no longer the naïve little witch she used to be. His fingers had finally dipped below the hem of her knickers when she asked, “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” He said, feigning innocence. 

“Are you sure about that?”

“I am completely sure.”

His hand dipped lower.

“Draco, you really can’t keep your hands to yourself.” She said, a laugh in her tone, and then softer, “Always touching me.”

He smirked, but she couldn’t see it; her head was still bent looking towards their feet. Every so often, the wind would blow and had been blowing up wisps of her hair, tickling his neck or cheeks. 

And he just… kept touching her. Because when she was quiet and warm like this, still choosing to stay, it felt like the only thing in the world he could believe in. She tapped her fingers on his chest once, twice, three times, and four times. 

I fucking love you.

His breath hitched as he dove his hand just under her shorts. Fingers curling around the warmth of her hip over her cotton knickers. She shook her head, but he knew she was smiling. And he squeezed once, twice, three times, four times, and five times.

I fucking love you too. 

He felt her breathe in deep, her chest pulling away briefly, but the rest of her still molded to him. He wondered if she could hear the steady beat of his heart and how much she controlled the rate of it. How much she controlled all of his nerve functions and the wavelengths of his mind.

 “I’ll never stop wanting to touch you.” He said, possibly so low that he wasn’t sure he wanted her to hear him.

She heard him, anyway, just didn’t understand him. 

“What?”

He squeezed her hip tightly, his fingers pressing on the inside of her thigh, grazing her knickers. How could she say what after his declaration? Does she really not understand the lengths, kilometers, and light-years he would go to be with her? To protect her? He would kill for her, even Astoria if she put one toe out of line.

“You heard what I said.” He growled so low that it was like a wolf making its claim. 

She didn’t freeze, instead she moved so that she was looking at his face, eyes searching his looking for a hidden treasure. She shook just a little as she rested her weight on her elbow, and he squeezed her tighter.  

“Draco..” 

He reached his free hand and clutched her cheek, his thumb brushing her lip. 

Her eyes fluttered shut as he started to move it down the rest of her body. He did it slowly, almost reverently.

“I’ll never stop wanting to touch you, Hermione. I’ll never stop gliding my fingers across the soft expanse of your skin, and even the parts of you that you hate. I’ll never stop wanting to explore paths and divots of your curves.” He moved up just enough to lick the spot behind her ear that made her quake underneath him, “I’ll never stop tasting every single part of you with my tongue, the saltiness and sweetness of it. Your mouth, I fucking love your mouth and the warm heat of it.” He smirked, a wolfish grin all teeth, “All of the warm heat of the places that belong to you.”  

He shifted so that he could reach her mouth, wanting desperately to connect himself to her. She mewled as his lips found purchase with hers, and his hand dipped down and felt the heavy movement of her chest. Five fingers pressing into the place just above the swell of her breast before drifting down, her nipple reacting to his soft touch through her thin t-shirt.

His cock decided then to enter the scene, growing hard up against her.

“I’ll never stop desperately wanting to affect this heart, making it beat so hard that you hear it in your ears while I push inside of you, whether it’s slow or fast and relentless.” He whispered into her mouth before diving his tongue into hers.

The hand inside of her shorts shifted her knickers, and he pushed two fingers deep inside of her. She gasped as her back arched, and her eyelids fluttered, and it was beautiful. She was divine and lovely and sinful, and every single word that described her as perfect in the dictionary.

“Should I stop?” He growled as he crooked the fingers up, finding the spot that made her scream out his name when she unraveled. He didn’t know why he asked her that. He knew she would say no.

“No..o” she stuttered, and her hand wrapped around his forearm, gripping it tight, “don’t stop”

It came out as a hiss or a gasp while he moved his fingers within her, and his thumb circled her clit slowly. Her breathing had turned erratic, and he paced himself based on how hard she was squeezing his arm.  

Draco watched her face. The way she lost herself in the sensations of his hands, his words, and his mouth. His heart. She let herself go with him in a way that she never let go with anyone else. It made him special, made him mean more than anyone else in her world. She had been lost in her head, and he just wanted to help her find release.

Release in him. 

No one else, never anyone else.

Her grip on his arm tightened so harshly that her fingernails dug into the skin of it as her cunt finally clenched and pulsed greedily around his fingers. He worked them against her softly. Riding the orgasm out until the grip on his arm loosened, and her eyes fluttered open. Blown wide with lust, and something else, another emotion that he only understood because of the bond they had between them.

He pulled his fingers out and stuck them into his mouth. Licking and tasting them clean before kissing her hard. His tongue was diving in and making sure she knew exactly how and what he was thinking in the moment.

“I wish you weren’t so stubborn all the time.” He muttered softly to her.

Her eyes fluttered shut, and pain lanced across her face. 

“I know.”  

 May 2005

Neville Longbottom owned a shop in Hogsmeade called Mimbulus & More. It was closer to the Hogshead than the Three Broomsticks. It was part apothecary, and part greenhouse. He sold premade potions, potion ingredients, and rare and common Muggle/Wizarding gardening seeds. If you were lucky to know him on a deeper level and he trusted you, there was also a whole room of contraband products. It was just at the end of Hogsmeade just near a brush of dark and twisty trees. The outside, though, was friendly and welcoming. It was all glass panes with a deep brown colored wood.  Ivy twisted around the door itself, which was made of stained glass in the design of the Womping Willow. There was a tiny Crookshanks at the knob of the tree, paw pressing into it, and every time Draco saw it, he scowled at it.

Draco ushered Hermione in through the door, his hand on the small of her back. Once inside, Hermione stopped and took in the store like she always did. Like she had never stepped foot in it it which was not true. She had been in it many times, and Draco honestly loved the look of awe on her face as she did it. It also made him feel things that he didn’t want to define because he was never reasonable when it came to her.

It was humid in front of the store, almost like a rain forest, and was crowded with trees and plants that required that environment. Intermittent raindrops were falling, sticking to his clothes and skin almost like a sticky glue. Looking further into the store, it seemed to go on forever, and it was in sections based on what each plant needed. Skylights were built in at the top for the plants to get sun.

The scent was a cacophony of greenery, potions brewing, and something no one could ever put their finger on. 

And just like every time they went into the store, it brought a soft smile to Hermione’s face. 

He felt jealous like he always did.....of fucking plants. 

Because he wasn’t reasonable.

He felt even more jealous of Neville Longbottom, whom she beamed at when he stepped through a door at the side. He beamed back, and Draco’s fingers itched to hex him. The urge to do it roared up out of him even worse as she ran to him and jumped straight into his arms. He twirled themselves around, and she laughed, a twinkling sort of laugh. Draco watched Longbottom’s hands start to drift down her body into dangerous territory—her hips and bum.

“Keep those hands to yourself, Longbottom, if you want to avoid losing them,” Draco muttered.

“Oh, I see you brought your possessive lion with you.” He grinned down at Hermione, who laughed.

“Shh, don’t let the snake in him hear you say that.” 

Draco scowled...deeply. 

He instantly regretted bringing her there, “Hermione.” He growled, one foot in front of him.

She rolled her eyes, and he wanted to throttle her.... politely because they had company. Or rather were with company that he did not care about.

“Watch the fucking attitude,” He snapped anyway, like Longbottom wasn’t in the same room as them.

He couldn’t help it because sometimes that’s what happened. A point grew into a zero point, and that was always just them together. Everything else fell away, and it was like they stood together on a fine line that threatened to toss one of them over.

If it were her, he would catch her. If it were him, he would make her fall with him, and he’d still catch her. Drag her down into the depths below. He had to rely only on her to bring them back to the surface.

It wasn’t fair.

She walked back to him and stood up on her tiptoes, stretching her body impossibly high. Her breasts pressed into the hard lines of his muscular chest so harshly that it rocked him back just a little bit. He gripped her hips with his hands, fingers digging into the skin underneath her purple jumper, but it didn’t stop her lips pressing lightly on his collarbone, the edge of his jawbone, and then her lips brushed across his earlobe, and she nipped it lightly.

His cock jumped in his trousers, and her hand lightly pressed into it. She squeezed briefly, and it was enough to pull a very small but not at all subtle groan from him. Enough to want to drag her straight back out of the store and take her up against a wall behind it.

“My attitude is just fine,” She whispered into his ear.

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her hips into him so that she felt him against her lower stomach, even if he wasn’t completely hard at that very moment.

“You’re asking for it,” He grunted.

He would punish her later.

“Stop?” He could hear the subtle lilt in her voice this time.

To appease her, he brushed his hands up her curves and then cupped her cheeks. He looked over her at Longbottom, who looked at them curiously, and he kissed Hermione softly.

No tongue, just soft lips intertwining with each other. Locking between each other and one brush across her cheek until he reached the small spot on her neck that made her stretch and beg him to mark her. He gently pushed his teeth in and sucked and marked her, before soothing it with his tongue. His gaze landed hard on the Wizard behind them as he did it. He knew he was being ridiculous, but the possessive side of him couldn’t stop himself.

“Mine,” He whispered darkly, so only she could hear.

She nodded her head, pushing into his shoulder, “Yours.”

And that soothed him just enough.

Neville didn’t blink, his face blank as he watched them, but he smiled again once Hermione turned back to him.

“Shall we?” He asked, waving his hand towards the back of the shop.

Hermione followed Neville toward the back of the shop, her hips swaying just enough to make Draco grit his teeth. He watched her go, arms crossed tightly over his chest, every muscle tensed like a coiled spring.

She looked over her shoulder once, her curls catching the light from the skylight window, and grinned at him.

It was only for him. He knew that.

And still, the urge to drag her back to his side pulsed through him like a second heartbeat.

He took a deep breath in and followed them closely, but not too closely. He wanted to give her the illusion that she had some independence, when in reality, he was practically breathing down her neck.

“I have something saved just for you, it’s called a Lunaria Noctis, it blooms at night during a full moon.” Longbottom stepped through fronds of plants that brushed across him and Hermione, like they were trying to reach out to them. On a shelf just beyond it sat a plant that had silver petals that gleamed like moonlight. It was potted in a clay pot that had been painted like a night sky.

“Oh, Neville,” She breathed out, and Draco clenched his fists. She picked up the pot and beamed up at Longbottom again, a big, beautiful smile that was bright and unguarded. It twisted in Draco’s gut like a knife, the jealousy he felt that she was glowing for someone else. It was as if, for a brief moment, the weight of everything she had been feeling was lifted for just that moment.

And yet she gave it to him. To bloody Neville Longbottom.

That smile should have belonged to Draco, him, the only one who saw all the broken pieces she hid beneath.

But instead, she was blatantly sharing it with another.

And he swallowed down the rage and the ache, knowing better than to shatter the fragile moment, even as it tore him apart from the inside.

She turned to look at him, Draco, and the smile faltered just briefly before he saw her take in a deep breath.

“Ready to go?” She asked.

“I was ready thirty minutes ago.”

She didn’t roll her eyes this time; instead, she took the potted flower and walked over to him. Reaching for his hand, she squeezed it four times.

He didn’t deserve her.

They were strolling by the Hogshead after leaving Neville’s shop, and the door pushed open. It smelled of salty beef, beer, and sweat. Draco’s nose scrunched up, but he stopped for some reason. He didn’t know why, but there was something that called to his attention.

A presence he did not like.

He felt his foot start to move towards it, the door that was swinging shut, but then he felt Hermione’s soft hand wrap around his own, pulling him back. He turned to look at her, but she said nothing. Instead, she was searching his face for some kind of answer, her brow furrowed.

“Why do you want to go in there?” She asked.

“I don’t.”

She arched an eyebrow, “You were just stepping towards it.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Draco.”

“I’m just hungry, let’s go to the Three Broomsticks.”

She nodded and then moved forward, still holding his hand. The door opened again behind them, and when Draco looked back, someone was leaving. A man with a familiar gait, smoke curling out of his mouth from a cigarette he had held to his mouth. It sent a ripple through his chest that wasn’t fear, but something colder, and heavier. It was unease, and a little bit of anger, curling sharp at the edges of his ribs.

And it didn’t make sense, but still, he instantly knew that he did not trust the man at all. Especially when he turned to look at Draco over his shoulder, and there was not necessarily a smile on his face. Something colder than that, like recognition sharpened into disdain, or the satisfaction of someone already a step ahead.

Draco tugged at Hermione then, pulling her closer to him and quickening their steps. The shadows held secrets, but sometimes the secrets were in broad daylight and he trusted none of it. Least of all wizards that left a sour feeling in his stomach.

Chapter Text

His Unbearable Draco Malfoy-ness.

April 2005 

 “I wish you weren’t so stubborn all the time.”

She closed her eyes, like she could press the feeling down. But it was impossible. His possessiveness, his brutal kind of love, his unbearable Draco Malfoyness—it all felt like the dull ache of a knife wound that refused to heal. Pulsing like her heartbeat was currently doing. He had just said so many words of love and affirmation with an undercurrent of something else. Maybe it was the way he had touched her, or the way he could undo her so easily. But it felt like he was telling her that he didn’t just have her, but he owned her in every way possible.  

“I know.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do if you run from me one more time.” He muttered under his breath.

“I’ll try not to,”

His arms tightened around her, and she felt a tension just beneath the surface.

“I wont run.” She said words to placate him. Besides, she knew she didn’t want to leave him right now. His arms relaxed, and she snuggled in closer, breathing him in. She relished the feel of the hard plains of his chest pressed against her and let her hand drift downward, settling on the button of his trousers. She played with it lazily, and he grunted in response.

He was already hard from getting her off, which made her next move easier.

She popped the button, and he muttered under his breath, “Brazen little minx.”

“It’s not brazen when it’s just reciprocation,” she said. “Besides, shouldn’t I be making some major declaration like you just did?”

“That’s not why I did that.”

“I know.”

Her hand slipped into his trousers, under his pants, gripping him while running her thumb across the tip. She dragged her hand down his shaft, and he groaned, deep and low. The sound vibrated through his chest and spilled out across the crown of her head.

“I’m not going to forget what you originally just said,” he grumbled.

She stroked him slowly and softly, dragging it out. His hips twitched, a whiny hiss escaping him.

Draco liked it anyway, but rough and hard was his preferred way. Because even when he was soft and gentle, there was still a harsh tension under it. A need to claim her. She encouraged it sometimes, but other times she stayed present in the slow, steady pace of him. He wanted her to be firmer right now, to grip him as she stroked up and down. She could tell by the way his hand was flexing harshly on her hip. But she wouldn’t, because sometimes he needed to know that she could be in control of the situation just as much. 

 “I love the way you touch me. The way your hands move like you’re worshipping me. But I like how you look at me even more, like I’m the only one you will ever want to look at.”

She touched him not only because she wanted to, desperately, but because she needed to remind him he was still loved. Even when he couldn’t believe it himself. She stroked him again, and he let out another soft moan, nonsense falling out along with it. His hips jerked up into her hand again, and his arms held her just a little tighter, fighting the urge to take over. 

“But I love touching you too,” she whispered, voice dark and low. “How just a stroke of my hand makes you quake underneath me.”

She tightened her grip suddenly and turned her face up toward him. He smirked, lashes fluttering, and she could hear the words balanced on the tip of his tongue.

He was holding back.

“Say it,” she growled playfully, increasing her pace.

“Good girl,” he grunted, growing even harder in her palm. His hand slid up along her side, slipping under her shirt, pressing fingers into her skin. He came hard, gasping as he pulsed into her hand, and she held him until the tremors faded. 

“Going to keep being a complete twat?” she asked, grinning wickedly as she pulled her hand out of his trousers. 

He vanished the mess with a flick of his hand and then flipped them in an instant, letting out a playful growl. The hammock gave way with a loud snap and dumped them both onto the grass. She shrieked, but laughter spilled out of her in the next breath as he pressed her into the soft, dewy ground. His fingers tickled her sides, and then he kissed her, softly at first, then hard. Almost as if he were afraid she might vanish beneath him.

May 2005

The Greenhouse door was open.

She didn’t remember leaving it open, but then Crookshanks wandered out, and she chalked it up to him somehow opening it. Perhaps he grew opposable thumbs while they were gone. She knew that maybe she should be more worried about it, based on happenings from the past, but she didn’t want to worry Draco.

She set the potted plant down that Neville had given her and was messing with the leaves when Draco stepped up next to her. He was close enough that she could feel the heat of his body, his magic giving a faint hum off of him.

“Have you fucked Longbottom?”

The question startled her so much that all she could say was “What?”

But was she surprised by the question? No, she wasn’t, especially with how weird Draco had been acting ever since they had walked by the Hogshead. Even during their lunch, he was distracted, his brow perpetually furrowed. She was almost positive that he was one step away from occluding, but he didn’t do it.

She stood up, turning to look at him, her angling towards his face.

“You smiled at him like you have,”

Anger coursed through her. She couldn’t believe he was accusing her of something like that.

“No, he’s just a good friend, and that’s all he’s ever been.” 

“So he wasn’t one of your dirty alley fucks?” 

Hermione felt heat rise across her skin, her cheeks growing red, and suddenly felt like she needed to put space between them. She moved back, but he just moved with her until she felt her back run into the glass of the greenhouse.  

“No, that was just once,” she snapped, a bitter laugh catching in her throat. Her eyes narrowed. “And Merlin knows you took care of him, didn’t you?” 

It wasn’t like she thought he didn’t know about it, but she didn’t like to think about it herself. She hadn’t been in her right mind when it happened. It didn’t feel right either, like she was violating the bond, not enough to break it, but enough to bruise it.

She stopped looking at him. Moving her chin down so he couldn’t see her face, and the guilt that was breaking across it. She hated that she still felt guilty. Hated even more that he knew she would. It wasn’t like they were together when it happened, and she didn’t cheat on him. At least that’s what she tried to tell herself. It was easy to convince herself that they were just on a break at the time, but she knew Draco didn’t see it that way. He went out of his way to make her feel like there had never been a time that they weren’t together, ever since they crashed into each other.

Because they had done just that.

And she knew that he hadn’t held out for her when they weren’t together. She’d seen him in the papers with women hanging on him. His eyes glassy, but he had that smirk that she knew well as he looked at them.

The double standard was not lost on her. 

“He begged like the pathetic little muggle that he was before I hexed him and mangled his cock.” Draco said, his hands going up and caging her in. His voice went deeper than she could imagine, and even though the words he was saying were terrible, it did something to her body anyway. “Poor Smith wasn’t meant long for this world, because I snuffed him out altogether after that. He’d still be alive if you hadn’t let him fuck you.”

“Stop!” Hermione barked out, her own came up and smacked him hard in the chest. She couldn’t control the emotions from leaving her. She couldn’t stop them from turning into tears that spilled out across her lash line. 

He put his hands on her chin, cupping them so that his thumbs could brush the tears away. I didn’t feel right with how gentle he suddenly was being. The way his eyes were looking at her was too soft for the words he’d just spoken to her.

“You’re pretty when you cry,” He said quietly as his thumb moved and brushed across her bottom lip, gently tugging at it.

Her breath hitched harshly in her chest. 

“Is that why you make me do it so often?”

He scowled and dropped his hands so fast that she wondered if her skin had burned him. He stepped back. Putting the space between them that Hermione had been trying to get. There was a war going on inside of him. She could see it in the brief way his eyes flashed and how thin his mouth was pressed. 

“Do I make you cry often?” He asked, his tone unreadable. 

“Please don’t pretend that you’re surprised by that”.  She scoffed. 

“I just don’t like hearing it.” 

“Well, too bad, Draco!” 

Her voice cracked as she shouted it, echoing through the garden with an ugly finality. She hadn’t meant to scream. She hadn’t meant to let it break through her throat like that, but it had been building. For hours. For days. For years, maybe.

She was the volcano always on the edge of erupting, and he was the tornado that blew in, causing devastation in his wake. Together, they were a volatile mix. 

Draco didn’t move or even flinch, but she could see the tightening of his jaw. And the twitch at the corner of his mouth like he was biting back something cruel. Something that would shatter them both.

“I’m not made of stone, you know,” she snapped before he could say anything more. “I can’t keep doing this, being dissected by your moods, your jealousy, your ridiculous possessiveness like I’m a possession that belongs to you.”

“You do belong to me,” he said it so quietly, so brokenly, that it made her chest twist. “You said so yourself, earlier today.”

It was true. She had, and she felt it, but still the thought suffocated her. Why did everything that was quintessentially them make her feel so deeply? So harshly? 

So much? 

“I am yours…but I’m not a toy for you to control. I’m a person with thoughts and feelings, and when I said that I was yours, that was also me asking you to please trust me.”

“How the fuck do you expect me to trust you when you’re always one step away from slipping through my fingers?” He shouted at her, anger and pain in equal measure in his tone. His magic crackled around him and squeezed his hands tight in an effort to control it.

She swallowed hard because he wasn’t wrong. Her shoulders drooped suddenly, as exhaustion set in. She didn’t want to fight with him; she never did, but they always found themselves doing just that. She didn’t want to run from him anymore, either. She wanted to stay, by he was making it so hard for her to do it. 

Still, she would give him this moment of peace.

“You’re right.” 

He started to yell again, not quite hearing what she said, or perhaps he expected her to deny it. “I’m... wait, did you just say I was right?”

He looked dumbfounded.

Bewildered. 

It was such an unbearable Draco Malfoy reaction. Equal parts affronted, confused, and utterly sincere that she couldn’t help but smile. 

June 2005

Pansy insisted on throwing a party for Draco’s birthday at Grimmauld Place.

He didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want to go to it, and he did not care about his birthday. He did not care to celebrate it. Well, that wasn’t true. He had told Hermione that he wanted to celebrate it by not leaving the bed and fucking her until she could no longer walk. Perhaps some of it would involve him eating strawberries and whipped cream off her body like that scene from Varsity Blues that was quite keen on playing out with her.

Hermione begged him to go anyway.

“Do it for Pansy, you’re oldest friend at least.”

“My oldest friend is Theo.”

“Semantics.”

He went for her, and not Pansy, which she had to take as a win, didn’t she?

She did, but she didn’t

Harry connected their summer home to Grimmauld’s Floo. They had it until the end of August, and besides a few setbacks, it had still been a good summer. One that she wrote about almost daily in her journal. She put in all of the little things they had done that had brought her happiness. 

Brought them happiness. 

Things like the day they went to the farmers market, where they bought a wicker basket full of tomatoes, corn on the cob, cucumbers, lettuce, green onions, and carrots. Draco had also gotten strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries, and Hermione had made salads and jams with everything. He got her sunflowers and peonies, which were second to her favorite flower, the tulip was her first.

They had procured a Muggle grill, and Draco had learned how to use it the Muggle way with charcoal and then learned how to do it the wizard way. He had made hamburgers with fresh tomatoes and lettuce, or grilled chicken, and she made a variety of salads.

They spent the afternoons being lazy in the hammock or going down by the local lake, where they swam lazily around in it, ran around in the rain, or spent their mornings enjoying each other in their bed. 

Of course, they tended to enjoy each other no matter where they were.

Only he had ever made her body sing in the way it did. Made her feel loved the way she felt she deserved. It was coming to an end, though. She knew that they had to return to life, return to the Manor, which gave her anxiety if she were being honest

They stepped out of the Floo into Grimmauld Place, which was open for the guests that had been invited that night. Draco hesitated, gripping her hand and holding her back.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know.” He said with a frown.

She pulled him gently, even though he still had that look on his face. The one that said he wanted to turn around and go back home, dragging her with him. She let it go as they moved into the house that always felt like home the moment she stepped into it.

“Ah, so grumpy Draco is who we get to enjoy tonight.” Pansy deadpanned as she came around the corner. “Only you could manage to look this tragic on your birthday when everyone else is celebrating you.”

Draco scowled, and for some reason, it amused Hermione, so she giggled

Pansy raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised at Hermione’s reaction. “You’re in a good mood,” she said, folding her arms.

“I’m trying,” Hermione replied, slipping her hand back into Draco’s. “It’s a nice night.”

Draco made a quiet, unimpressed noise in his throat.

Pansy smirked. “Draco, try not to commit murder tonight when this is all for you.”

“Funny, the only thing I remember asking for was to be woken up with Hermione’s mouth on....”  Draco drawled.

Hermione smacked him hard on the chest at the same time Pansy pointed her wand at him.

“Nope, I can’t let you finish that, Draco, absolutely not,” Pansy said as she cast a stinging hex at his forehead.

“Fuck, that hurt!” Draco grumbled as he rubbed his forehead and chest.

Pansy rolled her eyes as she started moving towards the sitting room. “It barely stung. Don’t be such a baby,”

They followed her closely behind, Draco still grumbling about bloody witches, and rubbing his head into a warm, lit room. Hermione patted his shoulder to soothe him, but she suspected he was being a little dramatic.

Pansy said in a normal voice, though later Draco would insist she had shouted it, “The man of the hour has arrived.”

She felt Draco pause; his hand gripped the back of her shirt. She could tell he was thinking about escaping, dragging her back through the floo. In her mind, she could hear him saying, “There’s still time for that whipped cream bikini situation, Hermione.”

She moved her hand behind her, pulling his hand into hers, fingers threading, and she squeezed in comfort as she rocked back into him. He let her do it, and then snaked his arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him. His chest moved as he breathed in deep, and she knew he was using her to ground himself.

Turn off whatever panic was moving through him, and she wouldn’t lie to herself. She loved being his anchor.

“Happy Birthday,” Everyone said, a haphazard symphony of a few people that Hermione knew loved him, but there were others that were indifferent to him. They were there for Ron, Harry, her, and probably an excuse to gorge on food and drink too much alcohol.

 Draco knew it too.

He muttered it so low that only she could hear. It made her want to turn around and pinch him in the way he did to her when she was being unreasonable. She didn’t do that; instead, she turned and pressed in close to him. Standing on the tips of her shoes, she whispered into his ear, “Behave and try to enjoy this, and then when we get home, you can do what you want with me.”

His irises grew dark, and his grip on her hips squeezed so hard that she knew it would be bruised in the morning.

“Promise,” The timber of his voice was so low that it went straight to her core. She almost thought about dragging him back and letting him do what he wanted right then.

“Pinky promise.”

“What?”

“It’s a Muggle thing, never mind, but it’s as good as binding.”

He pinched her side, and she scowled at him more because she wanted to do the pinching.

He smirked because he knew it.

“Merlin, I’m so glad you’re here. I have so much to tell you.” Ginny said from behind them, already grabbing Hermione’s arm and pulling her away. “Sorry, Ferret, but I must steal your other half so that I may gossip about Weasley things.”

Draco grimaced, “I’ll just make myself busy by finding some Firewhiskey to make this whole night more tolerable.

Ginny pulled Hermione into the kitchen towards a table laden with cheeses, meats, fruits, and bread-type things. A plate floated up immediately as they approached it, and Ginny started piling it with food that Hermione could only assume was for Theo. It was then that she noticed the large rock on Ginny’s left hand.

“Ginny!” Hermione shrieked out or squealed out, depending on who you asked. She grabbed Ginny’s hand, yanking her towards her.

“I told you I had a lot to tell you!” She was practically beaming, and Hermione felt genuine happiness for her friend.

“It’s huge, Gin, I’m surprised you can even lift your hand with this rock weighing it down,”

“We’re witches, Hermione. It has a feather-light charm on it. “Ginny quipped back with a cheeky grin.

“Oh, of course, how silly of me.” Hermione shook her head, “Any other gossipy things I’m behind on?”

“Well, Ron is dating Katie Bell.”

“He broke up with Padma?!”

“That was ages ago, Hermione, but they’re still good friends.”

“I haven’t been out of the loop that long.”

Ginny arched an eyebrow at her, and then they started walking back into the sitting room. She floated the plate out in front of her and sent it to Theo, who sat on a chair talking with Charlie Weasley. His hand reached out and caught it without even looking at it.

 “What, no mini hot dogs wrapped in some sort of bread?” Theo called out to her. “What kind of party is this?”

Ginny rolled her eyes and deadpanned, “A British one, darling, we’re not in America anymore.”

Theo arched a brow, plucking a bit of bread off the plate. “Right, well, it’s a sorry state of affairs when a man can’t even get a sausage roll at a birthday party.”

“He does keep my life interesting.” Ginny said with a fond smile and then looped her arm through Hermione’s and nodded towards the floo where Parvati and a tall man had just stepped through, “Oh look, Parvati is here with her new beau, John.”

“New beau, what is this, a regency film?” She asked as she watched the man brush the soot off Parvati while smiling a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Hermione swallowed hard as a feeling of apprehension about him, a vibe that was there before she even heard him talk.

John looked up, his gaze sweeping the room before stopping on Draco’s turned back. For a heartbeat, there was something cruel in his eyes, something that looked like vengeance. Then it was gone, and Hermione told herself she must have imagined it. That was imagining the wrong vibe he was giving off, too.

“You must introduce us to your friend here,” Ginny said a little too dramatically as they came upon the couple.

“Oh, hello, Ginny, Hermione! This is John,” Parvati said, beaming up at him. He was attractive in that unconventional way, with dark, wavy hair and hypnotic green eyes like Harry’s. Pavarti put her hand on his shoulder, and he smiled down at her, “We met while I was doing interviews with the Chudley Canons. He's a reporter for the Dublin wizarding Newspaper, The Emerald Herald. John, this is Hermione and Ginny.”

John’s eyes lingered on her longer than they should have, drifting down her body, though she was the only one who noticed. The feeling of wrongness returned, but she told herself it wasn’t the first time someone had looked at her like that—it was nothing.

It had to be nothing.

“Hello,” he said, his Irish lilt soft but deliberate. He held out his hand for Hermione to shake. She hesitated long enough for Draco to sidle up beside her, taking her hand before she could shake John’s. He stood close, taking her hand instead. She almost rolled her eyes, but when she looked up, she saw something in his expression that went beyond jealousy. It was something else entirely, a protective glare. And in that instant, Hermione wondered if perhaps she hadn’t been imagining the unease John was presenting.

“I’m Draco, Hermione’s boyfriend.” He said with a challenge in his voice, emphasis on boyfriend.

John smirked and took his hand, “Nice to meet you, I’m John.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.” Draco said sarcastically, and then looked down at Hermione, “Shouldn’t we go mingle with the rest of the crowd, Love?”

Love? He never called her that.

And she knew he was not asking her if she would like to mingle but telling her they would be mingling now.

“It was nice meeting you.” She said as Draco dragged her away.

“That was rude.” She hissed at him once they were out of hearing range of the others.

“I didn’t like the way he was looking at you.”

“You’re imagining things!” she snapped, aware of the hypocrisy but desperate to keep this from exploding in front of everyone.

“I’m not!” Draco spun toward her, eyes sharp enough to cut. “He was staring at you like he could sink into you, like you were nothing more than something to consume. No one, and I mean no one, gets to look at you like that but me!”

“Oh, so now you don’t trust me to handle it?” she shot back, voice rising.

“No!” he snapped, voice sharp and trembling with controlled fury. He took a step closer, jaw tight, fists clenched so hard his knuckles whitened. “It’s not about trust! It’s about the fact that you’re mine, and he doesn’t get to strip you bare with his eyes. Only I can look at you like that.”

She froze for a heartbeat, frustration and something heavier tightening in her chest. Then she let out a long, sharp sigh. “Come on,” she muttered, turning sharply.

She led him outdoors, the cold air doing little to cool the fire between them. A few people lingered in the backyard, so she guided him to the shadowed spot behind the gazebo, near the wall shared with the Muggle home next door. With a flick of her wand, she tossed a silencing charm over the area, then a notice-me-not charm.

She wasn’t sure what she was doing, only that she had to do something—something to tether him back to her. To cut through the cold, hard thing that had settled in his eyes before they even arrived at the party. And the best way to reach Draco had always been with physical touch.

So she pressed him against the wall, feeling the taut heat of his body. “Hermione…”

“Shut up,” she snapped, her voice low and unsteady, already yanking at the button of his trousers.

His back hit the wall with a soft thud, and he exhaled hard. Gripping her hand, he said, “You don’t have to prove..”

She smacked his hand away before he could finish and yanked down his trousers.

“I said shut up.”

And then her mouth was on him because maybe this was the only language they both understood. The only way to shut out the noise in their heads. The only place they knew how to meet.

She licked and stroked him until he was hard, unforgiving, and slick with want. Then she took him deep, her mouth hot and unrelenting as she let him hit the back of her throat. She gagged, her throat constricting around him, but she didn’t stop. Her fingers dug into his thigh possessively.

He groaned, the sound low and gravely, broken and soft all at once. His hand found her hair, not to control her rhythm, but to steady himself. His fingers trembled as they threaded through her soft curls, and he began to move his hips with some hesitation, like he didn’t want to use her, even though she was clearly asking him to.

“Hermione,” he whispered again, barely more than a breath, his voice cracked with restraint.

But she didn’t stop. She pulled her mouth up to the tip, her tongue circling him slowly, deliberately, teasing him until he twitched against her.

That was when instinct overtook hesitation. He thrust forward hard, burying himself back into her mouth in one sharp motion. She hummed around him in appreciation, her throat vibrating with pleasure, and not protest as the scent of him filled up her senses. Cedarwood, citrus, and sweat that was all uniquely him.

He did it several more times and then came with a gasp. His hips jerking as a curse spilled from his lips, his release hot against the back of her throat. She took it all, swallowing without pause, and pulled off him with a slow, wet drag of her mouth. She kept herself open as she looked at him, trying to convey everything she felt in that moment.

“Better?” She asked.

He pulled her up so fast she nearly stumbled, and then he was holding her, wrapping his arms around her like he needed her to keep breathing. His nose pressed into her hair, “Yeah,” he murmured. “Better.”

He was lying, she knew that much, but when he squeezed her hand four times, she let it go. 

Hermione liked organizing the store on nights that were slow. She had started doing it in her first week of employment. Ms. Jennings said nothing about it, so she continued, tackling different sections at a time.

She was in the produce section now, staring at the apple display she had just finished.

She liked how the greens, yellows, several shades of red, and the golden blush of Honeycrisp apples looked next to each other. There was a charm in place so there wouldn’t be any stray apples rolling off and getting bruised on the floor.

The bell above the glass door to the entrance of the Market jingled, alerting her that someone had come in. She turned to say hello but found no one there. The entryway stood empty, the glass door already still. It shouldn’t have unsettled her, but it did. Perhaps they had slipped into an aisle before she looked up, but the hair on the back of her neck prickled all the same, and her mouth went suddenly dry.

She wondered briefly if she should send a patronus or tap into the bond with Draco, but she decided that maybe she was overreacting. Something she had seemed to be doing regularly as of late. But she had felt safe there from the beginning, and Draco being close by made her feel even safer. She shook her head, trying to shake off the feeling.

She started toward the front, one foot just lifting from the floor—when a sudden crash shattered the quiet. A moment later came the rapid thump-thump-thump of apples scattering across the polished floor. One came rolling under her foot just as she put it back down, and it stopped right in front of her.

Hermione could not decide then whether she would burst into tears after all that hard work or scream out in a rage. Both would be ridiculous, as she was a witch, and this was a Wizarding Market. Which meant she was capable of fixing the mess fairly quickly. Still, she clenched her fingers and took in a deep breath before turning around to take in the mess.

“Oops.” A small voice piped up, startling Hermione so much that she jumped. Her heart lurched into her throat, and she spun toward the sound, wand half-raised before she even realized she’d moved.

A little girl stood beside the fallen apples, staring at her with eyes so blue they made Hermione think, absurdly, of Ron’s and then beyond even his. Her blonde hair was pulled into two neat French braids, and she wore ripped jeans and a long-sleeved shirt with a cartoon cat across the front. The ensemble and the fact that she was a child suggested innocence.

But the strange, too-knowing smile on her face did not.

Hermione narrowed her eyes at the girl.

“Oops?” Hermione asked, her eyebrow raised and not at all amused.

“I truly am sorry.” The girl said, her eyes getting even bigger like a dog begging for forgiveness, “I would fix it myself, but you see, I’m not old enough to have a wand yet.”

“I put a charm on them so that they would not do...” Then she waved her hand around the mess, “that...”

The girl’s nose scrunched up, “You must not be very good at charms.”

Clearly outraged, Hermione retorted, channeling her inner swot, “I’ll have you know I AM excellent at Charms.”

She was halfway to raising her chin, nose up in the air, when it struck her that, despite the way the girl spoke, and the way she was holding herself like she was a miniature adult, she was not one. She was a child, and Hermione was standing in the middle of the Market, arguing with her.

“I’ve been watching you,” the little girl said, tilting her head with that strange smile, “and you are a decidedly mediocre witch. I don’t know what Draco sees in you.”

Hermione took a step back as if she had been slapped. Heat rushed to her face, but beneath it was something colder. The wrongness of this conversation twisted in her stomach.

“How do you know Draco’s name?” She demanded, a fierce, irrational protectiveness over him overriding everything.

“Please.” The girl rolled her eyes. “He’s got that white hair that screams Malfoy, and everyone knows who the Malfoys are, even here in Scotland.”

The words rang false in Hermione’s ears, like the girl was used to coming up with lies on the spot. Hermione looked closer at her, at the way she stood; her posture was impeccable. Her nails were clean and polished, each one perfectly even. Her shoes were scuffed in none of the places a child’s normally would be, and her clothes, though extremely casual, sat on her frame as if tailored just for her. She wondered if even the tear in the knee was purposeful and not from playing outdoors all day.

Something about the deliberate way she held herself made Hermione’s unease curl tighter in her stomach. This was not an ordinary child, if she was a child at all.

The wariness of the entire situation was starting to exhaust her. She still had to pick up the mess of apples, remove any bruised ones, and work another hour. Her guard was down, and before she realized it, Draco was forcing his way into her. She had opened the bond without meaning to. He was searching for something, probing carefully, but urgently, like he could feel her unease radiating before she even spoke it.

Hermione’s chest tightened as she felt the intrusion, a mix of comfort and frustration twisting inside her. She wanted to pull back, to push him away, but part of her clung to the warmth of his presence. Even in the midst of the apples and the strange little girl, even while her nerves were frayed, she could feel him there, steady and insistent, and it both grounded and unnerved her.

“You don’t look well, Hermione. Maybe you should sit.” The smile was gone, and something evil was replaced in her eyes.

“How do you know my real...”

The last word of Hermione’s sentence was cut off by a loud crack of Apparation.

Black smoke plumed out, and then revealed Draco.

“Oops, I’ve stayed too long.” The girl said as Draco’s eyes landed upon her, his eyes grew cold. Fury blazing off of him as he stalked towards the girl who disapparated a moment later. He whirled around, no Hermione. The anger coming off of him was so palpable that she could feel it on her skin, and it made her flinch back.

“If you insist on working here, you will no longer be doing it alone.”

“You can’t sit here while I work, Draco.” Hermione snapped, even though she was shaking from whatever it was that had just happened.

“I can.” He stormed over to her, his face bent toward hers, their noses almost touching. The heat radiating off him pressed against her chest, making her pulse skip. “And I will.”

“Who was that?” She asked, brushing off his possessive tendencies.

“I thought you were the brightest witch of our age, Hermione,” he said sarcastically. “That was Astoria.”

Despite her sinking stomach, Hermione was angrier than scared. Her hands curled into fists at her sides, nails pressing into her palms. “I KNEW she had knocked over the apples, and it was not my charm work.”

“That’s what you’re worried about?” Draco asked, incredulous. “And not the fact that you just faced an unhinged, powerful witch who wants to end you?” His eyes burned into hers, and she could feel the tension in the bond spike, his fury brushing against her like a living thing.

“I had just organized them,” she sniffed, her chest tight, trying to steady herself against the storm of his presence.

“You’re going to drive me straight back to Azkaban for using unforgivable curses… all because you can’t stay out of trouble,” he muttered under his breath, his jaw tight, the air around him humming with restrained power.

“Don’t worry,” she said, a little quieter, but her lip curved up into a smile. Then she patted him on the face. “I’ll visit you.”

“Conjugal visits?” He drawled, a sly curve on his lips, his own hand wrapping around her wrist.

“Obviously.” She drawled right back.

Chapter Text

The Role You Made Me Play of The Fool
—(no I don’t like you)

October 1, 1999

Astoria lay in a bed, twisting her wand over and over in her hand. It was ten inches, chestnut wood with unicorn hair, and the handle had constellations, including Draco, in gold filigree carved into it.

Astoria wasn’t naive; she knew that wouldn’t tie her to Draco. Of course, when she was eleven and standing in Olivander’s shop, shooting sparks out of different wands, she had had different hopes.

High hopes.

High wishes?

High expectations?

It didn’t matter. She was in a bed that didn’t smell like Draco at all, but smelled like Hermione Granger. She hated to admit it, but it was not a bad smell. Still, it made her sick to her stomach.

But she was also pleased, smug even. It was a boost to her ego, really, that she had found Hermione even though Draco had thought she was well hidden. Astoria had outsmarted him, but she would gloat about it later.

The door to the dorm room opened slowly, and the room mate walked in. She was digging through her bag, a pen in her mouth, and sunglasses perched atop her head. She was muttering under her breath when she glanced up and did a double-take. Confusion and irritation crossed her face, but Astoria pointed her wand at the girl. Stunning her before she could get a word out.

“Muggles.” Astoria sniffed out in disdain.

She stood up, did a quick scourgify to rid herself of Hermione Granger, and brushed her skirt off for good measure. Then she walked over to the girl, bent over, and plucked several frizzy hairs from her head. Apparently, they chose roommates based on who lost the war with their hairbrush.

She put it in a vial and held her wand at the girl's throat.

“Rennervate,” Astoria whispered.

She felt her magic slip through her core, down her arm, and into the wand. A violent yet soft spell flowed into the girl whose eyes flew open, and she gasped like she had been suffocated. Her face contorted from anger into fear as Astoria stood over her, her long blonde hair hanging like a cage around them.

“What’s your name?” Astoria asked, her voice so sweet it was like honey or even sugar. Her eyes, though, she knew were cold like a killer’s.

“Sloane...” Her voice cracked in an American accent.

“Imperio.” Astoria hissed then and watched as Sloane’s face went lax.

She burrowed into her mind and told her, while holding out a key, “You’re going to go stay in Room 212 at the Regency Hotel until I come to get you.”

Sloane nodded, and then Astoria watched as she packed a bag and then left. She left then, went back to the room she had in a hotel, and checked on her Polyjuice potion that was brewing. It was almost done, and she had the last ingredient.

She only needed to shop for clothes that would fit her new body for the week.

October 2, 1999

She popped a strawberry into her mouth from the breakfast she had ordered for room service.

Two scrambled egg whites, 12-grain toast, fresh fruit, and one small bowl of cottage cheese. A cup of coffee with milk and sugar. The steam from the cup still rose, the smell of coffee drifting pleasantly into her Astoria’s nose.

She had a lot to do today, mainly shopping and then moving herself into the dorm with Hermione. She had only two weeks, if that, because she knew Draco very well. He would say she didn’t, but she did, and he would be there soon. Only he would do what he always did and watch her before confronting her. Astoria knew then that she had to be careful not to give herself away, but she found it generally easy to do so.

Men were stupid, really.

Imbeciles.  

She waltzed into the tiny wizarding town that was near Oxford and requested to be fitted for a stylish university wardrobe. She walked out an hour later with a variety of outfits. Her first outfit was tight jeans, a boatneck lavender jumper that showed off Sloane’s collarbones, and white sneakers.

It was droll, really.

Astoria hated it, but she had to be believable if she wanted to learn anything about Hermione. That was what this was, a learning lesson, and how fortuitous since this was a University. She wasn’t going to come in with wands blazing and take out her opponent. No, she wanted to play the long game.

The long con.  

That included sneaking into Hermione’s life, figuring out what made her tick, how she decided who to trust, and maybe stumbling on a few of her secrets. Like whether she’d ever shagged Harry Potter or Ron Weasley, a rumor that had been drifting through the halls of Hogwarts for years. Sometimes the whisper was that it had even been both at the same time.

She had watched Hermione with Sloane for a few days before she chose her to Polyjuice into, making sure they had a good friendship. She hovered behind them as another girl with long brown hair that went down to her waist, and an unremarkable face. They were chatting about some party that Sloane wanted to go to that weekend, but Hermione did not.

Astoria had rolled her eyes.

Because of course Hermione didn’t. She was a wet blanket, a swot who would never break the rules.

At least that’s what Astoria was convinced Hermione was, but she quickly learned that she wasn’t so one-dimensional. Of course, she still disliked Hermione, but she knew that she realized quickly that she was formidable. That’s why she would not be able to just cut her down with just words, or even magic.

And that was why Astoria knew she was doing every right to begin with, that she was moving in slowly. A snake slithering in the grass quietly as it watched its prey.

Now she sat at Sloane’s desk, that situated next to Hermione’s.

The dorm itself wasn’t very big: two beds, two closets, two nightstands, and two desks all lined up in perfunctory order. The air smelled faintly of parchment and dust, with a muffled hum of voices carrying through the corridor. A single narrow window let in a spill of pale morning light through the sheer curtain. The walls were painted white, and Sloane’s side was covered in a poster of Britney Spears, as well as pictures of her friends and family back home.  Hermione’s side was a painting of the Hogwarts lake, the castle in the reflection, which was signed by one Dean Thomas. She had one still picture of herself with Potter and the Weasel, but it was framed, and it sat upon her desk.  There were no pictures of her with Draco, which was curious. Then again, she probably only had moving pictures of herself with him. The floors were solid wood, and there was a round blue rug over them. There was a chest of drawers as well between two closets, and on top of it was a Muggle telly.

The room was mainly functional and would be almost cold if there wasn’t a scented candle on the windowsill. Astoria picked it up and breathed in the vanilla scent, which lingered throughout the whole room.

She was thumbing through Sloane’s diary when the door behind her opened.

“Oh, you’re here,” Hermione said in surprise.

Astoria stiffened; her immediate feeling was one of disdain, but she knew she could not approach in that way. Because Sloane liked Hermione, for reasons Astoria would never understand.

“Yes,” Astoria said slowly.

“I just thought you had class right now.”

Fuck

Astoria realized then that she must search out Sloane’s schedule.

“Ahh, well, I was feeling unwell, so I chose not to go, a bit of a headache.”

“Do you need some paracetamol?” Hermione asked as she came up beside her, looking down at Astoria with concern.

Astoria wanted to wipe that look off her face, hex it off, really, because she could not and would not look at Hermione in any sort of positive light.

Still, it was best to play the part, “Oh yes, that would be great.”

Hermione dug through the bag she always had on her. A messenger bag that she wore cross-body style. Astoria was certain it had an illegal extension charm on it by the way Hermione dug through it. She pulled several things out, including a large textbook, a notebook, a variety of Muggle pens and highlighters, and then finally found the paracetamol.

“What kind of bag is that?” Astoria asked, testing to see if Hermione would admit that she was a witch.

A mudblood first, but she knew Hermione displayed witch-like tendencies.

Unfortunately.

Hermione laughed, “I told you it’s like my Mary Poppins bag.”

“Mary Poppins?” Astoria asked with confusion.

Hermione gave her a strange look, her eyebrow arching ever so slightly as if she suspected something, then touched Astoria on the forehead. “Do you perhaps have a headache because you hit your head, Sloane?”

Astoria felt herself grimace for a moment, words threatening to vomit up out of her that would give her away, but she kept her composure. “Sorry, I’m just feeling off, that’s all. Of course, I know who Mary Poppins is…the woman with the bottomless bag.”

Hermione’s gaze lingered a second longer than necessary, a subtle edge of suspicion in her eyes. Then she shook her head and handed over the paracetamol. “Right… well, take this. Maybe it will help.”

“Thanks, Hermione, this is great,” Astoria said, taking it, her fingers brushing up against Hermione’s.

She watched as Hermione shoved everything back into her bag and pulled it tight around her body again.

“Well, I just came to get my notes for my French exam,” She said, “I’ll see you for dinner, that is if you’re feeling well later.”

“Yes, I’ll do my best to be there.”

Hermione smiled at her, but Astoria noticed it didn’t quite reach her eyes. She watched as the witch left the room, leaving Astoria to snoop once again. She knew now that this would not be easy, that she needed to find something that would let her know just exactly who Sloane was as a Muggle.

October 4, 1999

She stood over Hermione’s sleeping form. She had a quilted blanket that sat bunched around her hips. It was made of scraps in Gryffindor colors. Different materials, but Astoria felt charms woven into it.

Charms that reacted based on needs. Weasley was written all over it.

Her chest rose and fell in a steady pattern, and the book sat open next to her. Her hand holding the pages open, folding one, making a sharp line in the pages.

Underneath Hermione’s pillow was her wand. Just the handle of it. Astoria ran her finger along it, but something sparked out of it and shocked her, stinging her fingers. It sent a painful sensation to her elbow, her funny bone tingling.

There was a presence behind. Dark and sinister. Astoria looked over her shoulder and saw a shadow, but she turned and found nothing there.

Nothing but magic thick in the air.  Hermione shifted, and Astoria glanced back. Hermione was on her side, but her hand lay just under her pillow, her fingers brushing the hilt of it. Astoria put her hand out towards her, but fingers brushed across a shield that had been cast. A barrier she was unable to penetrate while Hermione was asleep.

Astoria felt bitterness settling into her stomach, but worse than that. It moved deep into her body along limbs and finger tips. She had her wand in her hand before she realized it, a hex splintered off of it, but it hit the wall.

Backfired into the room, bounced across Hermione’s desk, leaving a scorch mark, and stung Astoria’s hand.

She stepped back quickly, but still a small yelp slipped out of her mouth. Hermione shifted, her eyes blinked open towards the wall. Astoria watched as she moved swiftly up, wrapping around her wand, and she moved in one fluid movement.

But Astoria saw the moment her shield dropped, and she hit her first, Petrificus Totalus.

She watched with satisfaction as Hermione stiffened her wand untouched. Astoria cocked her head with amusement as she looked at the wide-open eyes of Hermione. They did not hold fear like she had hoped for; instead, they held agitation and a bit of anger.

“I’m not even a little bit sorry,” Astoria smirked, and then she obliviated the memory.

She admonished herself, though, for not being more careful.

October 9, 1999

Draco’s magic seeped underneath the door. It was strong and unbreakable. It vexed Astoria how strong he was. Just his presence made everything harder, but it didn’t mean he was smart enough to feel the enemy. 

Smart enough to question things, but still not enough to know why he felt that way. 

Astoria stepped slowly into the room, and she made a surprised noise when she discovered him sitting on the chair next to Hermione’s next desk. He was flipping through a book, not really reading it but scanning it.

His head snapped up.

Even though she knew he was on guard, he looked at her with a bored expression. 

“Who are you?” He drawled.

“Sloane…” Astoria stumbled over the name.

He raised an eyebrow, and she felt like he was looking even closer at her. He thumbed through the book and put it down on Hermione’s desk.

Astoria hated herself as fear slipped into her stomach. It was something she would have had to work on, because Draco was not someone she needed to be scared of.

 “What kind of name is Sloane?” He asked, almost sneering.

Astoria wondered herself, and maybe she would have brushed it off, but she didn’t like the way Draco was looking at her. He looked at her like she was beneath him, and why was she a supposed Muggle beneath him, but not Hermione Granger, who was a mudblood.

“I don’t know…what kind of name is Dr-ay-co?” 

Draco didn’t flinch or seem at all offended. He cocked his head as his eyes bounced between “Sloane’s”. He stood up slowly, one fluid movement, and stepped closer to her. Not close enough to feel his body heat, but close enough to smell his cologne.

A soft, almost cruel smirk grew upon his face. He moved along her body. It wasn’t sexual at all, but still Astoria liked to believe so. 

“How do you know my name?”

Astoria scoffed, but before she could answer, Hermione had stepped in behind her.

“Stop torturing my roommate, Draco,” She said good naturally, “She knows your name because your hair precedes you.”

His grin turned from one of a predator to one of devotion in a matter of seconds to the girl behind her. It was a gaze that worshipped and loved a person, and it made her hate the presence behind her. 

“You love my hair,” His voice was filled with so much devotion that it made Astoria’s heart ache even though it wasn’t directed at her. 

Hermione hummed and then stepped around Astoria, but when she spoke, it was to her, “You’ll have to forgive Draco, his ego tends to blow itself out of proportion.”

Astoria expected Draco to lash out, but instead, he stepped into Hermione. His arms wrapped around her and pulled her flush against his body.

“Are you hungry?” He asked her.

“Starving actually.”

His eyes darkened, and he smirked, “Me too.”

Hermione rolled her eyes at the innuendo and smacked him lightly on the chest. He leaned down and murmured something in her ear that Astoria couldn’t hear. She grinned and stepped up on tiptoes while leaning in, and he kissed her softly, just a brief, chaste kiss that somehow held more emotion than a deeper one.

Which only made the moment more vexing.

She didn’t want to be there to watch this, whatever it was.

“Should I leave you two alone?” She snarked.

“Yes,” Draco murmured, his mouth moving up and brushing against Hermione’s temple.

“No,” Hermione said at the same time. She stepped out of his embrace and turned to look at Astoria, “We’re going to go get something to eat. You’re more than welcome to join us.”

Draco scowled at Hermione, but Astoria knew it was directed at her and not Hermione.

I’d rather sit and watch Voldemort hand-feed Bellatrix grapes than do that.

“Oh no, thanks, I already ate.” She said out loud.

“Brilliant, shall we go then?” Draco asked while already dragging Hermione towards the door. She turned and looked at Astoria with an apologetic smile right before he pulled her out into the hall. She returned until the door closed, and then her face twisted into one of disgust.

12:15 AM

She woke from a deep sleep, her disguise only a glamour, subtle enough to pass for Sloane in the shadowed hours after midnight and the gray wash of dawn.

It was his familiar timbre that woke her, and even though she knew he was there, it still felt unexpected.  A jolt of shock bolted through her, and when her eyes flew open, she saw him across the room, sprawled in bed with Hermione.

“It’s been weeks, Hermione,” Draco whispered, breaking Astoria from her dreamscape.

His drawl coiled around her spine and dug into her core. It didn’t always. Only when he wanted something. When the hunger edged his voice, when the arrogance turned liquid. Her thighs pressed together instinctively, traitorously, as though her body were too stupid to remember how he had discarded it. For a split second, she let herself imagine he was speaking to her, wanting her.

Astoria heard Hermione smack him lightly. “Yeah, and I have a roommate.”

“Please.” He was practically whining. “My hand and my imagination are not as not as good as your actual tits and...”

Astoria almost snorted in disbelief that Draco had not found another witch to warm his bed while he was with Hermione. He had told her that he was not the monogamous type, not until he was married. Then he would be loyal to his wife, but until then, he simply didn’t care. Which means he was lying to Hermione; he had to have been.

Hermione shoved her palm across his mouth, laughing softly. “Shut up. Don’t say things like that around her even if she’s asleep.”

Around her. 

The words burned even if they were about Sloane and not Astoria herself.  She felt as though Hermione said she was nothing more than a potted plant shoved into the corner, decorative and silent.

“Is she a prude?” he teased, his voice smiling.

“Perhaps I’m the prude?”

He snorted. “Considering you fucked my hand in the middle of the Hogwar,”

“Stop, Draco.” She cut him off again, exasperated, though warmth laced her tone.

Astoria shifted a bit more just to get a better glimpse of them. Draco lay propped on one elbow, one hand gripping the bare skin above Hermione’s hip beneath her shirt. Hermione’s fingers combed lazily through his hair. His eyelids fluttered at her touch, making him look undone. Hermione’s face remained unreadable, but content.

His eyes grazed over her face with a look of concern.

“What’s going on?” he asked finally, glancing toward Astoria. His eyes narrowed, suspicion flashing for a heartbeat. She forced her lashes low, breath slow, feigning sleep. He turned back to Hermione, sliding over her like a shield.

“Nothing.”

“Hermione…”

“Just let it go for now.”

Draco studied her, then bent down and kissed her softly at first. But then he bit at her bottom lip before sliding his tongue into her mouth. Jealousy flared sharply and hot inside Astoria, watching the way he claimed her. It was deep and possessive,  as his arms dragged her closer to him. He ran his hands into her hair and tugged just a little bit so that he could trail kisses along her jaw, tongue flicking behind her ear. Hermione gasped and then parted her thighs, her legs lifting and caging them in.

“Silencing charm?” Draco murmured into her skin, voice rough and lust filled.

“No.”

He pushed up a bit and smirked down at her.

“So we’re just going to do this out in the open then, because I have no qualms about that?”

Hermione smiled faintly. “No, Draco.”

He sighed, nestling his head into the crook of her neck before looking up again, smugness written across his face. Magic surged through the room, and heavy curtains like the four-posters at Hogwarts sprang up around Hermione’s bed, swinging shut.

Hermione laughed, a low and quick laugh.

Then nothing. The sound cut off, and eerie silence pressed against the walls. Pressed down onto Astoria, making it feel like a heavy weight on her chest.

Astoria scowled into the dark, her blood running hot with fury. The audacity of him—the audacity of her. The silencing charm, the curtains, the performance of it all. The lengths he would go to for Hermione Granger. What made her so special? What did she have that Astoria hadn’t given freely, desperately? He had been promised to her, bound by a family pact older than both of them. That should have been enough. Yet he looked at Hermione with a hunger Astoria had never drawn out of him, not even once.

And she didn’t want him anymore, but still she wanted to punish him for what he had done to her. Punish Hermione for what she had stolen.

She entertained for a brief moment of exposing herself and flipping the curtains open. Her wand on them unprepared, and she relished the shocked look on her face. Of course, though she knew that Draco would quickly morph into rage, Astoria was not a match for him.

No, she had to stick with her original plan.

She rolled onto her side, glaring at the wall. And let the anger just simmer in her veins, a toxic brew, while she drifted off into a restless sleep.

It was later in the night, though, that something cold and sharp woke her up, leaving her feeling disoriented. Her eyes flew open, and when her vision corrected itself, she found herself staring straight into the eyes of Draco. Hermione was asleep, wearing his shirt, and curled up pressing her face into his bare chest. He was running his hand softly through her curls with affection. But his gaze was cold and unyielding, and when she felt him probing into her mind, she instantly threw up false memories.

He wasn’t gentle as he did it, moving through each memory that Astoria provided. It was like drowning in her own mind, each false image dragged forward and offered up before he could demand it. She forced herself to think of nothing but the fabrications, to feel nothing but the mask. Yet beneath it all, panic scratched at her chest, whispering how easily he could peel her open and see the rot beneath.

Her head pounded when he left her mind, his gaze remaining on her for a few more minutes, narrowed and suspicious. Fingers still drifting through Hermione’s hair, he kissed the top of her head and then lay down, pulling her closer to him so that her head was on his chest.

It was then that Astoria realized she had been holding her breath.

She also knew then that she didn’t have much time left before Draco broke the crack in Astoria’s façade.

October 12, 1999

Astoria stood outside the dorm room door. It was open a crack, as though someone hadn’t pushed it shut all the way. She was about to walk into it when she heard Hermione and Draco talking low. A heated argument between the two of them.

“You should come stay with me at the Manor.” Draco insisted

“No, I’m fine.”

“You told me something was off about her.” He pressed.

“I know, but it’s probably nothing.”

“I don’t trust her.”

Hermione snorted, “You don’t say.”

“I do say!” He said, sounding put out.

“Trust me, Draco, I know,” Hermione sighed,  “You and your lack of boundaries make it obvious that you don’t trust her, but you don’t trust anyone in general.”

“Lack of boundaries? What is that supposed to mean?” He snapped.

“It means that I know you took a little trip around her mind the other night.”

“Yes, well, I just needed to be sure, and I did it for you. ”

“And did you find anything?”

“No, but..”

“See, it’s nothing.”

“BUT something about her memories rang false as if she was forcing them into existence.” His tone was becoming more argumentative, a sign that he was close to not taking no for an answer. She half expected him to apparate them both out of the room to the Manor.

“You’re safer in the Manor.” He added quietly.

“And would you be my shadow then if I did go to the Manor?”

Draco didn’t answer; instead, there was silence.

“That’s what I thought.” Hermione sighed.

Astoria left then, knowing that she needed to move things along now if she was going to get anything out of this little experiment.  

October 14, 1999

Hermione eyed Sloane across the table, who was eating egg whites with a bowl of assorted berries. Which was strange because the last time she had breakfast with her, she had filled a bowl with three different kinds of cereal.

“Decided against cereal this morning?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.

Sloane’s face grimaced, “Who would have cereal in the morning and not a balanced breakfast?”

You.

She decided not to push it, though, and ate her own plate of scrambled eggs and toast. However, in the back of her mind, she added to the growing list of things that seemed not quite right with her roommate.

Including the times at night when Sloane assumed she was sleeping and she stood over her, watching her. Hermione started sleeping with her wand underneath her pillow, even though Sloane was a Muggle.

Except there was something about her that screamed witch.

Perhaps Draco was right, and she should go stay at the Manor for a bit, but no, she didn’t want to do that. She didn’t want to cave to his whims when she knew she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

Even in the Muggle world.

“Your boyfriend is a bit arrogant, isn’t he?” Sloane said suddenly, but she said it was such false nonchalance that Hermione paused her fork in midair. The words were casual, but the tone underneath was almost as if she were probing for information. She looked up slowly, meeting Sloane’s gaze, and for just a moment, she swore there was a moment of malice flickering behind her eyes.

Hermione said cautiously, “Not really.”

Which was a complete lie. He was arrogant, possessive, and obsessive. She hated to admit that she both loved and hated that he was that way, but love outweighed the hate. The love was so strong that sometimes she felt like she was drowning in it.

Sloane hummed the hum of someone who didn’t believe her.

“Arrogant men are hardly ever monogamous,” She said, taking a bite of egg white, “They just want to possess and control your every move, meanwhile they’re out there fucking around with Me... God knows what. I bet he’s shagging someone else when he’s not around you.”

Hermione sat back, her eyes narrowing at Sloane, and she said with a deadly calm, “That’s a pretty big assumption of someone you just met.”

Sloane shrugged, “I call them like I see them.”

“Right, well, as much as I’ve enjoyed this little chat, I think I’ll have to take my leave,” Hermione said sarcastically. She picked up her tray of half-eaten food, “See you later, Sloane.”

“You’ll see eventually.” She called out to her, “You’ll learn that I was right and you should never have messed around with someone so different from you.”

Hermione stopped at the trash can but didn’t look back. Instead, she added to the list of things that had become strange about Sloane in the last week.

October 15, 1999

Hermione walked down the hall to her dorm but stopped just outside the door. Something wasn’t right. She could feel it deep down that something was about to happen. Something horrible and twisted.

She opened the door.

Draco lay stretched out in Sloane’s bed, hands under his head. His hair was slicked back in a way that he hadn’t worn like it in a long time. She hated it, not because it didn’t look good on him, but because it reminded her of a different version of him. Hermione stopped short, and when he noticed her, he stretched and stood up. It wasn’t just that she was in her roommate's bed. It was. There was also something off about his face, calculating, cruel, and just wrong. The last time he had looked at her like that was sometime in sixth year, like she was beneath him.

Her bag fell off her shoulder and landed with a loud thump on the floor.

“Hello, Granger.” He drawled out her name like it left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Fear and something gut punching curdled in her stomach. He hadn’t called her Granger in months, not since the bond had taken place. Not since he told her he loved her.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to put an end to whatever this charade we’ve had going on.” He said as he started to move around the room. His finger was drifting across the windowsill, drawing a line in the dust. He didn’t move like himself. It was more like a predator slithering through the grass, waiting to snap its teeth at its prey.

Hermione swallowed hard, “Draco, you’re not...”

“It disgusts me when you call me that, you know.” He turned on her quickly, almost pouncing on her. His body was so close that she could feel the heat from him, only instead of comfort, it felt oppressive and dangerous. She tilted her head up and looked at him, and he smiled down on her, baring his teeth. “Wow, it feels rather good to get that off my chest.”

Hermione recoiled and then stepped back, putting space between them. She couldn’t find the words to say anything. Her heart was thudding loudly in her ears, cleaving itself into two, but at the same time, she questioned everything since October 1.

“I know what you’re thinking.” He went on casually, “That it seems sudden, but I assure you it’s not. I’ve been feeling this way for a while. You see, I just wanted to see if I could convince the Golden Girl that someone like me could love a mudblood like you. You fell for it so easily, and sure, I stayed around a bit longer because you were willing to put out, but I’m afraid we must part ways now. It’s time that I do what I should have been doing all along, planning a wedding with Astoria.”

“I’m not a game to be played.” She snapped.

Hermione felt the sting of the slap before she realized she was doing it. It hit the side of his cheek hard enough to turn his head and leave a red mark. She felt herself crack open then, feelings surging into her veins as if she were reaching for a bond. The bond between them but it felt dull as if he were far away from her.

He rubbed his cheek and then started to chuckle under his breath. Then his lips curled up into a feral grin, mean and menacing, “Granger, you were the greatest game I’ve ever played.”

He pulled a wand out, something he rarely needed. He was so fast, and she was so slow that when she looked down at it, a curse was already being cast. It hit her, throwing her back into the wall by her bed. Her head thumped hard against the brick, and for a moment she felt betrayed.

Felt like he had taken her heart and shattered it like glass.

But then an angry crack splintered into the night, a familiar black cloud appearing at the center of the room. Then there were two of him, but her Draco. The real one had rage contorting on his face as he looked at the stranger.  

Draco surged towards him, and with a wave, his hand lifted him and slammed him into the wall. Then walked to Hermione. He kneeled and looked at her as if she were the only one he could ever and would ever look at. His eyes were open and warm, and when his hand touched her face, she felt his warmth radiate deep inside of her. Still, she flinched at first before melting into him.

“Are you ok?”

Hermione nodded, “How did you know to come here?”

“You opened the bond.” He said softly before pulling her towards him, kissing her on the forehead.

Behind him, the other Draco started laughing, a loud, maniacal laugh. Draco turned towards him and moved his hand around his neck. The imposter’s face began to melt, features sliding and warping grotesquely. Blonde hair sprouted in uneven tufts. Her frame shrank, twisting, until she was nothing but a teenage witch drowning in clothes too big for her.

Astoria’s smile was mad and wild. “A bond with a Mudblood? That’s rich.”

Draco’s hand gripped a little tighter, “Polyjuicing me was not your brightest idea, Astoria. Maybe be a little more creative next time.”

“That was only the cusp of what I’ve managed to do in such a short amount of time.” She wheezed out, and Draco shoved her into the wall again. She started to laugh, “I’ve been sleeping next to your little mudblood for two weeks, and I admit I made some mistakes, but she was easy to fool for the most part. You, on the other hand, as always, were not so easy, which is just another reason she’s beneath you.”

“Oh, she’s beneath me sometimes,” Draco said, his tone cutting. “Above me, too. Beside me. All around me while I’m inside her. And that’s what drives you mad, isn’t it, Astoria?”

Hermione reached out a hand and pressed it on his shoulder, trembling but firm. “Draco, just let it go.”

He turned his head toward her, eyes still burning. “Let it go? I told you to come stay at the Manor, but you didn’t listen, did you?” His voice was sharp with anger, frayed with fear. “You’re lucky I came here before she did something worse to you.”

Astoria sighed, almost theatrically. “As much as I’d love to stick around and watch you two have a lover’s spat, I think I’ll be Disapparating myself out of here.”

With a sharp crack, she vanished. The air where she’d stood rippled once and went still.

"Is there something you need to tell me Draco?"

He turned to Hermione, and without a word summoned her bag, the pictures, and some books into it. Then he moved on her with determination, his arm wrapping around her tightly, and her disapparated them both.

And for the first time, she wondered if maybe she couldn’t do this anymore, this consuming love that threatened to burn her from the inside out. Especially when it was clear there were secrets not being told by the one person she thought would be truthful with her.