TRIGGER WARNING: Character is diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). If you are triggered by mentions of suicidal thoughts, depressive episodes, panic attacks, or even medication, please skip this story or proceed with caution.
Title is directly lifted from the lyrics of Medicine - The 1975
la douleur exquise: the heart-wrenching pain of wanting the affection of someone unattainable
August 4, 2002
He knows for certain that she'll be leaving soon.
The timepiece on his wrist tells him it's well past one in the morning, but he keeps his eyes open and trained on the woman lying next to him. Hermione Granger's face is peaceful in sleep, the lines that usually mar the space between her eyebrows hidden from sight. He wants to touch her, her cheeks and the exposed skin of her shoulders, but he's terrified of waking her up.
He knows that once those eyes open, she'll realize what a colossal mistake it had been to sleep with him, then she'll be gone from his life.
Forever.
So he stays still, tries to keep his breathing as even as possible so as not to rouse her. Just minutes ago he had been drowning in a sea of her—her eyes, her warm heat wrapped around him, her hands everywhere, her lips leaving marks that are not his to keep. Now he's lost, the constellation of freckles dancing across the skin of her nose and cheeks drawing him in deeper into what would be very dangerous territory.
He has never been this close, despite the many cruel efforts on his parts to be physically near her.
The taunting.
The dirty looks.
The insults thrown at her face, right at her face, allowing him just a moment to be that close to her face.
Tomorrow she'll be gone, but for now he allows himself to live in the reverie that she is his.
He wakes and feels his chest constrict in panic, his breath catching in his lungs and his limbs freezing up. In the back of his mind, he imagines that this is how it would feel for her to wake up the morning of their N.E.W.T.s, realizing that she had fallen asleep in lieu of studying. The space beside him is empty, only the ruffled sheets and some stray strands of hair on the pillow serving as evidence that Hermione had spent the night with him. He had meant to watch her to the very last minute, savour the very last moment before she'd leave, and he had fallen asleep instead and wasted precious time. He doesn't even try to get up, choosing instead to close his eyes and will the sharp pain in his chest to fade into a dull throbbing. He doesn't know how much time passes but he finally moves his head to face the other way, discovering a kink in his neck.
"Draco, are you awake?"
His eyes snap open at the voice and he imagines that his body visibly stiffens.
"Do you mind if I use your kitchen to make breakfast?"
He rises slowly, leaning on his elbows, and finds her sitting on the wide windowsill. He swallows at the sight of her wearing his shirt, a book propped open on her exposed legs. For a moment, he entertains the idea of sleep-induced hallucinations, wracking his brain for an explanation for the anomaly that is Hermione Granger.
He opens his mouth to ask her a dozen questions, each one an attempt to explain why in Salazar's balls she's still here in the poor death eater's lair, but his mind blessedly decides to kick in before his mouth can do any damage.
She had said his name. His given name.
"I'll make breakfast," he says instead, swinging both legs off the bed and turning away from her for a moment to search for his pants. Only half-naked, he takes note of the time and beckons for her to follow him into the kitchen.
She doesn't move from her spot (he has no idea how many hours she's been sitting there but he knows for certain that it couldn't have been long enough for it to justify him referring to it as her spot) and the minutes tick by with the two of them merely staring at each other. She would never hear it from him, but he would much rather stare at her than cook breakfast. A few heartbeats pass and then she's pushing off the ledge, raising her eyebrows at him and he answers the unvoiced question with a roll of his eyes. "I can cook."
"Here, I'll give you your shirt back," she replies, ignoring his declaration.
He shakes his head, not even trying to hide the appreciate way his eyes roam over her body. He doesn't know why she decided to put his shirt on, it doesn't seem like something she would do, but he wants to keep her in his clothes for as long as possible.
Maybe then her scent would be permanently engraved into the fabric.
She says she wants pancakes and Draco pretends he's not thankful that she chose something he actually knows to make. He doesn't burn anything, even when he feels her eyes boring holes into the back of his head, but he barely stops himself from going overboard with the blueberries.
Little triumphs.
He's plating up a high stack for her, ignoring the curious stare she's been maintaining ever since he poured her a cup of tea. He wants to run away from the scrutiny and jumps on the opportunity once he hears a light tapping sound coming from the window. His owl delivers him letters that he leaves in a drawer for later and a copy of the paper that he brings back to Hermione, wordlessly handing it over to her just to get her to stop studying him.
"Do you have powdered milk?"
"No. Why?"
"Oh, nothing. It's just," she pauses, glancing up from behind the face of an elderly wizard being tried for tax evasion. "I usually put some powdered milk on my pancakes, but these are fine. You're surprisingly good at this." She makes a show of taking a rather large bite that has him hiding a smile behind his tea.
"Flattery will get you nowhere, Granger," he says, not without irony. She catches on his meaning and then they're sharing a smile, an inside joke that only the two of them know, and Draco wonders at what exact moment did the universe tilt the wrong way and allowed him to have this with her.
To have her.
"This is odd," she finally says, looking at him in a way that tells him its not his culinary skills she finds bizarre. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that she means them, that she means it's odd that she had slept with him and him with her and that he had made her pancakes with far too many blueberries and she had just shared a smile with him that made the darkest parts of his mind recede for a moment—
"Don't overthink it, I can hear the cogs in your brain turning all the way here," he responds, hoping against all odds that he sounds as nonchalant as he wants to be about it. He knows for a fact that if he wants to keep her from finding out the mess that is his thoughts around her, he best start putting up the occlumency walls he had so carelessly torn down last night.
He tells himself he will, in a minute, when she finishes her pancakes and she's had enough tea. He'll put up the walls when she stops looking as if she doesn't hate him, doesn't hate that she had fallen into bed with him, doesn't hate that he's standing shirtless in front of her because she's wearing his shirt.
He tells himself he couldn't have expected her to stay any longer. She has work, she tells him, and he doesn't tell her that of course you're working on a Sunday. He watches her tiptoe her way back to his room and he watches her emerge once again dressed in her own clothes, her healer robes tucked in the crook of her arm. He tells himself he isn't disappointed when she only kisses his cheeks, tells himself he doesn't feel his fingers warm when she tells him that she had a good time, that she'll see him around soon.
He tells himself it's not the hope that she would come over again that has him purchasing the tin of powdered milk from the muggle pharmacy. It sits in one of the cupboards, right next to the tea that she had picked out.
February 11, 2000
Draco grits his teeth, mentally listing off a number of hexes that he could fire at the beady-eyed wizard sitting in front of him.
"I beg your pardon?" he asks, struggling to keep the drawl in place. To the untrained ear, they would hear an almost bored quality to the question. To anyone who pays attention, they would hear the unnatural lilt that his voices takes on right at the beginning.
"Yes, Mr. Malfoy, we need to perform legilimency on all ex-Death Eaters wishing to apply for a job at the ministry," he eyes Draco, one hand coming to scratch at his whitened beard. "Of course, everyone knows you're a skilled Occlumens, which is why we've prepared a special potion that will ensure you do not… keep things from our knowledge."
Draco feels a muscle twitch somewhere on his jaw. "And why exactly would such a thing be necessary in the first place, if I may ask?"
The veil covering the cruel sneer falls away and the man in front of him openly shows him just what he thinks of Draco. "Mr. Malfoy, you can't honestly expect the ministry to let you work here without the reassurance that you do not have any ill plans tucked away that mind of yours. Think of it as a way of earning your future employer's trust. That is, if we do end up hiring you."
Draco has no response, choosing instead to steeple his fingers against each other and stare back at the other wizard. When the silence stretches on, with no attempts from Draco to end it, the other man speaks up in a tone brokering no argument, "This is an absolute requirement. If you do not wish to go through with it then I will be bidding you farewell."
"When?" he asks, feeling the last dredges of his pride slipping away from his grasp.
A healer performs the spell. When it's over and he feels like his mind has been repeatedly stabbed by a blunt knife, he turns away from the judging eyes staring right at him. There's a flurry of papers and the sound of a book rapidly being flipped through. The healer furiously scribbles on his chart while Draco awaits the verdict.
"Mr. Malfoy, you've been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Here's a prescription for anti-depressant pills that you are to take if I'm to clear you for work at the ministry."
He turns back to the healer with a deliberate slowness, as if reducing the speed of his movements could aid his brain in keeping his mouth from falling wide open. "I beg your pardon?" he finds himself asking for a second time that day.
"Mr. Malfoy, you have suicidal tendencies—"
"Harry Potter has suicidal tendencies, did you also diagnose him with depression?"
"We value patient confidentiality, Mr. Malfoy, I assure you. You won't be hearing about Mr. Potter's medical business as he won't be hearing about yours," the healer states this with a pointed look, no doubt alluding to the fear she saw in Draco's head about his thoughts becoming of public access. Draco takes little relief in this.
"I also know for a fact that when you say suicidal tendencies, you're referring to the things he did during the war," the healer continues. "Unfortunately, that was a case of reckless heroism, not a sign of depression."
Draco raises his eyebrow at this, finding that the comment made him like his healer infinitesimally better than before. "I'm not depressed."
"Would you like me to read to you all the signs I just picked apart from your mind? Aside from constantly thinking about your own death, you have severe insomnia, you have very little interest in doing things you like, you have virtually no appetite to speak of, you're conflicted between the belief that your mother would be better off without you and the guilt of leaving her now that your father is gone—"
"Enough."
The healer pauses, adjusting the spectacles that had started to slip down her nose. "As you know, depression is not something you need to be ashamed of. You'd be surprised how many of the British wizarding folk have been diagnosed with various mental health issues following the war."
For the second time that day, he chooses to answer with cold silence. The healer meets his gaze and wordlessly hands over a small sheet of paper. Draco takes it and his eyes drop to read the messy scrawl. His eyebrows draw together at the unfamiliar words staring back at him. "This is muggle medicine."
"Yes. Do you have a problem with that?"
The question catches him off-guard and he looks up, realizing his mistake a second too late. The potion hasn't fully worn off and he is unable to build up his occlumency walls in time to counter the healer's legilimency.
Scared.
Don't know how to buy these.
Don't know where to go to get these.
Not depressed.
Can't be depressed.
"Stop," he finally grits out, turning away from the healer and finally breaking the spell. He wants to scream, wants to get up and run away from the room, job at the ministry be damned. He almost does the latter when he hears her ripping out a small piece of parchment.
"This is the address of a pharmacy I frequent. You may think of it as a muggle apothecary of sorts. Just hand your prescription over and make sure you have muggle money on you."
Draco takes it, hating the trembling of his fingers as he fights the urge to crush both pieces of paper in his fists.
"Come back with the filled prescription and I'll give you your medical clearance. Goodbye, Mr. Malfoy."
He likes to think he makes a graceful exit, but he knows that he all but stumbles out the room and into the lit hallway. The walls, white and suddenly so oppressive, seem to close in on him as he feels his breathing grow laboured. A panic attack, his mother had described it on the one occasion he had been weak enough to show her that he wasn't as put-together as he would like everyone to believe. She had scoffed at him, her aristocratic face wet with tears, and had pulled his head to rest on her shoulder.
Now he thinks the healer would have listed off sporadic episodes of panic attacks if he hadn't interrupted her.
His legs miraculously carry him towards the floo networks and he struggles to fight off the last vestiges of the potion remaining in his system, already working on constructing the ever-trusted wall around his mind. His throat has gone dry, all moisture seemingly travelling to his now-clammy hands, and his vision starts to blur when he's only steps away from the floo that would get him away from this wretched place—
"Malfoy?"
Fuck.
If someone were to slice his ears off, damage the sensory organ enough that he would only be able to hear anything if one were to use a sonorous charm and shout directly into the mangled hole on the side of his head, he would still be able to recognize that voice. The last time he had heard her, last time he had seen her, was during his trial shortly after the culmination of the Second Wizarding War. He had been more surprised to see her than when he'd seen Potter, more surprised to hear her testify for him than when it had been Potter doing the same thing.
His hands had been bound before him, but his heart had soared at the sight of her then. He had been so certain that he would never see her again, not when he had been on his way to be locked in Azkaban. He had barely paid attention to the words she was saying, his focus trained on the sound of her voice, the fire in her eyes. Not once during her speech did she glance at him and he had only been given the chance to look into her eyes when she had been about to exit the room.
He had sworn that day that he would never forget that image, would hold on to it through the horrors of Azkaban. When he'd been told that the Wizengamot had decided to put him under ten years of heavy probation instead of 10 years in Azkaban, he had let himself foolishly hope that he'd be able to see her again under different circumstances.
Nearly two years later and he finally gets his wish, but the circumstances are only marginally better than before. He attempts to take a steadying breath and only succeeds in affirming that he still can't breathe quite properly. The last of the bricks fall into place and he turns to face her. A lesser witch would see nothing amiss, only an ex-death eater making a hasty escape from St. Mungo's, but she's no lesser witch.
Hermione Granger takes one look at him and the suspicion in her eyes is replaced by that of concern and he fucking hates it. He pretends to appraise her, feigns the slightest bit of shock at her healer robes, only enough that she would think he had failed at trying to hide his surprise at the knowledge that she works here.
Of course he knows she works here; he had almost worked himself up into an early panic attack worrying that she would be assigned his healer.
"Granger." He notes that there's only the slightest bit of a tremor to his voice and he imagines his godfather would have been proud. Still, he keeps his hands behind him where she won't be able to see how badly they're shaking.
"Malfoy, are you—" she cuts herself off, eyes narrowing at him. "Are you okay?"
He manages a smirk and a slight inclination of his head. "Never better. Goodbye, Granger."
"What?" is the indignant cry. He's already stepping into the floo and tossing down a handful of the powder when she calls to him. "Malfoy, wait—"
He doesn't think about the possible repercussions of fleeing from a healer, of fleeing from Granger of all people, the only thought running through his head as he's engulfed by the flames is how he needs to get away from her and her worried eyes.
He doesn't deserve her concern.
August 8, 2002
He startles awake, hanging suspended between grappling for consciousness and holding on to the last images of sun-kissed skin against his tongue. He blinks away the fog clouding his mind and searches for the source of his sudden waking, feeling a throbbing behind his eyebrow that somehow falls into beat with the knocking outside his door—
He's on his feet and rushing out of the bedroom, wand at the ready. The frontal lobe of his brain catches up to his adrenal glands just as he reaches the front door. He reasons with himself—the wards wouldn't have allowed just anyone within 20 yards of the door, and since the knocking isn't a figment of his imagination, he can only imagine that it's someone from the ministry on the other side of the door. With a wandless flick of his wand, the door opens.
Draco hadn't known who exactly to expect, but he had not expected to see her. Her hand is raised mid-knock, her hair is flattened down by the knit cap keeping her ears warm, and her eyes are wide and bloodshot as they stare back at him in shock.
He barely has time to open his mouth and call her name before her face contorts and she starts crying, right there by the doorway. Something in his chest constricts at the sight and he almost rubs at it to soothe the sudden painful throbbing radiating right above his left breast.
In the back of his mind, he suspects that it might be his heart aching at the sight of her tears.
"Can I come in?" she asks, uselessly wiping at tears that are only followed by others. She all but collapses into his arms when he moves to pull her into the flat.
He tries to lead her over to sit on the settee but she shakes her head at him, hands clinging to the collar of his shirt and effectively wrinkling the fabric. He blames the epinephrine still coursing through his blood vessels when he finds himself leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. He freezes, lips still pressed to her skin, waiting for her to shove him away for daring to do something so intimate to her of all people.
Hermione releases her hold on his collar, her hands travelling upward to cradle his face. She tugs him down until their lips meet in a soft kiss, Draco all too cautious to deepen it and risk scaring her away.
"Can I sleep here tonight?" she asks against his mouth, breath washing over his face and leaving behind a distinct scent of chamomile and peppermint. He wonders if he's being manipulated, wonders if he should allow himself to be manipulated by soft lips and cold hands.
Why?
"Please."
"Okay."
Hermione transfigures her clothes into something more sleep-appropriate and Draco slips away to prepare her a cup of tea. When he returns, she's already settled in the middle of the bed, hands fidgeting with the edges of the quilt. She spots the cup he's holding and reaches out to take it from him.
"Thank you, Draco," she says, turning to him as he moves to sit net to her. "For all of this."
He frowns down at his own hands, the adrenaline from before already well out of his system by the time he'd finish preparing her tea. Chamomile, the same thing she had chosen the last time she was there, with one heaping cup of honey and enough milk to turn the drink an ugly shade of Dutch white. She doesn't comment on how he's already committed to memory the way she takes her tea and he doesn't ask her the barrage of questions assaulting his brain.
When the tears start flowing down her cheeks in a silent current, he takes the hand that's not holding on to the delicate china in both of his. He feels foolish, offering her comfort when the whole wizarding world knows he's the last person qualified to do as such, but she doesn't pull away from his touch and the trembling of her lips still just enough for her to keep sipping her tea. Draco spots her wand lying on top of his bedside table and his grip on her hand tightens, the sight making him wonder when exactly he started to earn that level of trust from her.
He watches her lower the empty cup and start to pull away from him, moving to put the cup beside her wand. He vanishes the china with a wandless and non-verbal flick of his hand and allows himself to revel in the impressed look she gives him.
"Sleep, Granger," he tells her. He moves to lie down, giving her enough space to decide the distance that would exist between them, telling himself that whatever she chose he would keep it that way all through the night. He watches her chew on her lip for a moment then promptly slide down to lie with her sides pressed against his. A few moments pass and then they simultaneously move, him raising his arm to circle her shoulders and her moving to place her head right above his erratically beating heart.
The silence stretches out long enough that he suspects she's fallen asleep, her breathing even and her heart finally calm in its thumping. His own eyes start to drift close when he hears her soft voice whisper against his skin.
"Goodnight, Draco."
He wakes up to lips pressed against his neck and he thinks this is how he dies, a bite to his jugular that will drain him of his pure and ancient blood. When Hermione does move to bite him, he finds himself moaning in pleasure instead of pain, his hands shooting out to cradle her head and keep her mouth firmly in place. She soothes the bite with a languid drag of her tongue.
"I thought you just wanted to sleep?" he asks, voice thick with sleep and dick already half hard in his trousers. "Granger."
"Draco," she responds, her own voice just the right amount of rough. Her hands move down to work on the buttons of his shirt and he finally gathers enough sense to still her movements.
"Granger," he grounds out, firmer this time. "We can't. We shouldn't. Not when you've been crying all night." He wants to add not when you're vulnerable but thinks better of it, suspecting it would only grant him a hex or two.
"I'm sorry," she says, extracting her body from his hold and completely turning away from him. She hunches forward on her sides, curling into a position that makes her look so small and makes Draco's eyebrows draw together into a frown of genuine confusion.
"Why do I feel as if you're under the impression that I don't want you?" he asks, tugging on her shoulder to make her lie on her back and face him again.
"Because I am," she responds right away. The next part comes a few seconds later, in a much quieter voice. "Because you don't."
The occlumency walls fall apart and he grabs her hand and places it right where he wants it, rubs himself using her palm for a few wicked seconds before stilling them both. "You're as much of a fool as I am."
Hermione resumes stroking him through his trousers, her eyes alight and her mouth parted. She pushes him down to lie on his back and moves to straddle him, her hand still on his cock while the other works on completing the mission of removing his shirt. She helps him out of the garment and runs warm hands down his chilled torso, leaning down to once again attack his neck with her lips.
His hands map out an exploration of their own, gripping her hips through soft cotton shorts and seeking out the skin hidden underneath her jumper. His hands reach up until the tips of his fingers tease the edges of her bra, feeling up the lace and groaning when he feels her hand leave his crotch.
She pulls back and whips off the jumper, watching his steadily darkening expression. Hermione reaches back and unclasps the final piece of clothing holding her back from being equally half-nude as he is and he watches with rapt attention. The bra falls away, tossed to lie forgotten somewhere on the floor, but his eyes never stray from the sight of her full breasts just inches away from his face. He swallows and her eyes follows the motion, smiling down at him and grabbing his hands to pull them to her chest.
The first time he had seen her tits, he had ended up worshipping them for the better part of an hour, not neglecting to tell her she had the most beautiful breasts he had ever laid his eyes on. He had been granted a sharp laugh for his eloquence, a laugh that quickly evolved into a drawn-out moan when he had wrapped his lips around one nipple and used the nail on his index finger to tease the other.
Now he holds both of her breasts in his hands, testing out their weight much like the last time, caressing the underside with his palms and watching the skin breakout in goosepimples. She leans back to rest her hands on his thighs, pushing her chest out to him and letting out breathy little moans that fill the room. Her hips start a steady grinding motion, the heat of her clothed arse rubbing against his cock enough to drive him half delirious with need.
He rolls her nipples between his fingers, alternating between slow rubbing and fast swiping. He leans forward, sitting up, and catches one hardened nub in his mouth. The answering moan eggs him on to suck harder, switching between breasts with an almost desperate edge to his movements. This close, her scent invades his senses and overwhelms the part of his brain that usually has him questioning every move, every thought, every word coming out of his mouth.
"Fuck, you smell so good," he tells her, lips pressed against a reddened nipple. She responds by further pushing her chest into his face and he is happy to oblige, continuing his ministrations on her breasts. He feels her hands fumbling to pull down his trousers and he lifts his hips high enough to assist her.
"It's been days but I can still feel you inside me."
Her words make him groan and he bites down on one nipple, just a light graze of his teeth. He helps her out of her shorts and her underwear, leaning back down to his original lying position with his hands firmly on her hips. "Think you can ride me, Granger?"
She takes his cock into her hand and the shock from the difference in body temperature has him biting down on his lip. She smiles at him, teasing her entrance with the tip of his length. "Not if you keep calling me that."
"Hermione, fuck, Hermione," he gasps, the syllables of her name rolling from his tongue with practiced ease. The brick walls of his dorm rooms, the white tiles of the baths, the drapes in his childhood bedroom, they all know her name. Initially it had been in anger, in frustration, in denial even as he pumped himself into completion to images of her. Eventually the name was whispered in resignation, in concealed adoration, and in an agonized declaration of a love that would never be returned.
He watches her sink down on him, her heat engulfing him and obliterating any coherent thought he was previously capable of making. His muscles burn from the effort it takes him to not move, to keep still and let her do everything in her own pace. He thinks his grip on her hips may leave bruises in the morning, but he allows himself the selfish thought, forgives himself when he doesn't loosen his hold on her.
She stops when he's fully inside her, their skin flushed against each other, chests rising and falling in tandem. Hermione leans down and kisses him, her face overheated and her lips slow and wet against his. He lets her take charge of the kiss, following her lead, matching her peck for peck, tongue for tongue. When she pulls back, he catches a glimpse of the scar on her arm and he's immediately overwhelmed with the familiar feeling of guilt. He swallows, hoping to physically push back the thought.
"Take what you want from me, Hermione. Take what you need."
For a moment she looks like she's about to cry, but she swoops down and kisses him with ardour, catching his bottom lip in between her teeth and giving a painful bite that she quickly soothes with a swipe of her tongue. She doesn't break the kiss when she starts moving, moaning against his lips with every thrust.
He kisses the side of her mouth, making his way down to the spot beneath her ear that had her screaming his name last time. She whimpers when his lips touch the sensitive skin, her hips picking up speed. Her mouth attaches itself to the back of his neck and he feels her sucking, biting, leaving marks that he won't hide with a concealment charm. The forward-backward canting of her hips transforms into a circular motion and he knows she's close. Aside from the constant assault of his mouth on her neck and his hands groping her breasts, he keeps still, feeling her walls clamp down on him and her teeth press down on his neck almost hard enough to break the skin.
She lifts her head, kissing him while riding the waves of her first orgasm for the night. Her body collapses on him and he pulls out of her, still painfully hard, and moves her to lie down on the bed. Even in the dim light of the room he sees the flush of her skin, the light sheen of sweat on her chest and on her legs. He kisses her face, pushes away the curls stuck to her forehead, kisses the arch of her brow, both of her cheeks, the tip of her nose and the dip of her upper lip, and kisses his way down her body.
She shudders when he takes his time kissing her shoulders, biting and sucking and selfishly leaving marks that she'll have to hide with a concealment charm. Her hands shoot out to tangle in his hair when he reaches her breasts, torn between pulling him away from the over-sensitive flesh or pushing him to keep sucking on the spot just centimetres from her right nipple. He promises to worship her tits later, when he's inside of her again, and begins to move further down her body.
As he draws closer to her centre, her scent grows stronger. He kisses her inner thighs, careful not to touch the swollen folds of her cunt. Hermione has grown progressively louder as he grew progressively bolder in his exploration, his tongue dipping into her wet hole. They moan in unison and he thinks he may get drunk on her taste. He fucks her with his tongue, letting her grow accustomed to the feeling, waiting for her to come down from the high and demand for more.
When the last of the tremors from her orgasm fade away, his lips find her clit and he sucks the sensitive nub into his mouth. Her hold on his hair borders on painful, her hips bucking up into his face. He pushes her down with his hands, keeping her in place as he uses the flat of his tongue to massage her clit.
He alternates between swiping and circling the kernel with his tongue, using two fingers to fuck her hole. He feels her walls tighten around the appendages and he withdraws them, determined to make her cum using just his mouth. He sucks on her clit, pulling her impossibly closer to him and allowing her to mindlessly fuck his face. When she comes for the second time he barely hears his name pouring from her lips, her thighs clamping down on his head and effectively blocking out the world.
He doesn't give her time to ride out her orgasm, pushing into her in one swift thrust. He makes good on his promise, kissing her to let her taste herself on him then moving down to worship her breasts once more. Draco only half recognizes the things she's saying, a mix of familiar swears words and his name and then things his orgasm-deprived mind just can't seem to put together.
"Your cunt feels amazing," he replies when she tells him how good he feels inside her. "You feel so goddamn good, Hermione."
"Harder, Draco, please," she mewls, fingers clawing down his back and leaving even more marks for him to keep. "Please, please, I'm going to come again."
She comes a third time, not nearly as intense as the first and the second one, but enough to pull him spiralling into his own orgasm. He spills himself inside of her, the euphoria of his release settling deep into his bones. In those blinding seconds he forgets that they're former enemies, that they were only tentative acquaintances before this whole fling started, forgets that he doesn't understand her motivations and forgets to question his own.
He doesn't pull out of her, remembering how she had asked him to stay inside of her the last time, and he's rewarded with a smile and a tender kiss. He moves them so she's half-lying on top of him, the sheets shielding their naked bodies from the cold. He's internally debating with himself on whether he should go back to sleep when she makes the decision for him.
"Sleep, let's give it another go when we wake up."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No."
He only nods, moving to gather his clothes from the floor. He finds his trousers first and slips them on, facing away from her.
"Not yet," she amends, as if she had somehow known her response had hurt him. "In the morning, I will."
He doesn't point out that it already is morning. They had woken up multiple times during the night and had satisfied each other countless times. The first time he had been the one to wake up, pulling her warm body into his arms, kissing her shoulder as an overwhelming feeling of gratitude took over his heart at the sight of her still curled up beside him. She had taken it as him initiating and things had quickly escalated from there. That had been followed by more sleep and even more sex, and now the sky is tinged with a warm orange and he can't bring himself to feel regret at the prospect of being sleep-deprived at work.
He looks down at her and catches her watching him, his shirt from last night hanging open on her shoulders. He wants to know if this is her own cruel way of revenge—false hope, a taste of what could have been and what may be but will inevitably never happen. He wants to know why he's been allowed to feel as much as he has only for it to be violently taken away from him in the end.
"Come back," she says, delicate hand patting the empty spot beside her on the bed. "It's far too early to get ready for work, isn't it?"
"I'll make you breakfast later. Get some more sleep."
He retrieves a fresh shirt and leaves her alone in the bedroom, not turning around to give her a chance to seduce him back into his own bed. He waits by the door for a few seconds, listening for any tell-tale signs that she'll follow him out, and breathes a sigh of relief when his ears are met with silence. The papers he had been reading before turning in for the night lay abandoned on the coffee table, the sight of them prompting images of Hermione stumbling upon them and asking him questions he can't and won't answer, even for her.
His legs carry him to the sitting room and he hastily shoves the papers into the drawer, eyeing the half-empty bottle of pills staring back up at him. He grabs it, pops one pill into his mouth and swallows it dry, then tosses it back in to join the papers. The drawer is locked with a flick of his wand and he starts to breathe easier.
There are many things he doesn't know about whatever it is going on between them, but one thing he is certain of is that she must never find out about his depression. The thought that she had only slept with him four days ago out of pity had plagued his mind during the interim between then and now. It had taken him every logical cell in his body to convince himself that the impossibility of her finding out about his illness came second only to the impossibility of her sleeping with anyone out of pity for their mental predicament.
He had spent hours every day thinking about what had happened between them, thinking about how and why it happened, how he wanted it to happen again. He wouldn't go as far as deluding himself into thinking that he was anywhere near done thinking about it, and her showing up in his flat and then fucking him senseless for hours certainly did not offer any help.
What he didn't have any problem accepting was that there wouldn't have been a repeat after the first time. Another thing he had been certain of—that Granger would never set foot in his flat again, that it had been a one-time thing. Then last night happened, and now she's in his bedroom, possibly sleeping, and he's in his kitchen preparing the ingredients for pancakes.
He's finally going to put that tin of powdered milk to use.
Draco suspects that it's the smell of food that has her emerging from the bedroom, his shirt buttoned up around her form and her hair resembling a nest of some large bird species. He's torn between the desire to fix her hair for her (with his hands, not using magic) and the desire to see if it would be possible to mess it up even further. He slides her a plate of pancakes and pulls the tin from the cupboard, presenting it to her.
"Is that… did you get me powdered milk?"
His brain tells him to lie, to downplay the gesture, make up a story about seeing it during one of his grocery runs and purchasing it out of curiosity. He knows she would stop believing him the moment he tries to pretend he does his own grocery.
"Yes."
She stares at him, mouth hanging slightly ajar, and he braces himself for the questions to come. "I have so many questions about that, but I must admit I'm more hungry than curious."
It's his turn to gape at her. The many years between them has given him the privilege of knowing enough about her to know that she must be burning to ask him, to clarify, to make sense of whatever it is that isn't making sense to her brilliant brain. He watches as she pops the lid open and spoons out a generous amount of the milk, pouring it all over her pancakes. The sound she makes when her lips close around the first bite is devilish and he feels his face heat up.
"Here, try some," she says when she catches him still staring at her. She catches him by surprise when she leans forward to feed him off her own fork. "Go on, it won't bite you back if you bite it first."
The milk is too sweet and it dries out the edges of the pancake. He tries to hide his grimace by drinking from his tea but she catches it and openly laughs at his reaction.
"Bit weird, is it?" she asks him, still eating the ruined cakes. "My parents made me these, but they had forgotten that we'd already run out of syrup. They were arguing about it, so I just grabbed a tin of milk and poured it all over my pancakes so they would stop fighting about the bloody syrup."
He finds that he's at a loss for words. He'd heard about what happened to Hermione's parents, what she'd been forced to do to keep them safe from Death Eaters, from people like him. The sweetness from the milk turns sour in his mouth and he feels his hands begin to tremble. Once again he's left wondering why she would ever associate herself with him, why she would ever trust herself to be vulnerable in his presence, why she would look at him and talk to him like he isn't scum on the bottom of her shoe.
"I'm sorry," he finally says. The words are inadequate, useless, but he continues to speak. "I'm sorry about your parents. I'm sorry you had to do that. I know I'm probably the last person you want to hear this from, but I'm so sorry about everything that happened to you during the war. I'm sorry about everything I did to you, every nasty word I told you before the war. I'm sorry, Granger, I'm sorry I stood by and did nothing but watch when my demented aunt did that to you—"
"Draco, shh." He hadn't even realized his voice had risen and had taken on a hysterical tone before she was suddenly standing before him, his face in her hands. "It's okay, Draco, I forgive you. I've forgiven you. We were children. I don't blame you."
"Well you should," he says, stepping back from her reassuring touch. "I was your bully, I was a Death Eater, I let those people into Hogwarts and let them torture and kill children. I called you that word, that fucking word, for years."
She looks like she's ready to argue but he doesn't let her, speaking over her attempts to placate him and tell him he's not a monster. "I let her do this to you," he says, grabbing her arm and pointing at the word engraved there. The letters are still an angry shade of red against her skin, framed by other tiny scars that have already faded. "You lost your family trying to hide them from us, from me. Many people hate me, Granger, but none of them should hate me more than you."
She looks like she's on the verge of tears and he doesn't know which one of them is shaking harder. He thinks she might slap him, maybe wake up from whatever delusion she had the he could be someone she should be sleeping with. Whatever they had, surely she's going to end it now that he's talked some sense into her.
"Are you sorry?"
The words are spoken so quietly that he half believes them to be a figment of his imagination. He stares down at her, into the fire of her eyes and the set of her shoulders. Forget a slap, he thinks she might punch him.
"More than anything," he replies.
"Then I forgive you," she tells him, moving to wrap her arms around his waist. With her head pressed against his chest, her voice comes out muffled when she adds, "And don't you dare presume to tell me that I shouldn't forgive you. That's for me to decide."
He doesn't doubt her words, doesn't doubt for a second that her Gryffindor heart has forgiven him. Draco wouldn't be surprised if she'd forgiven him before he asked for her forgiveness; it's simply her character to be the forgiving one, to be the person to look for the good in people even when they've been swallowed whole by the bad. He allows himself a moment to embrace her to him, pull her body even closer to his and kiss the top of her wild hair.
When he pulls back, he doesn't meet her gaze. "Eat your pancakes, Granger."
She's redressed in her old clothes and about to floo in to work. He wonders if she's not worried about people commenting that she's wearing the same clothes as yesterday sans the knit cap but decides to keep his mouth shut on the matter. There's a myriad of questions in his head that he'd much rather voice but, just like the last time, he chooses to savour the last moments. He doesn't know when he'll see her again, but he knows last night had only been another moment of weakness on her part. She had been emotional over something and for some twisted reason he had been the one she sought comfort from.
It's never going to happen again, he knows. A one-time fluke that just so happened to be repeated a second time, but he wouldn't dare raise his hopes up for a third. The world simply does not work that way.
She looks like she wants to say something, her brow furrowed and her bottom lip caught in between her teeth. She looks up to meet his eyes and they just stare at each other for a few moments, her working something out in her brain and Draco just waiting for whatever it is she's going to say.
"I never got to tell you," she finally says.
"Tell me what?"
"I never got to tell you what happened, I said I would in the morning," Hermione explains. There's a hint of a smile playing at her lips but she looks nervous and he immediately regrets asking in the first place.
"It's okay, Granger, I won't pry into your personal business," he says, feigning boredom. He sees a flash of trepidation in her eyes and wonders if he could fuck things up any further than he already has.
After a few terse moments, she seems to come to a decision and clenches her fists at her sides. "Would you like to talk about it over dinner?" she asks, her chin raised and her eyes staring directly into his.
He feels his mask slipping through his fingers, the surprise showing in his face and fuelling her confidence. His mind is reeling with about a dozen thoughts per second. She looks less scared and more determined, and she looks beautiful like this. She looks beautiful brandishing her Gryffindor courage. She looks beautiful in old clothes and with her hair smelling like his shampoo. She looks beautiful standing in front of his floo, standing inside his flat, she looks beautiful wearing his clothes—but she's not his and why is she asking him out to dinner?
"Why?"
"To eat and converse, obviously," she replies, her cheeks coloring. He thinks she looks beautiful like that too, flustered and annoyed at him. "Do you not want to, then?"
Draco decides then and there to stop trying to pretend that he would ever understand the inner workings of Hermione Granger's head. He knows very little about her—she's the most brilliant witch of her age, she eats her pancakes with powdered milk and takes her tea with one heaping cup of honey topped with an obscene amount of milk, and she uses about half a dozen drying charms on hair. She's the poster girl for all Gryffindors, she's a reluctant war heroine, she's a healer and she probably overworks herself to near death. She's the only girl he's ever been in love with and she can never be his but there she is, asking him out to dinner.
"I would like to have dinner with you. When and where shall this take place?"
She giggles at his words and he decides that when she leaves his life for good (in the very near future, he knows) he would endeavour to keep the sound of her laughter playing in his head.
"Would tomorrow work for you? I have the day off," she says, still smiling up at him. "I'll bring takeout here."
He realises that it's only to be expected that they would have dinner at his place, not outside, not where people can see them and judge her for her choice in company. Whatever they are, it could never become public information, which is why he nods his head even though he doesn't have the slightest idea as to what takeout is.
Her smile grows bigger and she also nods. She seems to hesitate for half a second before pushing on her tiptoes and kissing the corner of his mouth. The contact only lasts for a few blissful moments but it's enough to leave him the slightest bit breathless.
"Right. I'll see you tomorrow, Draco.
A/N: Initially this was going to be a one-shot but I've written around 12k words and I'm still not done so I decided to split it down the middle. I realize that it seems a bit fluffy now but I do believe it's going to turn darker during the next chapter so please be cautious about that.