Disclaimer: This is J.K Rowling's 'verse – I'm just playing in it.
Author's Note: A light and fluffy one-shot, with acknowledgement to the wonderful Phnxgirl, who gives me all the ideas, all the time. All the hearts for you! So, the question is…what is the effect of all the inbreeding that surely must have gone on for centuries amongst the pureblood families? Disclaimer: No thought has been given to the science behind this whatsoever – it's just a fun bit of fluff.
Enjoy! Liss xx
The Oddities of Purebloods
"Make room, Granger," Malfoy says mildly and she blinks from out of her doze, staring up at his face, hovering above her. For a moment she can't recall where she is, and then she remembers. He had been supposed to meet her at his place after work – she'd been on time, and he hadn't. Luckily he'd taken to mobile phones like a duck to water after she'd insisted he get one, and she'd been able to text him and ask how to take the wards down on his house. She'd let herself in and waited, and…well, she supposed she had dozed off. She swipes at her mouth for drool surreptitiously, and blinks.
"Malfoy…" She struggles up from her sleepy sprawl on the couch and smiles up at him with half-embarrassment, trying to tame her couch-hair and failing miserably. Or at least she assumes she's failing miserably, from the feel of it and she wonders if she'd been snoring when he'd come in. "You're late. I…"
"Fell asleep and started drooling on my imported leather couch?" he asks her dryly, a smirk twitching about his lips as he rasps a palm tiredly over the stubble at his jaw. "I had noticed, actually."
"You were late!" Hermione protests, and her eyes find his clock on the wall. "Jesus, Malfoy, it's past two – what the hell were you doing?"
"They had a lead on another wannabe Dark wizard." He shucks his coat onto the coffee table beside the couch and sighs, rolling his shoulders and idly cracking his neck in a way that makes her wince. There are dark shadows under his eyes, and frown lines embedded in his forehead. "It turned out to be nothing. Just some little tosser playing about with potions he shouldn't have been."
She glares at him as he slumps onto the other end of the couch and begins to unlace his boots with tired-clumsy fingers. "Couldn't someone else have handled that?"
"Granger…"
She shakes her head, sitting forward with one leg folded so her foot tucked under her bum, the other leg dangling over the edge of the couch on the floor. "Nuh-uh. No – this was our fifth attempt at a first date! And you never even bloody showed up!"
She is genuinely annoyed, although mostly just glad he is back safely after that scare they had a fortnight ago. The healing skin is still pink and tender on Malfoy's chest, and Hermione is still furious that the idiot had jumped in front of her like that. They are still…not arguing, but discussing, whether or not they should work together now they are romantically…interested. She thought she distracted him from the job and left him vulnerable, and he didn't trust anyone else to watch her back. Right now, Harry had made them work separately – just temporarily, until they came to a permanent decision between themselves.
"Last time you were the one who stood me up – and for paperwork no less, you cruel bitch." He jabs a finger right back at her, and she rolls her eyes but says nothing, because yes, she did in fact end up standing him up in order to get an incident report, an IM33 sheet, and an AUM2 written up before morning – but there had been extenuating circumstances! She tells him so indignantly and he just tsks at her and shakes his head.
"I had booked a reservation at Mendoza's, Granger. Those are not exactly easy to get hold of."
"Well…well tonight I booked in at La Petit Chocolat," she protests, looking down at herself in her now rather worse for wear red dress, her heels tossed carelessly under the coffee table, her purse atop it. "And that's not cheap either." There is a moment's silence, as they both blink at each other. She is sure she looks a sleepy mess, and he looks like he could be knocked down with a feather, dead on his feet, if in a rather good mood.
"Sorry, Granger," he says then, genuinely, and she shrugs and hums and waves his apology off, feeling bad for making him actually feel bad.
"No, it's fine. I'm just sorry we don't get to spend any time together outside of the office again." Hermione sighs and pouts. It seems like the fates are against her and Malfoy; not that that should be very surprising. Everyone else seems to be half against it too, in a quietly, grouchily disapproving kind of way. Malfoy struggles to haul off his first boot – wet through, the leather seems to have shrunk onto his foot, and he wrenches it off with an effort – wobbling on the couch, eyes still glued onto her. His gaze is intent.
"Stay," he says roughly, hopeful and holding his breath, his intent perfectly, utterly clearly. Hermione hisses in a breath. They have only kissed a couple of times – at work, at inappropriate moments, when they should have been focusing on other things, the sexual tension between them bubbling over impulsively. She certainly didn't come here tonight expecting to sleep with him. He looks away and begins heaving at his other boot, clearly uncomfortable. "Sorry, that was obviously out of line."
Hermione flails in her own mind for a moment, and then rushes out: "No. No it wasn't. And yes…I'll stay." At the needy roughness in Malfoy's voice an insistent awareness has roared to life in her nether regions, and she is suddenly, acutely horny. She wants him, she acknowledges. Badly.
Malfoy pauses in trying to wrench off his boot, and a smile curls soft and happy over his lips as he glances up at her for a second. "Oh. Well. That's…good."
"Good?" Hermione queries, faux-indignant at his lack of overt enthusiasm, and he smirks at her and amends the statement.
"Fucking wonderful." Malfoy tips toward her and she shifts her weight forward, and their noses bump together in the middle of the couch and she laughs. His hand hooks around her neck, shaping to the lines of it, and he tilts his head a fraction so their noses are no longer smished together. And then his mouth his on hers, warm and soft and damp, and just a little bit greedy.
She returns the kiss enthusiastically, and for a brief moment there is silence except for her little moans and his hums of pleasure, and their breath huffing out their noses. Her knickers are distinctly damp when they finally separate for fresh air, and her lips feel swollen. Malfoy's are reddened and parted as he sucks in a shaky breath and shifts on the couch – her eyes follow his and land on the tented state of his trousers, and it is her turn to smirk.
"Have you eaten?" she asks though, practical and concerned, because he never eats enough when she's not around to make him. And Hermione's rather intense longing to have sex aside, Malfoy looks exhausted and half-starved, and she isn't going to irresponsibly shag him into the ground when he hasn't eaten.
"I had a kebab at eleven, and I'm not hungry," he says. "I just want to go to bed. There are exactly two things I want, and they both begin with 'S'." He smirks and the expression makes arousal shoot straight through her, heat pooling in her belly. "And I want to do them both with you, Granger. Food can wait until the morning."
"Sleep and…snoring?" she attempts innocently, and Malfoy gives her a scathing look as he hitches up his left trouser leg enough to hook his thumbs under his rather soggy sock and peel it off. Hermione squinches up her face at the stinky, sogginess of his sock, the elastic imprinted in lines on his pale, bony ankle and foot. She has never seen him sockless before, she realises. And then…her eyes fly wide and she chokes on an inhale.
"Malfoy! What the…? I…what?" she stumbles out ineloquently and probably rather insensitively, gawping at his foot, transfixed by the sight of it.
"Huh?" Malfoy looks up at her as he strips off his other sock, and, oh my god, she thinks, it's both feet. Both. "What's wrong?" he asks Hermione, tone taking on a note of actual cautiousness as she blushes bright red with embarrassment. She wishes rather intently that she hadn't just burst out with her shock like that, because now she had to awkwardly confront the topic instead of awkwardly ignore it. Of all the times for her inner Ron to come out, it had to be now.
"Your…I mean, I don't want to be rude, but…your feet, Malfoy," she says in a small voice, waving at his bony, largish feet, unremarkable except for the two little extra toe nubbins at each side. They look weird, and her left eyelid twitches.
"My feet?" he enquires, seemingly without realising what she is referring to, and she narrows her eyes at him, incredulity shaping her voice.
"You. have. six. toes. Malfoy. On each foot." She lifts an eyebrow, wanting suddenly to giggle as he stares down at his toes curiously, and wiggles them all. "You realise that six toes is not the normal number of toes to have, right? I'm just a little bit, well, surprised."
"Oh." He grins sheepishly and lopsidedly, just a little bit. "Oh that…yeah. I have six toes…I suppose this is something that perhaps I should have warned you about? Like the…The, Ahh…"
Hermione frowns in warning and Malfoy shuts his mouth fast. They never talk about the 'The, Ahh,' as it is usually nervously referred to as if they have to mention it at all, which happily isn't often. The pitfalls of a Muggleborn becoming closer to a pureblood were many, but that incident had taken the cake. Hell, it had taken the whole bakery. Purebloods and their culture were…different to Muggles, in some rather odd ways.
"Yes. Probably, I suppose. It would have saved me looking like an idiot, at least." Hermione frowns in puzzlement now, and something begins to slowly dawn on her. She bites her lip. "Malfoy…why do you mention six toes and the…The, Ahh, in the same category? Please don't tell me…no…noooooo. It's – it's not related to being a pureblood, is it?"
He scratches at the back of his head, looking actually a little uncomfortable now. "Sort of?" he ventures. "It's kind of a…a Malfoy thing?"
"A Malfoy thing," she says flatly. "Having six toes is a Malfoy thing."
He snorts a nervous laugh, gesturing aimlessly as he explains: "From all the, er, inbreeding…"
Hermione's jaw drops, and she stares at him. And then stares at him some more. The silence stretches on, and Malfoy is clearly holding back tired, sleep-deprived giggles, and she is blinking like and owl and wondering if this is all a dream. "Of…course. You have…six toes…from – from. all. the. inbreeding. Well, that's just completely reasonable and not weird at. all."
He laughs at her, and hopefully also at the sheer absurdity of six-toed-inbreeding, burying his face in his hands and snorting weakly. "It's too fucking late for this. I am tired, and I am horny, and I just want to take you upstairs and shag you silly. Can we please do that, now, Granger? Please?
"Nuh uh. No. Hang on. I just found out your family is so inbred that you've got extra toes. I think this is more important than sex," she insists, half-teasing and half genuinely curious – and yeah, a little weirded out, that's completely understandable, right?
"Speak for yourself," he mutters sulkily, and then shrugs. "And how do you think we stayed pureblood, Granger? All the main families intermarried so much that we're all pretty much cousins, roughly speaking. And on top of that, the families, well…there was admittably a fair bit of incest…" he admits and his mouth twitches. "Shit, I shouldn't be smiling, but Merlin, the look on your face right now."
She stares at him in somewhat relieved horror, and gasps: "You were just joking?"
"Oh no," Malfoy waves that off, apologetic. "No, there was definitely incest – way back when, centuries ago, Granger, not just last week for Salazar's sake," he clarifies. "But it's not very nice to laugh at you, poor thing, sitting there all fucking horrified. Poor ignorant Muggleborn..." He smirks, and she huffs and glares at him for teasing her.
"Oh. Oh no. Malfoy…" she verbally jabs back at him, abjectly sorry, face so, so serious. "Malfoy, I don't think this is going to work out. What with the feet…"
"It's not going to work out…? With the feet…" he echoes, raising a brow and waiting for the punch line.
"No, not. Not at all," she says sadly, making her eyes widen and fill up with apologetic sympathy.
"Because of my feet?" There is a laugh in his voice and she stifles her own.
Her voice nearly breaks on a giggle as she cries: "Yes, because of your feet! They're freak feet, Malfoy! Have you seen them?"
"They're offended you said that, Granger," he censures, eyes crinkling with a grin, as he stretches out his legs and lifts his feet into the air, wiggling his twelve toes. She crooks an eyebrow and curls her lip slightly, squinting down at his feet suspiciously.
"They're unnatural! Unnatural, inbred, freak feet. And that's not even getting into the other issues of your apparent rampant inbreeding."
"Then I'll leave my socks on when we fuck" – he laughs and she snatches up and throws his balled up sock at his face, and he barely bats it away in time – "And you'll never even know."
"Think of the children!" she cries in mock-horror, grinning like a loon, and his eyes flash molten and demanding; greedy.
"Mm, they could do with some good, healthy, Muggle stock, to save the Malfoy line from its six-toed horrors," he says slowly and smirkingly, and absurdly, ridiculously, that turns her on in a flash. She leans in toward him, grinning.
"Already planning for the future, are we, Malfoy?" she teases him as she falls gently against him, on her knees so that she is above him, her face turned down to his as he looks up at her, his hands searching over her bum. For years he has insisted that he will never be one to settle down and have children. She wonders how much of what he'd just said was jest, and how much was actual truth. His hands knead at her bum, one slipping down to flatten against the back of her bare thigh, and slide up beneath her dress.
"Yes, actually," he says, hoarse and low. And then: "Or, the immediate future, at least. Which involves…"
Malfoy smirks meaningfully and yanks at Hermione's legs, pulling them out from under her and flipping her awkwardly onto her back along the leather couch. She gasps and huffs a breathless laugh, but her legs hook up around his hips as he sinks onto her, his erection pushing through his trousers and her dress, nestled against her upper thighs. She wants it. She squirms under him, her fingers shoving up to shove his pale fringe back, fingers curling in his hair for a moment. His lips drop gentle, teasing kisses on her lips, and she catches his mouth and kisses him deep, impatient and needy. His tongue slips light over hers and sends tangling shoots of arousal through her, making her breath come fast and hard.
Hermione forgets all about Malfoy's weird toes right about the time that his wet, hot mouth closes around her nipple, and she arches up off the couch with a cry, fingers digging into his shoulders.
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