He always manages to show up at the right moments. When she feels like her head will combust from thinking too hard, or her temper rises much higher than it ever should due to someone else's incapable work. She knows when she nears her breaking point and it constantly amazes her that nine times out of ten…he just knows. The door of her office will open and he will stride in, with those perfectly tailored suit pants and shoes, both as black as the day he first got them, his tie always so perfectly straight and complementing his outfit though he neverwears any other colour, and his shirt sleeves rolled up just enough to expose his forearms and make her weak at the knees.
That image of him walking through her door is enough to help her relax.
Even more so when he doesn't even need to ask if something is wrong, he knows it is, and simply walks up to her desk and places his hands atop the wood. Merlin, his hands… What she'd give to have those hands be her stress relief, but no. She was at work. She had to remind herself. And right now was no different.
Hermione sighed and looked up at him. His head was cocked to the side ever so slightly, and the corner of his lips curled up into a smirk she'd once despised, but over the years had fallen in love with – because it was him. He reached out and plucked her quill from her fingers. "Your cheeks are red. You look about ready to kill someone, I just know that your shoulders will be tense as all hell and I haven't even felt them, and if I had let you hold that quill any longer, it would be in two pieces," he drawls and puts the quill on the desk and walks around so he's standing next to her chair. "Get up."
She groans and puts her head in her hands. "I don't have time to go walkabout, I need to finish this, people are waiting on this proposal, I–"
"And I am waiting on you to get your arse off that chair." He has a way of speaking that makes everyone listen. During their arguments, there was always one moment when he would just say something and they would both realise how stupid it was that they were fighting again. In a loud, argumentative meeting room, he would speak his idea and everyone would stop and listen to him. His voice demanded respect, but not in the cruel, malicious way that had been expected of him from his younger years.
"Draco…" She sighed and tucked her hair behind her ears before she stood up and turned to face him.
His smirk was replaced with a smile, making her give a tired smile of her own. He knew what that smile did to her. She'd told him many times during the nights they couldn't sleep and stayed up talking, or during an interlude between their favourite pastime in bed… She loved his smile and could look at it for days.
His palms rested on her shoulders and he pushed gently to straighten her out and she realised her shoulders were hunched forwards. He moved one hand to her back to press, making her stand straight and she rolled her eyes. He had this thing about posture, it being the reason he stood so tall all the time. His hands next came to her cheeks, cupping them gently and he looked her in the eyes. "Everyone else left two hours ago," he told her and she furrowed her brows. Had she really stayed that long overtime?
"Why are you here so late?" She asked him.
"Because I'm also finishing off some work, and I knew you wouldn't leave when you're supposed to," he chuckled. His thumbs stroked along her cheekbone and she lifted her hands to rest on his chest, fiddling with the buttons of his shirt. "We need to go home now–"
"But–"
"Because your work will be here when you come back in the morning," he told her, no smile on his face now. "You're working yourself harder than a pack horse, you need to slow down."
"The proposal…" She said weakly, trying to look back at her desk but his hands on her cheeks kept her looking straight at him.
"The proposal can wait," he told her. "You've stayed back late every night this week and continued working on it at home. I want to go to bed with my girlfriend tonight, not be half asleep by the time you come in past midnight." He must have sensed her wanting to argue further, so he spoke again. "Hermione, please just listen to me."
She sighed then let out a weak laugh. "Saying my first name and please in the same sentence? Are you feeling okay?" She joked, as he had a habit of still calling her Granger, even though they'd been going out and on first name basis for over two years now. He smiled too, but tightly, and she knew he wanted her to come home. "Alright, alright," she nodded.
He smiled properly then and dipped his head to press his lips to hers. She sunk into the kiss and curled her fingers into his shirt. A soft sigh left her lips and she pulled back and looked up at him and he knew that look in her eye, just as well as she knew the glint in his own. "We're going now," he told her, and even though they both normally liked to walk back to their flat, she knew the quicker they arrived home through apparation, the quicker they could get towards her favourite stress-relief activity.
A/N: A small one shot I wrote on my tumblr account (hexrmionegranger)