A/N: For the dazzling Kynomiko, because she's amazing. Happy Birthday.
Beta thanks to LightofEvolution. She is gracious and kind and brilliant. :)
Important to note before reading: The microwave instructions on the back of a can of soup read as follows— "1 can + 1 can of water. Heat, covered, in microwaveable bowl on high 2 ½ to 3 minutes. Careful. Leave in microwave for one minute then stir." I, for one, have always found these instructions to be somewhat vague...
Disclaimer: I own nothing, this was for fun.
"You're a sodding wizard," Draco muttered to himself, irritated at the quickening of his heart. "You've watched Granger do this at least a dozen times. You're a curse breaker working under Bill Weasley. You tied for N.E.W.T.s with Granger. You fixed a broken Vanishing Cabinet. You taught all of Slytherin, including Goyle," he paused to smirk at the memory, "to sing 'Weasley is Our King', and made all those charmed 'Potter Stinks' buttons. You can make a bleeding bowl of soup the Muggle way for Granger!"
Pep-talk successfully delivered, he narrowed his eyes on the mounted white rectangle among worn wooden cabinets and sauntered up to it. "It's just a micro-thing," he said aloud, studying the strange instructions and sequencing of numbers. "Granger uses it all the time for heating 'leftovers' and making soups...Bugger!"
He swore, tearing into the cabinet on the right, the same one he'd seen her open before...
Stocked full, thank Salazar! His eyes scanned the labeled 'tins'; Granger always ate the tomato one. He pulled out a so labeled cylinder, turning it in his hands for some form of instructions.
"'Mix soup...one can water'," he read softly. "What's that funny looking symbol, though? And did Granger ever add water?" His brow furrowed in uncertainty as he moved on to the next line.
"'Microwave'," he read aloud, looking at the white mounted machine. "Microwave," he repeated, rolling the name around in his head. "There doesn't seem to be anything small about you, and you're rather angular, so you really seem to be inappropriately named, all-in-all."
Getting back to the directions and the reason he was spending his lunch hour in Granger's kitchen, he brought the soup cylindrical container up to his face. "'Heat, covered, in microwavable bowl on high for two-and-a-half to three minutes. Leave in microwave. Then stir.'"
Seemed straightforward enough, he thought to himself as he shifted and found a bowl among Granger's dishes cabinet.
It was not.
He'd placed the soup cylinder in one of Granger's bowls and set them both in the microwave. He'd winced at how loud the machine's door was when closing it and decided it would be best to throw up a silencing charm over the kitchen. Just until everything was ready.
Merlin knew Granger needed her rest, after that spread of Krum in the society column...
Figuring out how to get this machine to work accordingly and heat Granger's soup had been no small feat, either. In the end, he'd taken the bowl and soup tin out while he figured how to even turn the contraption on. It seemed necessary to select 'Cook Time' before selecting numbers. And then, all his logical sense was irritated to discover that selecting the '3' had set the machine for three seconds, and adding a '0' had set the timer for thirty seconds, but '180' was clearly not three minutes. Cursing and shoving the bowl and tin back into the unnecessarily confusing contraption, he decided to just use the 'Add 30 Sec' option until three minutes were appropriately set.
His finger lingered over the option and he decided three minutes wasn't enough time to have the table fully set, not if he were doing this all the Muggle way...And a lone bowl of soup hardly seemed to satisfy the requirements of a meal...
A quick peek in her 'refrijerator' told him she had butter and cheese, and there was a decent enough sandwich bread in of the cabinets for one of those hot sandwiches she liked making to go with soup.
Finding a plate and knife, he set to work building the simple sandwich. It was one of the few things he'd started doing for himself at the Manor. Being a curse-breaker, especially Granger's partner under Bill, meant keeping the strangest hours, and Mother had long since given up on him sitting down for breakfast or dinner with her on the weekdays. The entitled little shit he had been would have had no qualms about ordering Drippy for a three-course meal at some gods-awful hour of the night.
But that Draco hadn't been through a war. Hadn't seen the atrocities this worldview could bring upon humanity. Hadn't come out on the other side praising the Founders and every deity he could think of that he hadn't been sentenced to Azkaban. Hadn't spent silent hours hiding from the world in the library, studying for N.E.W.T.s with a certain curly-haired brunette. Hadn't spent the last five years working side-by-side with that same, dazzling witch until he knew her better than he knew himself. Until she'd taken up a permanent residence in his heart.
Not that she knew that yet…
But she would. Krum was the last wizard he was letting come on the scene before making his feelings known.
Draco smiled to himself. He could almost see those lovely milk chocolate irises blown wide in surprise when she'd come in to find he'd been thoughtful enough to make her favourite 'bad day' lunch without magic. He'd also made a quick trip home to the manor before coming to collect daisies from Mother's garden and a vase for the table centrepiece. It was her favourite flower.
He could almost see that glossy sheen over her eyes now, the one that would appear from nowhere when something triggered a deep emotion or memory. The one that magnified the flecks of gold and cinnamon in her eyes.
He wanted to make those flecks dance with joy.
Now, where in Merlin's name was that pan she would use?
"Bugger!" he yelled. The infernal pan for this cooked sandwich would not stop smoking. But he didn't want to add more butter; Granger hated it when foods were too greasy...
A sudden shrill beeping rang out throughout the flat.
Causing a shocked and irritated Draco to snatch out his wand as he whirled around, looking for the offending sound. Finding nothing immediately, he stalked to the edge of the kitchen, sharpened gaze searching Granger's modest (yet comfortable) living room. He cast several various revealing spells.
And found nothing at all.
His eyes turned back to the kitchen, searching the ceiling… Ah ha!
"Piss off," he said, aiming his wand to silence the annoying little blighter with a blinking red light.
And then came a small explosion. He dropped to the floor on instinct, mind racing. Was Granger under attack? Who was still out there with a grudge for the Golden Trio? Was it specific to Granger? He should—
Sod it all! That repeating shrill sound was going to drive him to madness faster than Pansy's incessant nagging sixth year. He scrambled to his knees, wand aimed and ready to silence the menacing contraption that was muddling his thoughts.
His hand stilled at the sight of something red seeping out the microwave. Frowning, he marched over to the heating device and yanked open the door.
The soup tin had fallen over in the bowl, a gaping hole in the middle, soup scattered all over the inside of this nonsensical appliance. It looked as though it had imploded.
"Shit!" he growled. This never looked so complex when Granger did it. How the fu-
"Malfoy?!"
Bugger...
Draco turned around slowly, caught in this disastrous attempt at something special…
He almost choked at the sight awaiting him.
It's wasn't that Granger's now usually tamed silken curls had doubled in size, as if she'd been tossing and turning the last twenty-four hours. It wasn't that her nose appeared pink with irritation from constant sneezing and her mouth hung slightly ajar (be it in shock or out of necessity for breathing). And it definitely wasn't that her eyes were sleepy, narrow and glossy in obvious illness.
It was her attire, or lack thereof.
He had seen Granger's legs before. But that had been from under those pretty sundresses she liked to wear in the spring and summer. And they always stopped just above the knee. But this...Salazar, was she even wearing shorts under that oversized sleep shirt advertising some dentist convention? Or was it just Granger and her knickers...?
He stifled a groan, swallowing, looking down and away. Anywhere but the gorgeous creamy expanse—
"Are you even listening to me, Malfoy?"
"What?" He blinked, forcing his vision to look only at Granger's face as he focused again on her.
"I said," she repeated, quite loudly, as if she couldn't properly hear herself talking, "what are you-"
"You really are sick, Granger," he blurted, wincing at himself. He could see the surprise on her face, but she really was feeling ill. He hadn't expected that.
"Well, of course I am, Malfoy. I'm also very thirsty, which explains what I'm doing in my own kitchen on a Monday at noon." Her delicate brow furrowed and, call it unrequited love, but the way her nose scrunched as well was completely adorable. "It does not, however," she continued, "explain what you are doing here."
"I thought I'd-" he stopped short, looking and pointing at the now silent blighter with the blinking red light. "How'd you shut that bloody thing off?"
"I silenced it for now," Granger answered. Then she pointed as well, just beyond Draco. "Care to explain that?"
"Ah, yes. That." Draco toed her kitchen floor, rubbing the back of his neck. "See, I thought I'd surprise you with lunch. Some soup and one of those toasted sandwiches to go with it."
She flashed him one of her teasing crooked smiles. "And here I thought you were proficient with your wand."
"I wanted to try it without magic," he added. He dropped his hand and shrugged. "Seems like I just made a mess of everything though."
Granger was silent, lips pursed as she her eyes travelled between Draco and the mess behind him once more. And then, she chuckled so sweetly, he could have beamed. Even with her illness-deepened voice, Hermione's was the most euphonious laugh he'd ever heard. "It really is a mess, Malfoy, I'm not going to lie and say it's not." She floated her arm out until her hand made contact with his elbow, and she gave it a gentle squeeze, stilling all blood flow in his body. "But in all fairness," she continued, lips now quirking, "tinned soup and a toasted sandwich may have been too advanced without proper instructions."
"I've seen you do it before," he grumbled, glaring back at the insufferable heating device coated with a layer of ruined tomato soup.
"It's not as straightforward as it seems, thought I applaud your valiant effort," she said, tossing the ruined sandwich and imploded soup tin in the rubbish bin with a flick of her wand. "If you'll Scourgify the rest of that, I'll change into some jeans, and we'll make this together."
"But, you're sick," he protested.
"Yes," she answered, winking, bloody winking, at him over her shoulder. "And I'll still manage to put together a lunch that hasn't exploded or burned."
He granted himself permission to stay rooted in place, hypnotized by that fetching sashaying of her hips until she disappeared around the corner to her bedroom.
"Salazar," he breathed, raising his wand to fulfil the witch's bidding.
"The instructions should really include emptying soup into said bowl or saucepan if you're not supposed to cook it in the tin, Granger," Draco pouted, snapping his jaw around a spoonful of warmed tomato soup.
"I'll admit the instructions do assume a basic level of understanding of kitchen appliances they probably shouldn't," Granger conceded, ticking her head in the direction of the mechanical abomination. "But really, Malfoy," she paused and scooped a dainty bite of soup with her spoon, bringing it to her lips and sipping it with poise that his mother would very much approve of, "you make sandwiches at home," she continued, laying the spoon in her near-empty bowl. "How did you almost scorch the pan trying to cook a sandwich? I thought you'd seen me do it enough, or made some yourself at the Manor."
"Nope." He shook his head in the negative. "You give me far too much credit; it's only cold sandwiches I've made by myself coming home late, and we baked cookies once, but that involved the oven," he stated with significance. "Which is different from both the stove top and the microwave, apparently."
"Fair enough," she said, nibbling at the remnants of her sandwich. "Well, now you know: I butter the bread slices individually and allow the smallest bit of oil in the pan when heating it up first."
"But the butter was too cold to spread initially." He wasn't going to stand for looking entirely foolish for his efforts. "That meagre discount sandwich bread you purchase would have torn into pieces," he sniffed.
Salazar help him, she winked again as her lips formed a delicious, crooked smile. "Modified warming charm," she supplied simply, polishing off the last of her sandwich in an easy bite.
Draco hummed, finishing his soup in two silent spoonfuls, considering the witch eating next to him. "This seems to just be a head cold, Granger," he noted, levitating his bowl and spoon to her sink. "You've come to work with far worse than this, why not take Pepper-Up and be done with it?"
"I'm avoiding Nott." Hermione answered simply. She kept her expression placid as she dabbed her lips with a napkin and sent her dishes following after Draco's, beginning a dishwashing spell. "What?" she asked at his inquisitive head tilt. "Malfoy, we've been working almost non-stop at Nott Manor, and our first day off in all that time, I spent at the Potter's with a coughing and sneezing toddler." She flicked and waved her wand again, and Draco recognized the sound of now dry dishes flying to their places in the kitchen cabinets. "And I know Theo's your friend and all, but Merlin! He's a loquacious prat-"
"And an entitled knob," Draco added with a smirk.
"That too." Hermione making a face. "I swear he's just pulling things from his attic item-by-item to be checked and double checked, all the while nattering about the history behind each and every piece, and then sending them back up to never see the light of day again."
"I mean, he is. But It's sweet," Draco said, shrugging. "I mean, old Thoros Nott was worse than Lucius, and Theo doesn't want to take any chances with his new bride."
Hermione graced him with one of her perfect and genuine smiles. "She's a Ravenclaw you said?"
"Yes," Draco confirmed, "A Muggleborn Ravenclaw a couple of years behind us. She's an acquaintance of Astoria's, and Theo met her at Daphne's birthday party last year. He was smitten from the beginning."
"All ready for the wedding this weekend?" she asked, eyeing him as she sipped her water.
"Mostly." Vague and not untrue. There was one final issue of bringing a date, however...
"Good then." Hermione sipped her water again, shifting in her seat to finger one of the delicate daisy petals. "Anyways, I just thought I'd take the day to catch up on sleep and try to let this cold run its course. I have Pepper-Up ready for tomorrow."
"Ah," Draco winced. "I must have given you quite a fright. Or that infernal alarm-thing when you stepped through the silencing barrier."
"Smoke detector," Hermione chuckled, sliding the vase closer, studying the daisies at the centre of the white porcelain vase he'd conjured. "And, we'll just say I was very surprised and a little embarrassed and leave it at that."
"Right," he stuttered like an idiot, enchanted by the way she skimmed and traced the edges of every little petal, caressing the blossoms as if they were something fine and precious.
"What did you mean earlier?" she asked, her voice soft and cautious. She shifted her attention from the vase, her full brown eyes boring into him. "When you blurted out that I really am sick."
Draco blew out a long puff of air, running a hand down his face.
He heard a chair scoot across the floor. "I mean, you came over here with the intention of making me my go-to comfort lunch; you must have believed something was wrong with me, correct?"
"Correct," Draco agreed, pulse quickening as her lips twisted in a confused line.
"So…" Hermione trailed off, leaving the prompt dangling between them.
He took hold of the invisible tendril with a sigh. None of this had gone to plan anyways. "I thought you were staying home today because of the featured spread in the society column of the Prophet," Draco said, meeting her inquisitive stare. "I thought you were hurt and needed some time to yourself, and I didn't want you to be hurting alone, so I thought I would surprise you with lunch and thus restore your faith in wizards and humanity."
A single brown brow quirked at him. "Lofty expectations for soup, Malfoy."
"Daisies, too, Granger." He waved at the vase in front of her.
She grinned, inching the vase closer to her edge of the table. "I haven't seen the newspaper yet," she voiced. "You'll have to tell me what I've missed that would have been so terribly devastating."
Draco's heart sank, skin turning clammy. She didn't know. She hadn't seen it. Here he was hoping to be her shining knight with everything. First lunch, and now she asked him to tell her.
He had never lied to her in all these years of reconciliation and friendship. Curse you, Krum…
"It seems," he began slowly, tracing the edge of the table, inching his fingers to her. "Krum has himself another witch on the side." He swallowed thick, dreading the subsequent fallout of this revelation. "There's a whole page of him pictured with some tart, and they're in different outfits, so it doesn't look like a one-time thing."
Hermione sat blinking at him. Processing what he just told her, poor thing. He leaned forward, preparing to gather her into his protective arms…
"Oh my gods, Malfoy!"
To his utter astonishment, the witch began to laugh. Boisterously and hysterically. He snapped upright in his chair as Granger threw back her head and cackled, clutching her sides tight.
"Granger…" He snapped his jaw shut, too stupefied to continue, deciding to wait out this sudden storm of mirth.
"Oh, Malfoy," she gasped, then coughed. And then sneezed a couple of times, wiping her nose and face with a napkin. "You really thought I was upset over that?"
"Yes?" It wasn't an answer. It was a question. "I thought you and he were together."
"Godric, no!"
He was taken aback with the force of her answer and narrowed his eyes at her. "You see him whenever he's in town," Draco countered. "And we got pictures in the Prophet of you and he catching up when Bill sent you to Bulgaria a few months back."
"An arrangement isn't the same as a relationship," she supplied, coy and playful, awakening the proverbial sleeping dragon within. It clawed at his chest, burning, seething and raging. Calling out for the Quidditch star's blood for sullying Granger's bed with his grimy paws and…
He cleared his throat, shaking his head to gain some semblance of clarity. "Dinner arrangements, or dessert as well?" He was endlessly proud his voice hadn't croaked.
"Does it matter?"
The ease of her retort infuriated the dragon. "It bloody well does!" he snapped, gesturing about her kitchen like a madman. "I almost burn myself and this flat down making you lunch because I thought you were in the midst of an emotional crisis over Krum, and you say it's all been some sort of casual arrangement this whole time?"
She said nothing, blinking once, then twice at him. "Why should it matter to you?"
A low growl escaped the back of his throat. He fell forward in his seat, collapsing his face into his hands.
This wasn't how it was supposed to go. "It just does," he muttered uselessly. Maybe he should just Apparate back to the office now, save himself from further humiliation and-
The feel of warmth threading through his hair halted all train of thought.
"Oh, Draco," Granger whispered, her breath tickling his ear.
His face lifted of its own accord, but Granger ran her fingers down his jawline, until she was cupping his chin, tilting it so his face was level with hers and they were sitting eye-to-eye.
"I'm never listening to my dad or Ginny again," she muttered, shaking her head. "This has taken far too long." She cleared her throat, releasing his chin from her hold, only to rest them on his knees. "Draco Malfoy, I like you."
The dragon purred even as Draco strained to breathe while Hermione continued, pressing into his legs.
"I've liked you for the better part of a year now," she said, "and had an off-again, on-again crush on you for even longer. Probably since some point eighth year. Ginny said I should see if you'd be jealous if I started dating around since being your friend was taking too long, and my dad said the same thing."
It was impossible. He opened his mouth, but she kept talking.
"So, I took their mutual advice, and that's what I've been doing all this time." She had begun to trace little patterns over his pants, sating the dragon even more. "Whenever I thought it was beginning to work, you'd clam up and not say anything, which tells me I should have just taken Mum's advice in the first place."
She leaned into him and his breath hitched.
"And what might that be, Granger?" he managed, low and husky.
"This," Granger said, bumping her nose with his before pulling away completely, beaming at him all the while. "Would you like to go out on a date with me, Malfoy?"
The dragon preened under those little touches, filling him with an insatiable need for more. He crashed his lips to hers, wrapping his arms around her slight waist, pulling her chest close even as she lightly protested.
"You'll get sick-" she tried.
"Don't care," he answered, silencing her again with his lips, pressing hard and deep until he felt her resistance melt away and she moved her lips against his. He shivered as her fingers skipped up his arms, over his shoulders, traced his jaw, and laced together at the fringe of his hair. He tamed the rhythm of his movements, forcing his lips to linger, caress, and pillow hers as he moved his hands to cup the softness of her neck and cheek.
He was delighted at the bright pink in her swollen lips as he pulled away. "You know," he mused, "if I go back to Theo's to work after this, there's chance I could just start coughing and sneezing over everything. Theo would just complain..."
Granger didn't disappoint. "Probably." She smirked at him.
"Mhm," he hummed, capturing her lips once more. "Wouldn't be very honourable of me to knowingly spread germs all over his home less than a week before his wedding, would it?"
She permitted her forehead to linger on his, her warm breath sending chills down his spine. "What would you suggest, then?"
"We have our first date now, in your living room," he said, ticking his head right. "We'll watching one of your films or one of those rubbish shows you prattle on about with your mum." He tilted her chin, steal another kiss, soft and slow. "We snog to our hearts' content and fall asleep at some point together on your couch, because it's bloody comfortable."
She chuckled, and he could see the flakes of gold and cinnamon waltzing in her chocolate eyes.
"And tomorrow?" she asked, expectant with a hint of eagerness to her tone.
"Well, we'll have to go back and finish up at Theo's. But we'll work regular hours only, so we can have proper dates every evening. Saturday afternoon, you'll come to the wedding with me..." He laughed as she made a face and pressed a final kiss to her cheek before pulling them up from the kitchen chairs. "He's a prat, I know," Draco started, dropping his face into her bushy sick-day hair. "But I'm rather keen on having my picture with you in the paper, Hermione." He revelled as she shivered in his arm. "I've waited a long time for this, too."
He stayed at her flat for the better part of the week, returning home only to change his clothes and breakfast with his mother, who seemed to know just where he was, but said nothing about it until their picture together at Theo's wedding appeared in the Sunday paper. Narcissa simply hummed that it was about time and informed Draco she expected him to arrange for her to be properly introduced with Hermione before grandchildren arrived.
Draco brought Hermione to the kitchens in the Manor for a dinner of tomato soup and toasted sandwiches he made without magic the next week. It mattered very little the soup was a bit bland and the bread was nearly burnt. It was the meal that brought them together at last, after all.
finis