"Oh, Dra-Malfoy! I—er—you've been away…I didn't expect to see you here?"

Hermione Granger was a composed adult. Hermione Granger was a war hero. She was the head of a department at the Ministry. She had faced the worst the wizarding world had to offer and come out on top. Hermione Granger was unflappable. Hermione Granger was flustered.

He was here alone, it seemed. She wondered if he'd met anyone in his travels – he'd been gone so long, he must have. She took a breath as she counted the years, trying to collect herself. It had been six years since she'd seen him. Six years without those piercing grey eyes. She looked him over surreptitiously. He hadn't aged so much as grown into himself. He was still only twenty-four, and it seemed the last several years had been good to him. His shoulders had broadened. His wiry seeker's build had filled out, making his six-foot frame seem more imposing than it had when they were in school. His platinum hair fell carelessly across his forehead now, in a way that was clearly meant to tell you he didn't give a damn about this ruddy banquet, but he was going to look bloody fantastic doing it anyway. Hermione's eyes darted to his left hand of their own volition. No ring… She shook herself mentally. His relationship status was none of her business, nor had it ever been.

He raised his eyebrows at her, and the corner of his mouth lifted in a ghost of a smirk as though he knew exactly what she was thinking. He always had. "Have your conversational skills deteriorated so much since I left, Granger?" he tsked. "There was a time when you were a match for my wits, but it seems you're out of practice."

They were in the eighth year common room. Everyone else had gone to bed. It wasn't unusual that Draco and Hermione would be the last ones awake – they were neck and neck for valedictorian, after all. At least, that's what they told the others. But Hermione noticed the dark circles that deepened under Malfoy's eyes as the weeks passed. And Malfoy noticed the reddened rims of her eyes each morning. She knew he wasn't sleeping. He knew that when she wasn't crying herself to sleep, her nightmares shook her awake in tears. It didn't make them even, but they were there together on the same shaky ground. And that's where it all began for them.

Hermione never really understood why they fought. Maybe for the fire behind their words, for the burning of adrenaline through their veins that meant they were still alive, that the war hadn't killed them, that there was something that still mattered to them. She didn't know why they did it, but it happened without fail whenever they were alone together.

He seemed startled that she was still awake when he got back late that night. Too late, to be allowed, really.

"What are you doing here, Granger?" he said sharply, his silver eyes cutting through her in a way that she was sure should have drawn blood.

She looked up from her book, meeting his eyes with the cold defiance she reserved for him.

"This is my common room, too, Malfoy. What were you doing out after hours? Another late-night quidditch practice – you really are worked up about beating Gryffindor, aren't you? But no, you're not dressed for that. So?"

"Do you always have to stick your nose in where it doesn't belong, Gryffindor princess? Are you going to report me?"

She tried not to wince at the nickname. In all honesty, it was better than mudblood, and he hadn't called her that all year. One of the few things that had changed. "Gryffindor princess" could even have been a term of endearment, if not for the venom that dripped from the words.

"Why do you always respond with questions and never answer mine?" she replied, shifting in her seat to better meet his cold stare with her own. Her book was discarded haphazardly on the side table, her mind already consumed by the boy in front of her. She was almost startled by her own question, driven entirely by curiosity rather than adrenaline-driven hostility.

"Because you are not worth explanations, Granger."

That one stung. She knew he could tell. He always knew when he won. He could see when his words cut deep enough to sever the train of thought that carried her witty responses. He strode towards the door to the boys' dorms before turning back to her.

"Because, Granger, imagine the power I hold over you, knowing what even the know-it-all does not."

"Let me buy you a drink."

She rolled her eyes. "It's an open bar."

"All the better for me, then."

She wanted to tell him to shove it but she didn't, just like she was sure he knew she wouldn't. She followed him to the bar, instead, resigning herself to acting like the mature adult she'd had no problem being until he returned.

"How have you been, Malfoy?" she asked politely. This was a state function after all. There was no space for rudeness.

His eyes narrowed slightly, as though he hadn't expected her to be polite in the face of his taunts, but his surprise was replaced so quickly with detached amusement that she questioned whether she'd even seen it at all.

"Traveling was good for me. And for Malfoy Incorporated, I daresay," he flashed her a smirk that transported her back six years. When he continued, his words were sharp, sarcastic, but they dripped with enough honey to make them seem almost sincere. "And you? Has the Ministry treated the Gryffindor Princess with her due respect? They are throwing a banquet in your honor. I do hope it's up to your standards."

She'd meant to be polite. She'd meant to continue this conversation as she would with anyone else at this godforsaken banquet, but nobody else here would have called her that. It stung at invisible scars that she'd thought had healed years ago, and etiquette went out the window.

"It's been six years," she muttered, turning towards the bar as she waited for the bartender to fix her drink. She'd thought to order wine, but with the tall, blonde turn of events standing beside her, something stronger seemed more fitting.

"At least your ability to count hasn't been hindered by my absence," he replied sweetly. He grinned in a way that felt familiar and distant at the same time. Her breath caught imperceptibly. She wondered if it would still feel the same as it had six years ago. Matching wits with Malfoy was something that had gone unparalleled since their graduation from Hogwarts. Her co-workers at the Ministry were intelligent, of course, but Malfoy was a league all his own, and in his absence perhaps she had grown complacent. He was watching her now, and she knew he was reading her the way he always had. Where he was impassive, inscrutable, her every emotion flitted across her face for his perusal. And he used every one to his advantage.

"My intellect has been just fine without your presence, Malfoy. I've been…fine. No, I've flourished—not that you'd know—but I appreciate your concern all the same, thank you," Hermione replied, meeting his gaze for the first time. His eyes glinted, at odds with the serene expression on his face. They were the only indication that he was anything less than the unruffled businessman Draco Malfoy that everyone else expected him to be. And even that spark lasted only a moment; only long enough for Hermione to catch it.

He smirked at her, and Merlin she thought six years would be enough to do away with the flips her stomach did at that almost-pleasant quirk of his lips but she'd been wrong. The bartender returned with their drinks, but it wasn't enough to distract her from this.

"Oh, I've seen, Granger. Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures now, aren't you? I suppose I owe you congratulations for passing that werewolf equality bill. That is why we're all here, is it not?" he said lazily as he accepted his glass of firewhiskey. He tipped it towards her and spoke again. "Shall we drink to your continued success?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, taking a swig of her own firewhiskey without clinking her glass to his. She hoped the gesture came off as more aloof than it felt. In all honesty, she was thrown off. She hadn't expected him to know anything about her after all this time. She didn't know how to fall back into this banter the way it had been six years ago, though he seemed to treat it as though not a day had gone by. As though nothing had happened between them.

"Why the fuck do you have to be so goddamn stubborn?" he growled, stepping towards her again. Her wand was out, but he didn't care. The hand that held it was shaking too hard for her to be any threat to him and he could see why. Her arm was bleeding heavily, and she had clearly been trying to wrap it to no avail. He'd walked into the common room to her tearstained face, blood dripping slowly from her forearm onto the carpet.

Now he gently moved her wand aside and picked up the bandage that had fallen to the floor in her frustration. Kneeling on the floor in front of her, he quickly but tightly wrapped it around the gash in her arm. He didn't fail to notice that she'd sliced clean through the angry scar his aunt had left her.

"Fuck, Granger, were you trying to kill yourself?" he muttered, mostly to himself.

"Of course not, you bloody idiot. I'm the valedictorian. Brightest witch of my age, and all that. I have so much to live for." Her tone was sardonic and the chuckle that followed was anything but happy.

"Sarcasm is the lowest form of humour, you know."

She glared at him. "Aren't you going to admonish me or something? Turn me in at the hospital wing? I'd be out of your hair for a week, then. You know the rules."

"It's your life, Granger. Your blood to spill. Though if it's all the same to you, keep it out of the common room from now on? I don't have a spell to get rid of blood stains."

She looked up at him in surprise. She shouldn't have expected pity. He wasn't one to pity anyone, especially this girl that had stood in his way at every turn for the last eight years. Potter and Weasley may not be around with her anymore, no Golden Trio, but he couldn't bring himself to feel sorry for her. Her isolation was still nothing compared to what he'd experienced his entire time at Hogwarts. It was nothing compared to the solitude forced upon him by his parents' choices.

Hermione's surprise quickly turned to a smile, though. One that was more genuine than anything he'd seen on her in ages. And then she began to laugh. First, it was a quiet, shocked sort of laughter, but it turned more hysterical, maniacal. As though she didn't know why she was laughing or how to stop.

Draco watched her in silence until she was able to calm herself. It was somehow comfortable, seeing those familiar lines crease her freckled cheeks, frame her mouth, wrinkle the corners of her eyes. It had been a long time since he'd seen this. Now she was only ever angry or sad, though he couldn't be sure this wasn't just some strange manifestations of that.

When she'd caught her breath, he raised his eyebrows at her, waiting for the answer to his unasked question.

"You've always been so concerned about my blood, Malfoy. And the one time it actually matters, you don't," she said, her words floating carelessly between them to land heavily on his shoulders. Was this what it felt like to lose their verbal battles?

"Thanks for bandaging me." She stood to go. He could see her thinking. If she could leave him behind, speechless, just this once…

He stood with her, looking her directly in the eye.

"You're not the only one living with scars, Granger."

"I didn't choose mine," she said, raising her chin in defiance. Her breath was short. He could see her shaking, remembering the moment their eyes met in the foyer of the manor. He kept her gaze as she brought her emotions back under control. At this distance he could see everything she thought, every freckle across her nose. He leaned in, his cheek ghosting against hers as he whispered in her ear.

"Nor did I, princess."

"It's been six fucking years, Malfoy," she scowled. She was nursing her drink and walking away from him. She stuck to the edge of the party, and he knew she was trying not to make a scene. He'd heard the talk of the evening enough to realize that she was here because Kingsley had asked her to be – a special favor because he thought that Ministry benefactors would want to see and speak to the up-and-coming witch who was turning the magical world's treatment of magical creatures inside out. It was a smart move on Kingsley's part, really, making her his centerpiece by honoring her achievements. Hermione Granger was the ultimate showpiece, Kingsley's trump card, especially now that Ron and Harry had left the Ministry.

"So you've said," he replied, following her. His long legs kept pace with her rapid steps easily. He wasn't concerned with her direction. He wasn't here for the party. He followed her unquestioningly out the doors to the back gardens and into the cool October air. She'd taken a deep breath the second they walked out the doors, as though the ballroom had been stifling her. He could almost see her head clear as she continued to march away from him in that determined way that said he was about to get a piece of her mind. He suppressed a smile.

When they reached a dead end in the maze of flowers she whirled on him. Some curls had come loose from the elegant twist at the back of her head and they fell around her shoulders. He had to admit to himself that he preferred her hair down and messy and sprawled out around her—not that he'd ever say it aloud.

"Six. Fucking. Years. Without so much as a word from you!" she said through gritted teeth.

"Why, it's almost as if you missed me, Granger," he teased. He smirked at her, but there was almost a hint of a real smile in it. He'd always had to be careful around her. It was so easy to focus on everything but schooling his expressions into impassivity when she was nearby.

When she glared at him, his blood raced through his veins the way it always had. Gods, had he missed this feeling.

"You left without a word, Dra-Malfoy," she said quietly. Her glare fell away, and for a moment—for one breathless moment—he could see everything. It nearly shattered him.

"What did you mean, you didn't choose?"

He hadn't seen her there, curled under a blanket beside the embers of the night's fire. It was dark. He wondered how long she'd sat there. He pushed away the hope that maybe she'd been waiting up for him. Those thoughts were futile.

Besides, she'd had weeks to ask this question.

"Why do you have to ask so many questions?" he asked. He was tired. She always seemed to want him to be somehow redeemed.

"Because I'm trying to figure you out," she replied in that matter-of-fact way that told him he'd better sit down, this was going to take a while.

"I meant that you're not the only one who's tried to cut memories out of your skin, Granger."

Her eyes flickered away from his face. She didn't speak.

"I mean that he'd have made my father murder my mother if I hadn't done as he said. I mean that I'd been groomed for this my whole life," he said, grabbing his left forearm. "I didn't have a choice in who I was going to be. They didn't have to hold me down and burn it into me, but Merlin I wish they had."

He knew his face was betraying his remorse, his impossible wish that it had never happened. It had burned in him so hidden, so deep for so long that he didn't know how not to let her see it now that he'd spoken.

"You chose not to betray us, though," she said quietly. She was looking at him again, curiosity spilled plainly across her face. What startled him, though, was the lack of pity. In the eyes of his friends, at the start of the year, he'd drowned in it. It swallowed him whole until he began avoiding free time with them. He only escaped it when he flew. And when he argued with Granger.

"I did terrible things too, Granger. I'm not guiltless. I cast as many Avadas as the next Death Eater," Draco spat.

He watched her carefully. She'd grimaced at this, but no surprise colored her features. She looked the same way she did when she was pondering a complex rune translation, or working on her Arithmancy problem sets. He was a puzzle to her—he was a problem to be worked out. Nothing more. He let his head fall back against the chair as she thought.

"I don't think…" she looked at him and trailed off. He waited, knowing that she'd continue when she was ready.

"I don't think that it's the Avadas that make a person guilty," she murmured, meeting his eyes. "I think it's intention and malice and remorse and the things you may have been taught to feel but clearly don't anymore, Draco."

He looked at her and he felt like he was seeing her for the first time. Hermione Granger, Gryffindor Princess, best friend to The Chosen One, brightest witch of her age…felt as guilty as he did about what she'd done in the war. She didn't have to say it, he could hear the weight of lives in her voice, knew that deep down, she felt as guilty as he did for the lives she'd taken. And she was looking at him in a way that took his breath away.

"You used to call me Draco," he said quietly. He knew he still hadn't answered her unasked question.

"We used to be…maybe not friends, but we used to be something," she said. Her hands were on her hips now. It almost made his composure break. He almost smiled. She was like a petulant child, sometimes. She always had been stubborn to a fault. He couldn't blame her this time. It had been six years, after all. But she always fell into this pose when she was angry with him for something he should have, could have done. She was so easy to read. Like a book, still, after all this time.

"I didn't know I was required to write, princess. We weren't friends, as you say. So what did we owe each other?" he asked coolly.

"Give it a rest, Malfoy! Merlin, one would think you'd have grown up in six years! But no, still the same arguments over nothing, just for the sake of it! If you can't tell me where you've been – why you left for six years without even saying you were going, then I have nothing else to say to you, Draco."

She faltered for a moment. He could tell she hadn't meant to let his name slip out. She'd been fighting it all night, but finally it had tumbled past her lips. She regained her composure and pushed past him, maneuvering her tiny body between the garden wall and his frame.

When he spoke, he didn't turn around. He knew better than to think he could control his features.

"There was nothing for me here."

The words sounded false to his own ears, but he heard her footsteps pause for a moment, before continuing away more hurriedly than before. He won. He usually did with these little verbal battles of theirs. He usually had her leaving speechless. Or he had, back when this was a regular occurrence, when chasing her away didn't feel permanent.

He deflated. He'd come here to make sure she was doing well, and it seemed she was. Head of a Ministry Department, advisor to the Minister himself. He'd meant to find out if she was happy, but that didn't seem like the kind of question you could ask someone you'd chosen not to speak to for six years. The rest of it he'd gleaned from the newspapers over the years as he traveled. He'd never gone so far that he wasn't able to receive the Daily Prophet. He read it every day, keeping an eye out for any sign of her.

You could be more, she'd said. More than the ex-Death Eater that the Ministry keeps a constant watch on. More than the owner of his father's business that had done more harm than it had good. More than the Slytherin boy who'd tormented her with horrible names. More than his blood status or his last name or his parent's legacy.

He still remembered the way her hair fell across her face, and the utter peacefulness of her expression while she slept. It had made it easy not to wake her when he slipped out of the castle before sunrise that morning. He'd told himself that it was to become more, but he knew that it was because he couldn't bear to disappoint someone else. Especially not her, the back of his mind had whispered as the brisk April air of the Scottish highlands swirled around him.

He hadn't turned back when he reached the gates, but now it felt like all he did was look over his shoulder for her. And in the Prophet, and the Quibbler. He'd even taken to surreptitiously scanning Katrina's Witch Weekly for mentions of her. He never had to look far – once she'd graduated Hogwarts, accomplishments seemed to fall from her like snow in winter.

He'd been reading about her again when Katrina got home from work that night. She was a healer at St. Mungo's. She was good, and kind, and intelligent. She was American—she had only an inkling of who his family had been before the war. She put up with his constant travel, and his late nights at Malfoy Inc. as he restructured the company entirely. But she couldn't put up with it anymore, she said. She'd called it an obsession. She'd asked if he'd ever even met her, this up-and-coming shining star that the Ministry was so proud of.

She'd asked what made her so special that he paid more attention to the girl in the papers than his own girlfriend.

And he hadn't had an answer that could satisfy this woman who he'd never seen burn so brightly as she did now that her heart was breaking.

So she left.

Hermione stormed back into the dining hall. She'd thank everyone the way she'd been meant to. She'd introduce herself to the people Kingsley had insisted she meet tonight. And then she'd make her excuses and leave.

Nothing. He'd called her nothing. You don't say goodbye to nothing. You don't write letters to nothing. You don't miss nothing. He hadn't been nothing to her. He'd been the only one that could keep up with her. He'd made her blood boil and her pulse race. He'd made her breath catch in her throat. He wielded words like sharpened knives and she'd given as good as she'd gotten. He had been her something.

She made it through the rest of the night in a stupor. She only hoped that her conversations hadn't been as hollow as she felt.

Silly, she thought, that you were good and past this for six years but he shows up now and you're seventeen and he's gone all over again.

It had been such a good dream. The best dream she'd had since the war. It was a pity she woke from it, really. She'd much rather have stayed in the world her mind had conjured for her. Her eyes fluttered open and the light that filtered in through the window was brighter than she was used to. It had been a long time since she'd slept so well.

The room came into focus and Hermione became disoriented. This…wasn't her room. The bed was made in green and grey and the desk was far too neat. The only way this was possible was if her dream…wasn't actually a dream at all.

Slowly, Hermione turned her head to look at the space in bed beside her. It was empty, but clearly slept in. The dent where his head had rested next to hers on the pillow was still pronounced.

"Draco?" she called into the emptiness of the room.

She tried not to be worried by this. Maybe he'd just gone to shower, or get breakfast, after all. But it felt so wrong, after last night. After he'd opened up to her, after…well after everything, he wouldn't leave her, would he? Perhaps the old Draco would have, but not the one who'd looked at her and touched her and held her the way he had last night. She refused to believe it.

Hermione slipped quietly out of his room and ran to hers as inconspicuously as possible. She took her time showering and dressing and taming her hair into a braid before she stepped out again. Surely he'd be back by now. She knocked on his door. No response. She peeked inside and the sheets were rumpled in exactly the way they'd been when she left. Considering the state of the rest of his room, Malfoy wasn't one to let a bed go unmade.

She spent the rest of the day trying to convince herself that he hadn't really left. Every time she turned a corner or passed a row of the library, she half expected him to jump out and surprise her. He hadn't left the school just because of last night.

But the pit in her stomach was telling her what she'd known all along. He had. He'd left without a word. In the back corner of the library, far away from the students who were spending their Saturday afternoon productively studying, Hermione sobbed.

Hermione had said her goodbyes a bit early. It was a banquet for her, yes, but she was known for leaving parties early and she'd outstayed her patience. She'd retrieved her coat from the coatroom, and she was leaving the banquet. Maybe if she left quickly enough she could pretend this night hadn't happened at all.

"Granger," she heard behind her. She didn't stop, didn't turn, just kept walking purposefully towards the front doors and back out into the London night.

"Granger, wait!" this time, quick footsteps. The voice was getting closer. If she could just get to the apparation point, she wouldn't even have to acknowledge that he was there. Only a few more hurried steps, almost there. Alright, focus on home. As she spun, she felt a pressure on her shoulder. The weight was insistent and unshakeable. It set her skin aflame.

When they landed in her flat she whirled on him, hands on his chest, pushing him from her living room towards the door, never looking at his face.

"Get out, Malfoy! Of all the inconsiderate, rude, pigheaded things to do, you followed me home?" She wasn't yelling. She didn't have to. Her voice shook with her anger and the hair that had been falling prettily away from the twist earlier had come undone entirely, falling wildly around her face, framing her face, highlighting those honey-brown eyes that glinted in anger. Anger at him. He didn't have to be a master at reading this particular witch to know that.

"If you weren't so bloody stubborn, I could have talked to you at the banquet!"

She growled in exasperation. "I have nothing to say to you, Malfoy. Leave."

His back was against the door now. Her hands were still on his chest. She was staring determinedly at the pocket of his dress shirt, refusing to meet his eyes.

"You say that princess, but you have me trapped here," he said loftily.

Hermione jumped back as if she'd been shocked. When she finally looked at him, there were no walls, impassive expressions or sneers to look past. She was looking at him for the first time.

"Dammit, Granger, why are you always here?" he shouted. They were alone in the eighth-year common room once again. It happened more often now, and they were alone together almost every night.

She raised her eyebrows at him, but didn't seem angry or hurt or upset. She'd gotten better at controlling her reactions to him since the beginning of the year, but he could still read her.

"Bad day, then?" she asked, amused.

"As if you care," he huffed, falling into his armchair. She didn't.

But her face softened and curiosity lit her eyes. Reading her was like reading your favorite book. She was so dynamic and alive and even her sorrow was more beautiful than anything he'd ever read. But it paled in comparison to her curiosity. Her curiosity burned stars.

"I do," she said quietly.

Draco couldn't contain the shock quickly enough. It darted across his features and took up residence in his eyes even once he'd tried to pull down his mask.

"I'm not some sad sack waiting for you to come and help him redeem himself, Granger," he scowled.

She rolled her eyes and when she spoke, her sarcasm was palpable. "Well that's alright, then, because I'm not trying to help you find redemption."

He didn't know what to say to that, and she didn't push. They sat in silence for a long while, as they were wont to do on these sleepless nights. Maybe an hour passed, or maybe it was only a few minutes, but they sat there looking into the dark corners of the common room, every so often succumbing to the urge to glance at the other. He stood up to go.

"I do care, though," she repeated.

"Merlin knows why," Draco replied, turning back towards her.

"Because nobody ever has before," she said matter-of-factly, as though she'd been around his whole life. It felt like a punch to the gut, and he sat himself beside her on the sofa to catch his breath. Here, he'd thought his walls were so sturdy – impenetrable. And all along she'd seen through them.

"Because," she continued hesitantly, and he could see her drawing on every bit of Gryffindor courage she held, "I think, sometimes, that you care too."

"Granger—"

"Hermione," she interrupted. "My name is Hermione."

"Hermione," he agreed, his thoughts gone the moment he looked at her face. She'd dropped her walls entirely and her vulnerability made his chest tight.

He didn't quite know how it happened, didn't know who initiated it, but suddenly they were kissing and he could breathe again. Her lips on his felt like seeing the stars for the first time. It felt like the first rain of spring and the last day of school and courage and freedom and just the spark of something more.

"I'd have disappointed you. I'd have ruined you. You wouldn't have any of this if I'd stayed," he said. It was hard to keep his walls down like this, after so many years of practiced disinterest. So many years away from her, his mind whispered. But she had to see. He had to make her see.

"What do you think leaving did to me, Draco?" she replied, quietly.

Her walls had dropped enough that he could see the pain he'd caused her and the scars he'd left behind. He could see eighteen-year-old Hermione's sobs, her anger, her confusion. He could see the insecurities he'd left behind that morning.

"Even if that was true—though we both know that it's bullshit—shouldn't I have had the chance to choose for myself?"

"I knew what you'd decide. You have a hero complex. You wanted to save me. But I would have brought you down with me, Hermione." His eyes shined with a sincerity that she'd never before seen from him.

"You could have written," she murmured. She was coming closer to him again. Her feet were no longer under her control—he was drawing her in.

"I thought you'd be better off without me entirely. I never intended to stay away so long. In the papers, you were doing well. So well. So I stayed away."

"Only Draco Malfoy could convince himself that my successes were his doing," she said, raising her eyebrows, challenging him.

"Granger, I—"

"So what, now seemed like a good time to come back and ruin my life? I'd run out of your good favour? Give me a break, Malfoy. Please, leave." Merlin, he hated to see her hurt like this, from wounds he'd made years ago and left her to heal for herself. She looked like being near him was painful and she looked away from him. But she was still so close. Too close. He grabbed onto her shoulders and her eyes snapped back to his, glinting in a cocktail of heatbreak and fury.

"I needed to see that you were really okay. If you were still Hermione Granger, Princess of Gryffindor, bossy know-it all, witch who always gets her way. I couldn't tell that from the papers. So I came back." His hands were searing her shoulders. If he didn't let go she might combust. Her stomach rolled and her mind raced, trying to reconcile his words with everything she'd decided about him over the last six years.

She glared at him with a defiance she did not feel. "And what have you concluded?"

His grip on her shoulders loosened. He seemed to be weighing his response, searching her face for clues to how she might take it. He let go of her shoulders, but one hand held her chin instead, forcing her to hold his gaze when he spoke.

"That leaving you was the worst mistake of my life, Hermione."

She didn't speak. She didn't move. She couldn't. How was this happening now? She'd hoped against hope he'd come back for weeks. Waited months for a letter, any sign that he'd still cared. And now he came careening back into her life, shattering every perfectly-made barrier she'd created to keep out thoughts of him.

For the first time in years, she was alive, though she'd never realized before that she wasn't. His thumb brushed across her lips and it felt like electricity, leaving her tingling in his wake.

He was smirking now. He had always known when he won. He could see it on her face.

"I'd have told you that six years ago. But you never asked." Her hands were on her hips again, the perfect picture of Hermione Granger, the way he'd remembered her for years.

He chuckled and drew closer to her, their lips nearly touching. "I will never question you again, princess."

"And wouldn't life be a bore then," she replied before closing the distance between their lips.

He let her lead the kiss at first, in that gentle, careful way that was so wonderfully Hermione. Draco kept his hands down. He didn't want to push – didn't know how far she wanted to take this. But when her hands made their way to the buttons of his shirt, he couldn't hold back any longer. His hands flew to her hips and he spun them to push her back against her front door.

She moaned into his mouth and dragged him impossibly closer.

Merlin, this woman is going to be the death of me.

Somehow he managed to find the tiny, invisible zipper at the back of her dress and dragged it down unceremoniously. Her beautiful midnight blue gown was loose on her shoulders and he gently helped her shrug out of it, letting it pool to the floor. She looked up at him, eyes burning into his. Her hair had gone wild, her cheeks were flushed. She looked invincible.

He paused, for a moment, drinking her in, before lifting her up and carrying her in what he assumed was the direction of the bedroom.

Their kisses had started off gentle and tentative, as though they both worried the other would realize what was going on at any moment and put a stop to it. But as their lips met again and again, the heat between them grew until Hermione was sure they'd burst into flames. It grew until Draco kissed her with urgency and a fervor she'd never imagined was possible.

He'd leaned her back against the arm of the couch and was hovering over her, his body pressing against hers in all the right places. He was so solid, and surprisingly warm, and his hands were trailing over her skin and leaving goosebumps in their wake, all the while sending heat in waves to a place deep inside her that Hermione had never realized existed before.

She reached for his collar to pull him tighter against her and then her hands made their way to the buttons of his shirt of their own accord. There was no space in her mind for embarrassment, though under any other circumstance Hermione would have blushed at her own forwardness.

Suddenly, he broke away and she was embarrassed. He seemed to notice, and brushed a finger across her cheek.

"Care to move this to the bedroom, Princess?"

He didn't put her down when they reached the bedroom, just pressed her back against her bedroom door. With her legs around his hips, she could feel him, hard against her center, pressed tight to her through the lace of her knickers. He had worked her bra off, and his shirt hung, unbuttoned, off his shoulders. He was kissing her, still, but his hand had made its way to the swell of her breast, caressing it, tracing her nipple, tweaking it gently. All the while his hips ground against hers, sending shockwaves of heat through her body that made her wonder whether she were really on fire.

"Bed," she demanded against his lips, and he complied immediately, turning to toss her onto her bed. He threw his shirt to the side and followed her immediately. His lips found her neck, her shoulders, took their time to worship each breast, made their way down her stomach, tasting every inch of her skin. Meeting her eyes, he hooked his thumbs under the edges of her underwear, waiting for her permission to remove them.

She nodded breathlessly, watching as he looked at her like she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. His fingers brushed across her lower lips, pulling her open and her head fell back onto the bed with a gasp.

"You're so wet, Princess," she heard him murmur, before his tongue ran over her folds and then tucked between them. He flicked her clit over and over, alternating pressure and speed until he found what made her call his name, drawing her near her orgasm and then pulling away again, devouring her in languorous strokes that had her gripping his hair and pulling him tighter against her. And then he was at her clit again, yes just there and Merlin, the world must be on fire. She heard herself moaning as he continued – whimpering as he slowly slid one finger inside her, then another.

"Draco…ahhh…please…" she groaned, feeling her body approach the edge. "Don't. Stop," she gasped, and then she was coming, shaking and crying his name as he touched her.

She was nervous. He could always read her – he could always tell, and this was no exception. Now that they were in his bed, her hands shook at his belt buckle and again as she reached for the button of his trousers. Fuck, he wanted her and how he'd never realized it before, he'd never know. But she was still shaking and that's not how he wanted to remember this.

Somehow he pulled away from the hands at his pants, pulled his lips from hers, laid himself beside her. Gently, he hoped, so that he didn't upset her. So she'd know that she hadn't done anything wrong but only that it would be wrong of him to assume that his touch set her skin aflame the way his felt.

"Draco," she murmured, eyes searching for his face in the dark.

"I'm here, Princess," he said back, still breathless.

"Draco, please," she whimpered, finding his hand and pulling it against her chest. He wasn't sure when her shirt had been unbuttoned, but his fingers traced the lace edge of her bra, drawing pleasant sort of purr from her lips.

"What do you want, Hermione?" he whispered against her neck. He needed to know that she wanted him. He needed to know that she needed this as badly as he did.

She was quiet for a moment, perhaps out of embarrassment for trying to say the words aloud. Perhaps because she knew that he was giving her an out.

"I want us to…I want to touch you," she whispered back, and he could see her eyes wide at the words she'd just spoken.

He couldn't help the low growl that escaped him as he rolled back onto her, trapping her between him and his pillows. This time, when her hands reached for him, he didn't stop her.

She was beautiful. She'd always been beautiful, but this – Hermione Granger sprawled beneath him, hair splayed around her head, eyes shut, begging him for more, harder, faster, please Draco – was the most gorgeous sight he'd ever seen. At Hogwarts, their only night together, she'd been timid, inexperienced, still hardly a woman. There was none of that Hermione in the woman who'd screamed his name, and then pushed him to his back to return the favor. There was nothing timid about her now.

"Yes, Draco, yes," she moaned, and it only spurred him on. He reached between them to touch her and he heard in the pitch of her voice that he was bringing her close once again.

"Come for me, Princess." And she did, and he followed her.

He'd let her explore for a while, running fingers over him gently, experimenting in a way that got him harder than she'd imagined a man could get. Reading was one thing but this was another world entirely.

"Do you trust me?" he whispered, calling her from her study of his body.

She nodded, and her hands froze, and he smiled.

"Lie back, Princess."

Her breath was shaky as she complied. Her eyes followed his every move as he carefully removed the rest of her clothing. His expression was one she'd never seen cross his features before. It was as though all of his many layers of control had been peeled away and before her sat a Draco Malfoy who was almost more naked than Hermione herself. It startled her. Before her sat the boy who'd teased her mercilessly, who'd watched her as she was tortured, who she'd fought with every night for months.

And yet, before her sat someone else entirely. This was Draco Malfoy as he might have been – an equal, maybe a friend. He was looking at her like he was seeing the same in her; as though the lust that burned from his eyes had purged everything he'd been taught, leaving behind the magnificent witch that had enraptured him. She saw herself through his eyes, in that moment.

Draco held her eyes as he nudged her legs apart, traced gently up her thigh with his pale fingers. He held her eyes until they fluttered shut with the groan that he drew out at the first contact of his fingers with her center. She'd never felt anything like it.

"Draco," she moaned. Her eyes stayed shut, but she knew his hadn't strayed from her face, measuring her reaction to every twitch of his hand.

Suddenly, his breath was on her neck, then his lips. He kissed down her collarbones, across her chest, back to her ear before gently nibbling her earlobe.

Her eyes flew open and were instantly met with his.

"Do you want something, princess?" he whispered, still touching her.

"Please. I—inside me. Please," she shuddered, holding his gaze.

"Are you sure, Hermione?" he asked, kissing the corner of her mouth.

"I'm sure. Please."

After their third go, Hermione rolled off of him, collapsing onto the bed and wrapping the sheets around her. Staring at the ceiling, she started to laugh.

Draco turned to look at her, a bemused smile tugging at his lips.

"And what, may I ask, is so funny?"

She could hardly speak through her giggles, but she tried all the same.

"You're—you're the world's biggest drama queen, Draco Malfoy!" she exclaimed through her laughter. "You convinced yourself that my six years of success were all because you left me? What an ego."

He rolled on his side, looking down at her with a smile.

"You live for the drama, princess, don't deny it." His silver eyes twinkled with humour and the smirk on his face was so comfortingly familiar that Hermione couldn't help but lean up and press a kiss to it.

"I wouldn't dream of it," she said seriously.

"Good, because I wouldn't dream of leaving you without it again."

And smiling, she pulled his lips crashing back down to hers. She knew he wouldn't. She was the best thing that ever happened to him after all.