She has to remind herself at least once every thirty seconds not to fidget. The girls in front of her have such rigid posture that she's sure she looks like a frumpy, ungraceful fool. Her hands are clasped behind her back, but a stubborn curl has fallen in front of her face and there's an itch on the back of her neck, just there, and she's not sure that her collar is straight and—
Across the room, a pair of clear blue eyes snaps to meet hers and her thoughts still as surely as if the wheels in her mind had ground to a sudden halt. She breathes. She can do this. The next girl in line is called ahead and they move up by one. Her knees tremble for just a moment before she locks them in place. Another deep breath. She casts her mind away.
"Are you out of your mind?" she hisses, nonetheless allowing herself to be drawn behind him by the hand. "Draco, you can't be serious!"
He pauses only to glance back at her, giving her one of those grins that she sees so rarely. The utter mischief in it is so purely Slytherin that she understands now how the Hat barely even needed to touch his head. "I'm always serious," he says, though the grin on his face immediately belies it. "I think you'd be perfect for the job."
They finally come to a stop behind the greenhouses and her back hits glass before she's aware that his hands have somehow magically found themselves under her top. She bites her lip to keep from making a sound and lifts her hands to pull his arms away. Instead they thread through his hair.
"Draco, can we just pause for a second here?" she says. She takes a deep breath to steady herself, and the heady scent of the night-blooming plants in the house behind her makes her knees tremble. "You're asking me to do something completely impossible."
He chuckles and his breath skids across her skin in heated clouds. "I would never ask you to do something completely impossible," he says. He pulls back to meet her eyes. "Besides, it's the perfect solution. I doubt your parents would be very happy to see me showing up on your doorstep."
"No, but…" She cuts off when his fingers dip below the waistband of her skirt. She groans. "You're really not making this very fair."
"I know," he says. "I'm sure you'll make me regret it later."
The sound of a throat clearing brings her back to awareness and she blushes heavily when she realizes that the girls in front of her have magically disappeared.
"Miss Granger, is it?" Mrs. Malfoy says, eyes shifting between her pink face and the parchment in front of her.
Hermione crosses the room to stand in front of her desk, keeping her hands clasped behind her back. "Yes, ma'am."
The older woman looks her over with critical eyes, pink cheeks and unruly curls and cat-hair covered sweater. She folds her hands in front of her. "What, exactly, makes you think you're qualified for our internship?"
"Well," Hermione says. She meets Draco's eyes for a moment before she says, "I'm fairly intimate with magical horticulture."