A/ N: Warning - This chapter contains sexual content, which I nearly left out because I wasn't sure if it fit. But I just HAD to, you know?
Also, a few things I wanted to share before concluding...
I have always loved disowned!Draco, but it was done best in Beginning and End by mightbewrighting, which is my favorite EVER Dramione fic. Any similarities are unintentional and born purely from admiration. ️
I have a Pinterest board for this fic which I created when I needed some inspiration. https/pin.it/7cwSfB7 if anyone is interested.
And music...I always need music when I'm writing. You may see sprinkles of Cry to Me by Solomon Burke and You Never Give Me Your Money/Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight, all by The Beatles.
The closing night of Dagworth Derelict was highly publicized. As he had for opening night, Blaise took out a page in the paper several days before, determined to squeeze every last penny out of the production. Draco attended alone and sat backstage, thoroughly amused to see Astoria seated in the front row on the arm of Ron Weasley.
He wondered whether that would have happened had events played out differently with him and Hermione. They weren't the center of the universe, surely, but his vain pursuit of Hermione had placed Ron and Astoria in the same sphere.
Like his split second decision to reach for Hermione's hand that day on the lake. A seemingly small event that changed everything after.
His parents sat in a boxed seat beside the Greengrasses. He spent half the night staring at them, watching his mother's eyes dart around the theatre, looking for a son who no longer existed.
The two couples in the boxed seats rose up at the standing ovation, like they hadn't mocked and sneered at the idea of a theatrical production just six months before. As the crowd dispersed, they carried flowers to Daphne like she had never been a blight on her family name.
"Go out there," Blaise said from behind him.
Draco shook his head, comfortable in the directors chair that sat at the east end of the stage. He watched the families and friends of the cast and crew celebrate. He felt like spitting at his parents feet for daring to be there.
"You're a lily-livered fuck. If Daphne and I can endure it, so can you. Stop hiding and get the fuck out there, Draco."
Anger surged through him, lingering in his hands like needles prodding him to hit something. He stood up.
When his mother saw him, she had the nerve to smile.
"Are you well?" she asked.
He looked at his father, who made no attempt to greet him.
"With a notable exception," he said with furious eyes, "yes, Mother."
"I wish you'd come home," she said, with seemingly little shame for what they'd done.
He took his mother's hand and looked at her unmarked palm. "Wish all you want," he said cruelly, his insides twisting in conflict.
His father grabbed his arm and leaned close. "She's the only reason you haven't been disowned," Lucius said, voice low and dangerous.
Draco smirked and took a step backward. "Do it. I don't need your money."
He walked over to Daphne and Astoria and kissed them both quickly on the cheek, a greeting that would leave his parents balking. He then shook Ron's hand, hoping his dear estranged father took note.
It felt good at first, as revenge often does, but by the time he settled into his bed that evening by the back window of Obscurus — where Silas had once climbed across roofs to escape from a group of Death Eaters that very well may have included his father — he realized the spite had seeped into his bones like a slow poison.
He'd handled it all wrong. He hadn't been ready to face them.
It took days for Draco to pinpoint what he had wanted to convey that evening, what he could have said or done differently to make them understand how absolutely fine his life was, even though he'd lost plenty at their hands.
He dismantled the carefully laid wards that kept his parents away from Obscurus and wondered if either of them would dare to enter.
It was Dennis Creevy's third day of training when his mother finally stepped across the threshold beneath the carved crescent moon. She sat patiently in the parlor behind the reception area, waiting for his meeting to end.
"It's not what I pictured for you," she said as he entered the parlor, her fingertips grazing spines of books that were bound long before she was born. "But you've done well."
She turned to him, eyes falling on his gray waistcoat and blue tie, undoubtedly judging him for leaving his top robes upstairs. He did his best not to squirm under her scrutiny.
"Well enough. I live comfortably. I enjoy how I spend my days."
"Then you're better off than most of us."
Draco raised a brow. "Have you grown tired of being a socialite?"
"I never wanted to be a socialite," she said, with more bite than he was used to. He supposed he deserved it for talking down to her. "I wanted to be a healer."
He didn't have to ask what happened to that dream. She was married off at nineteen and his misogynist father wouldn't have accepted his wife having a career. Merlin forbid — a woman working!
His expression softened, remembering the way she cared for him when he was sick.
When he was injured.
"You have a healer's touch," he said.
She smiled and finally took a seat at the deep red velvet sofa, the one that had reminded him of Hermione, and she fixed the tea that had been set out for her. "The holidays were different without you this year."
He swallowed and held his guilt at bay. It had been their first Christmas apart.
"I went to Switzerland."
"You should have been with us," she replied.
He sat down in the wingback chair across from her. "I was happier alone."
"We're still your family," she said sternly, but he could see the pain in her eyes. He could see how he'd broken her heart.
He put his hand on his knee, reaching for fractions of sentences he'd said to her in his head so many times. "I'm not saying it to be cruel, Mother. You've done things I won't forgive and I'm not planning to set it aside and pretend things are fine between us."
She seemed just as distraught as she had been the morning she'd seen the newspaper with him and Hermione on the front page. "I couldn't see another way to fix things."
"I was happy. That didn't require fixing," he said, with an air of exasperation. He would have expected it from his father, but from her it felt like a much worse betrayal. He took a breath, the next words stuck in his throat for a moment before they evolved into sound. "I need to know what you did."
Her hand closed into a light fist. He imagined her and Hermione standing before one another with blood on their hands.
"That's why I'm here," she replied quietly. She tucked her hand into her pocket and pulled out an envelope. Handed it to him.
He turned it over in his hands before he finally pulled it open.
Draco,
Your mother was waiting in my office when I arrived at work today. She said your father will take drastic measures if you continue to see me. You'll be disowned. Disinherited. Her distress and my own personal knowledge of your father tells me she's likely being honest.
I would never expect you to give up so much to pursue a relationship with me, and I'm not sure I could continue this further knowing what you might have to sacrifice. You'd grow to resent me, I'm certain.
She's made me an offer that would keep me from communicating with you and I have until noon to accept. She's offered to hire the best healers in the world to restore my parents' memories. Their tragedy isn't meant for this letter, but there is nothing in the world I want more than to be with them again. Until today, I had lost all hope. Unless you counsel me otherwise, I believe the best thing for both of us would be for me to take your mother's offer.
I have so much to say to you and I fear I won't have the time to say any of it, so I'll conclude with this: You've grown into a wonderful man. Our time together was so short, I'm not sure I have a right to feel this devastated by our separation, but it feels as if something precious has been stolen from us.
I'll miss you.
Hermione
Draco closed the letter and rubbed at his forehead, heart breaking, mind working quickly to assimilate this information. Perhaps if he had owled her earlier in the morning—
But it wouldn't have mattered. She was trying to save her parents, and he couldn't help but think that any other sequence of events would have rendered the same outcome. Enraged as he was, Draco had imagined something far worse. Blackmail. Threats. At least his mother had offered Hermione something significant in return.
"Are her parents recovered?" Draco asked Narcissa.
She wore a tortured expression. "No. Not yet."
"It's been eight months," he said with a gravelly voice. "Surely you've made some progress."
Her face betrayed her hopelessness. "I didn't think it would be this difficult. It was cruel to get her hopes up."
"Cruel is an understatement." His hand fisted on the arm of the chair, so furious that he itched to lash out at something.
"I thought I found a way to help you both. It was never my intent—"
"You haven't helped anyone. We're apart because of you and now she's surely wrecked that her parents aren't any better. I'm so furious at you and father for your meddling and manipulation—" he stood up, blood simmering. His stomach dropped when he thought of the times he'd seen Hermione. He'd made it worse. Each time he approached her and spoke to her, he had surely made her question whether she had made the right decision. "Recover her parents' memories, Mother. Do whatever you must."
Narcissa stood up, nerves frayed. "I don't think I can."
Draco turned to face her fully. She stood tall and proud, yet she looked crushed.
"She's a wonderful girl. Brilliant. Talented. Strong. Everything you said she was and more," his mother said. He felt a jolt of shock at the tone her voice had taken, like she had become fond of her over the months. "The treatment has been hard on her parents. She thinks it would be wrong to continue disrupting their lives."
Narcissa opened her hand and Draco studied the tiny blood red vial in her palm. Did it have Hermione's blood? Both of theirs?
"How does it work?" he asked, eyes still fixed on the vial.
"We're compelled to fulfill our oath to one another to the best of our ability. If we try to circumvent our agreement… the punishment is swift and severe."
Draco met her bright blue eyes, worried.
"Can it be destroyed?" he asked. The thought of losing either of them to a broken oath sent a chill through him. He had been an idiot for tempting it that day in the alley.
"She's found a way to absolve it," she replied in a brittle voice. "And she's willing to release me from my obligation even though I've told her... I'm unwilling to do the same for her."
Draco glared at his mother and she turned away from him.
"I've already funded research into her parents' condition. Fifty thousand. I'll continue to do what I can to help," she said, shoving the vial back in her pocket. "But absolving her end of the oath would be sealing your fate."
"I don't believe in fate," Draco snapped. "We make choices and I've made mine."
"Consider the consequences, son. You're not disowned yet, but I have no doubt you would be by now if I hadn't intervened, and you will be if I absolve the oath."
"Then let me be, if that's what I choose!" He tugged at his hair, pacing two steps to put distance between them before he turned back toward her. "This is ridiculous, Mother. We had a single date. Just one. There's no way to know what she might have been to me, and I'll never know because of you." He paced back a few steps. "Disown me. I'm not going to change my mind and come home. Not now, not in twenty fucking years. Never, Mother. I'm free of you and Father and my life is better for it — with or without Hermione."
His heart was racing, the anger rushing through him until he forced himself to calm down. His mother had unshed tears in her eyes and he felt ashamed for having put them there, no matter how awful she had been.
He stepped closer to her, uncertain how to express the exigent emotion he felt without hurting her more. She closed the distance between them and placed her hands on his face. She looked as torn as he was.
"I am so proud of the man you've become." She looked at him like she was memorizing him, and then she let go.
Narcissa stepped out of the parlor, but the modge podge of feelings she'd stirred up remained behind.
He couldn't sleep that night. He played his conversation with his mother and his letter from Hermione over and over in his head, trying to piece the events of the last few months together from their perspective. Did his father even know what his mother had done? He wasn't sure Lucius would condone her pact with Hermione — helping muggles, funding research.
And how well did his mother know Hermione? It sounded like they knew one another somewhat well, which infuriated him when he thought too much about it.
Draco spent the entirety of his next day upstairs, catching up on the work he'd ignored the day before. It was a Saturday and the office was blessedly empty. No appointments, no bells ringing, no presses running.
Every so often, he would think of Hermione and his mother and whether Narcissa had been released from her end of the oath. Hermione was a much kinder person than his mother deserved. Much kinder than Draco himself would have been, he was afraid, if the situation were reversed.
He fell asleep at his desk, reading a particularly tedious manuscript and when he woke it was to the sound of the floo roaring to life. Blaise and Daphne made a grand entrance.
"How the fuck do you sleep like that?" Blaise asked.
Draco rubbed his cheek, frowning at the small dent left behind by the papers he'd used as a pillow.
"And why?" Daphne asked. "Your bed is literally right there," she said, gesturing to his room to the left. Before he had a chance to clear the fog of sleep from his mind, she was already on to the next topic, talking excitedly about their trip to New York. "You'll travel with us for opening night, won't you?"
Draco scratched his head, still frustrated that he'd lost hours of work. The sun was setting, hues of red and orange coloring his office. He rubbed his sore neck and stood up to stretch. When he looked back to Blaise and Daphne, they were both staring at him expectantly. "Of course, yes. Just tell me when and I'll make the arrangements."
"Zabini Productions..." Blaise said, stretching his hand like a marquee. "Obscurus Publishing House..." he said, raising the other hand similarly and then snapping his fingers with a smile. "We've transcended, mate. This is what success feels like. Let's go to the Leaky and grab a celebratory drink."
"I still have work—" Draco started.
"If you can make time for a nap, you can make time for us," said Blaise.
"Get dressed!" Daphne chimed, helping herself to his nearby closet and throwing his black waistcoat in his direction as he approached. Draco caught it, stared at it for a second and finally slipped it on.
His frown softened when she used her favorite puppy dog look — round eyes and a pout that looked ridiculous. "Fine. I'll meet you downstairs in five."
Draco took his time getting ready, doing his best to convince himself that he wanted to go out, wanted to celebrate, wanted to be a good friend even though his mind was still reeling from his conversation with his mother.
He'd spent the entire day running from his thoughts.
Draco looked out the round window, surprised to see Daphne and Blaise in the alley, chatting animatedly as they walked toward the Leaky under the light of the just lit street lanterns.
The absolute pricks were leaving without him. Unbelievable.
He walked down the spiral staircase, feeling far less inclined to meet them. He stopped at the second floor mail bin and dropped off the owl post he'd received upstairs — thick envelopes that he'd been tempted to open and review himself.
When he finally made it down to the first floor landing, he set two letters on the reception desk and turned quickly toward the sound of a shuffle in the parlor.
"I hope you don't mind," Hermione said, "Blaise and Daphne let me in."
Draco blinked back his surprise, lightheaded at the sound of her voice. He'd played that sound over in his head for so long that he had to reconcile fantasy and reality. She stood nervously in the doorway to the parlor, her hands fidgeting against the soft linen of her black dress. Her curls were wild around her face, like they'd been wind-whipped.
"No—" he said, sweeping a hand over his lapel. "Not at all."
She let out a pained breath and then replied, "Can we talk? I have a lot to say all of a sudden."
Hope and fear, like two opposing forces battled in his chest. He wasn't sure one could survive without the other anymore.
"Would you like tea?" he asked politely, falling back on his manners when words failed him.
"Yes. That would be—" the corner of her lip turned up into a not quite smile, "—yes."
He summoned the serving set and went through the motions, trying to collect himself.
"What is it like, owning a publishing business?" she asked, taking a seat on the deep red velvet sofa.
"It's been a good investment. Long hours."
"It's larger than it looks from the alley," she said, looking around. Crossing her ankles. Wiping her palms on the skirt of her dress. "You'd think I would be used to that by now."
He tried not to stare, but the sight and sound of her was still new, still confusing. Her curls had grown longer since the last time he'd touched them. "I've added a few feet recently. A kitchen on the third floor; an office for Dennis on the second."
"I heard you hired him. He's a very smart boy."
"He's already an asset," Draco said, and then swiftly kicked himself for his use of words. Hermione Granger probably wouldn't favor him speaking of his staff as if they were commodities, but he was running a business now. "He's a good person to have around," he corrected, scratching his jaw.
She added sugar to her tea.
"The summer after sixth year, I put a memory charm on my parents," she said. "I knew they wouldn't leave on their own and I feared for their safety."
Draco sat stiffly, having wondered what had happened to cause her parents to lose their memory. "Sounds like you made a wise decision. A difficult decision."
She met his eyes, and the pain he saw there was real and haunting. "It was necessary. I thought I could find them after the war and remove it, but too much time had gone by. Their new identities had become such a part of them..." Her voice drifted off for a moment. "I brought them to Saint Mungos, but the healers said they couldn't return their memories without damaging their mind."
Hermione sipped her tea, taking the time she needed before continuing.
"When your mother came to me all those months ago, I didn't trust her. Didn't like her. But she dangled the one thing in front of me that I couldn't reject..."
Her hand trembled a little.
"She gave me your letter yesterday," he said, not wanting her to suffer in telling him the things he already knew. "I wish I'd seen it earlier. I wouldn't have approached you and made things any harder than they already were."
"I tried to find a way to tell you without breaking the oath," she said quietly. "But she was very thorough."
"Has it been absolved? The oath?"
Hermione nodded. "I didn't think she'd remove it. She told me she would never."
"She told me the same yesterday," he said, "but… here you are."
"I hope that's alright." Hermione stood up and walked around the sofa to the bookcase, then turned back to him. "I don't expect… it's been a long while… I just wanted to let you know. What happened I mean. I wasn't sure what you knew and what you didn't."
"I'm glad you came," he said, following her toward the bookcase.
Hermione looked around again, admiring the old architecture and carefully avoiding his eyes.
"Where are the printing presses?" she asked.
He tapped his toe on the ground. "The basements."
"Plural?"
"A basement for printing and a sub-basement for edge gilding and storage."
She blinked. "Can I see?"
Draco walked toward the spiral staircase and led her downward, watching her marvel at the machinery, circling it and inspecting it, finally testing its magic with a gentle nudge of her wand.
"Incredible," she whispered. The way her face lit up with wonder would hold a permanent place in his memory.
"The original press from the fifteenth century is below."
She stepped past him and around the balustrade and walked quickly down the stairs to the sub-basement. When she stepped down onto the concrete floor, she looked up suspiciously, as if she didn't trust the ceiling would hold with all that heavy machinery above.
"I promise it's safe," he said, daring to touch the small of her back as he stopped beside her. She turned toward him, studying the folds of his collar, the knot of his tie.
Something swooped in his chest as he watched her watch him, as he allowed himself to admire the curve of her neck, the slope of her shoulders, her modest but flattering neckline. She was so close he could touch her easily and he might have — if he felt more certain she would welcome it.
Draco tugged at his tie, feeling suffocated by his inability to act on his desire for her. She watched his fingers move with unusual interest.
"I didn't want you to distance yourself from your family," she said.
Hermione had lost her parents. Perhaps she had worried too much on how it might hurt him to separate from his own.
"My parents are tyrants on a good day. They gave me no other choice."
"I know," she whispered, meeting his eyes for a moment before turning quickly away. "I might be fond of your mother, if I'm honest. Tyrannical or no."
Draco couldn't help the unamused laugh that escaped him then.
"I'm not under any delusions of course," continued Hermione, inspecting the equipment with studious interest. "She still has strong opinions that I don't agree with and vice versa… but she's been better to me than I expected."
Draco felt conflicted at that — both glad and terribly uncomfortable that his mother and Hermione were so familiar with one another.
"I told her it was time to give up over a month ago, but Narcissa Malfoy doesn't give up easily, does she? Even without an oath to bind her. She's already found another healer in Taiwan." Hermione circled around a table of books which had been bound just that morning.
"Good. You shouldn't give up."
"I shouldn't have agreed," she said, her voice thick with emotion. "I've lost them all over again. And I lost you as well… not that I ever really had you..."
He leaned back against the baluster, running his fingers over his ribcage as something swooped behind his bones. "You had me, Granger."
She bit her bottom lip and he felt heat creeping up his neck, fearing that he'd said too much. But the way she looked at him then, the glimmer of hope in her eyes—
"You still have me," said Draco, cautiously holding her gaze. "If that's what you want."
She walked toward him again, her flat shoes landing softly, slowly on the hard floors. As the space between them narrowed, his hope expanded until it filled the drafty room with a warm gale of anticipation.
She halted in front of him and touched his hand, her fingers grazing against his and then threading between them. It sent a pleasurable tingle up his arm. "That day in Diagon Alley," she said quietly, "I wanted to tell you I felt the same. That I made a mistake."
He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed the back of it. When he met her eyes, they were a lovely shade of dark brown. "You did what was right."
Her eyes still held the same regret he'd seen at the theatre and again in the alley before Christmas, but knowing what he knew, he couldn't help but think it was misplaced. Another sequence of events, another series of choices and they might be in a much worse situation.
Draco leaned in and brushed his hand over her cheek, wondering if their second chance might have better odds than their first.
"I missed you," she said quietly. Hopefully.
Draco moved in slowly and brushed his lips over hers in a light kiss. He had wanted it to be innocent, wished his blood hadn't rushed south at the smallest touch of her skin, but his feelings for her were strong. The physical element was nothing short of intoxicating. He could liken it to standing at the edge of a cliff — some things faded, while others sharpened. The way her curls felt beneath his fingers, the way her hand traveled up his side against the fabric of his robe, playing against the cloth. The way her head tilted, lips parted, smooth and pliant against his mouth. His heart quickened in his chest, the flurry of sensations dropping low as his tongue met hers.
She kissed just like he remembered, teasing and sensuous, her brave hands exploring while his own remained knitted safely in her curls.
He pulled back a few inches, breath ragged. "I missed you too."
His thumb grazed down the curve of her neck, eyes following for a moment before he lifted his stare to meet hers. She moved backward and stepped up the first stair. "You live here? In this building?" she asked.
Although the question seemed innocent enough, his mind took an iniquitous turn.
"Did Ginny tell you that?" he asked, walking up the stairs ahead of her with a hidden grin. "So much for being trustworthy."
"Maybe I guessed it," she replied, her shoes clicking on the wood as she caught up to him. She added more quietly, "Maybe I've passed the shop in the evening and found your light on a few times."
He stopped in place, watching as she passed him. He imagined her standing in the Alley, a lone light on in his building, three floors up. A circular window; an alabaster lantern. If he had looked down and found her, what would he have done?
"I'm sorry. That's probably disturbing — someone looking in your window," she said with an uncomfortable pause. He caught up to her quickly and wrapped an arm around her from behind, resting his hand flat against her abdomen. He placed a light kiss on her shoulder.
"Maybe I like to work late," he said quietly.
"It was very late," she replied. "I'd like to officially apologize for stalking you."
He laughed lightly and turned her around on the steps, his hands landing gently on her hips. It felt strange, touching her this intimately, feeling the shape of her, soft curves beneath linen, a thin strip of fabric that ran across her hip bone. His mind conjured a vision of her in her underthings that left him spiraling as his breath mingled with hers.
"I don't think it's stalking if I want you there," he replied.
She ran a hand through his hair and watched it fall back into place. "That's a relief. The guilt was starting to eat at me."
He leaned in to steal a quick kiss, but when her arms wrapped loosely around his neck, he lost his innocent intentions. Her lips were a slice of heaven and offset by the staircase as they were, their mouths and bodies fit together in a new way that left him utterly enthralled. A slow, sizzling kiss, her breasts pressed higher, her abdomen grazing against his… he ran his palms from her shoulder blades down her sides, tracing the dip of her waist, overcome as she pressed closer against him. The top of her thigh brushed against his groin and he moved his hand to the guardrail to steady himself.
He was about to grievously overstep. All he could think of was the shape of her — round curves and smooth planes, pliant lips...
He broke away and looked at her. "Have you had dinner...?" he stammered.
Her fingernails grazed just above his ear and the stairs swayed beneath him. "No… but—" she took an anxious breath, "—maybe later?"
She met his eyes with an ambiguous look, wide eyes and parted lips, asking for what… he didn't want to assume. Fingertips wandered from the fine hair at the back of his neck around to his tie.
He swallowed as she loosened the knot with careful focus, leaving the lengths of fabric around his neck. Draco watched in wonderment as she unbuttoned his top robe, the feel of her fingertips playing at his waist, lower and lower, compounding the heaviness in his groin.
She pushed the robe from his shoulders and he flicked his wand, sending it soaring up the stairs to his room. They looked tentatively at one another, both uncertain what the other was thinking.
His hand sat still and hesitant at her ribcage, wanting more but far too much of a gentleman to make the leap.
He should ask. Yes. To prevent confusion.
But in the space of time it took to inhale his next breath, Hermione began unfastening his waistcoat.
"How do you have so many buttons?" she said, looking down between them, nervous and exasperated. He covered her hands with his and she met his eyes.
"Are you certain you want to do that? This? I mean—"
"Are you uncertain?"
It felt like a different version of the same conversation they'd held under that street lantern. Like she was still unclear where he stood.
He cupped her cheeks in his hands, ready to say the whole truth aloud. "I've wanted you for years. I don't remember what it feels like not to want you..."
"I'm yours," she whispered, stepping backward up the next step and then the next. He tugged at the last few buttons of his waistcoat as he followed her, capturing her lips again between the second and third landing.
This time he didn't hesitate to deepen the kiss. He ran his hands along the back of her dress and then drew her flush against him. The last time they were together, he had pulled back and regretted it. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice, if she wanted more.
Nails raked delightfully through his hair, and he let his hands roam up her spine then down over the curve of her arse, the loose fabric of her skirt moving with him as his fingers traced the hem of her knickers.
She sighed into his lips, a beautiful sound, and her head fell backward as he explored her neck with small kisses and licks.
He moved his hands up over the small of her back and along her ribcage, toward the swell of her breast. He grazed the underside with the back of his fingertips, giving her ample opportunity to object if she chose, but instead she leaned further into him. Hermione gasped into his hair as he found her nipple and scraped his fingertips against it through the layers of thin fabric.
They moved clumsily up the next few steps, trying to hold the stair rail and also each other, lips parting and then meeting again in a haze of desire. When they reached the final landing, he guided her back three steps and pressed her into the wall.
He moved his leg forward, parting her thighs with it, puffs of air quickening against his cheek as their lips and tongues danced together. Her knee lifted to make room for him and he slipped higher. Closer. Her heat against him, her wandering hands and soft sighs — they left him questioning reality again. His entire world had changed in that last hour and he almost expected to wake up at his nearby desk to find it was all a dream.
If it were, he'd happily live as long as he could in unconscious euphoria.
He rocked forward into her and she clasped his shoulder to steady herself, moaning softly at the feel of his arousal pressed tight against her core. "Is this okay?" he whispered.
"Yes," she said, closing her fingers in his shirt, urging him to continue. His palm ran up her smooth thigh, pushing up her skirt. "Yes..."
He pulled the loose fabric of her dress from between them and ran his hand along her hip… the smooth flesh of her stomach… and he rocked forward again. The way she sighed was wistful and anticipatory. He was beginning to believe it — Hermione was real and she had no intention of stopping him. They would know each other tonight. They would undress and lie together in his bed — if they even made it there — and he would learn all the hidden parts of her his mind had wondered about. He kissed her deep and dizzy, unable to believe this was finally happening between them.
With his elbow against the wall, he rolled his hips forward again and they moaned softly into each other's lips.
The way she kissed was wickedly erotic and he let her take control of it for a minute, just to see what she'd do. Her parted lips grazed against his, her tongue swiped against his almost obscenely, sliding her warm hands under his shirt and mimicking the gentle patterns he traced across her hips. Gooseflesh erupted all over his skin, his nerve endings alight with lust, longing for a bed where they could explore each other more fully.
He cupped her backside and lifted her up — her legs wrapped around his middle immediately, balancing herself perfectly on his hips as he walked her through his office and then the black double doors that lead to his private room. As he walked, she plucked at his shirt, mumbling curses about his ten-thousand buttons that left him smiling against her skin.
His room was dark but for the moonlight that flooded in through the back window. Just enough.
He set her down on his bed, and she kneeled in front of him, working away at the last few buttons on his shirt. When she reached the last one, she smiled into their kiss.
"Finally," she said below her breath.
He put his hands on her cheeks and looked into her eyes. "Merlin, I adore you. Do you know that?"
Warm fingertips touched his bare abdomen and his eyes fluttered closed, their foreheads pressed together as he unzipped her dress, guided it off her shoulders, and watched it pool at her knees. He moaned softly at the sight of her in a black lace bra and knickers.
Hermione Granger: reader of romance, wearer of sexy underthings.
Draco unbuttoned his cuffs, taking note of his own trembling fingers, and when she pulled his shirt off his shoulders, he tossed the garment on the ground and pulled her close. Skin against skin, they kissed languidly, exploring one another with broad strokes and quiet sighs.
She was perfect. Perfectly imperfect. No glamour charms or deception, just a lovely woman with flyaway curls and soft curves, a light sprinkling of freckles. A barely there dent ran across her abdomen, which he would bet good money was put there by years and years of slouching over text books. It was as if she had walked directly out of his vivid imagination and climbed into his bed.
He toed off his shoes and put a knee on the bed beside her, hands exploring, lips roaming. Draco laid her backward on his pillow, bracing the back of her head as he climbed over her. Hermione arranged her legs to make room for him between them — a gratifying sight; an overwhelming feeling. His mouth trailed down the lace edge of her bra and he dragged the strap down her arm, closing his mouth over the peak of her breast as it was revealed to him.
"Oh," she breathed, running a hand through his hair, holding him in place as he looked up and watched her. He unfastened her bra with a click and tossed it off the side of the bed, flicking his tongue over her other nipple. Sounds he'd only dreamed of fell from her lips. She rolled upward into him and he sighed from above her. He was so hard. She worked her hands between them to unfasten his trousers and Draco dropped his head against the crook of her neck, inhaling audibly when her fingers moved over his shaft.
As he rocked forward into her hand, a surge of white-hot lust coursed through him.
He sat up and kicked off his trousers, then he kneeled between her legs, devouring her with his eyes.
Curls fanned out around her face, soft spirals that shone in the moonlight. Radiant skin, contoured by shadows that moved as she reached for him, hips wriggling for friction. Black knickers pressed tight against white boxers. They barely contained his straining erection.
She met his eyes, dark and deep and… warm with feeling. God, she was giving herself to him and he swore to treasure every second, every sigh. He hooked his fingers into her panties and slid them down her legs, over her knees and calves, off her ankles. He pushed his boxers down, watching her eyes flicker down over his form.
Bared to each other for the first time.
They breathed heavy as they gazed at one another, the only sound was their breath, and the rustling of sheets as he moved backward on the bed and kissed the inside of her knee. He lifted her other knee and pressed it down into the mattress, looking up at her for consent. She bit her lips like she wasn't completely sure of his intent, so he moved very slowly, touching her first with his fingertips, keeping his eyes on her.
"Mmmm..."
He moved lightly over her wet folds, circling her bundle of nerves as he kissed her abdomen. Felt her quiver. He slid down to her entrance and pressed a digit into her heat. She moaned as he pulled it out, slick and wet and painted a picture on her flesh of slow spinning galaxies; of heaven interred.
He watched her face and kissed slowly downward.
Her hands flew to his hair as he licked her center and… God, the noises she made. So responsive. It seemed like she loved everything he did. Every swirl, every flick, every thrust and curl; like anything could get her there as long as he kept moving, kept a rhythm. He pressed her knees up toward her chest and any reservations that she'd had about the activity seemed to vanish all at once.
"Oh god—" she gripped the pillow behind her head and whimpered as he swirled his tongue inside of her for an indeterminable amount of time. He had never been so lost to another person's pleasure before. So enraptured by the sound and taste and feel—
He refocused on her clit, on making her come—
"Oh God...like that..." she whispered, rolling her hips.
Her muscles tensed and relaxed, breath quickening, sighing higher and higher until she was a quivering wreck.
He heard himself moan with her as his finger slid deep inside her tightly cinched walls. He could feel how hard she was coming. He could hear it in her soft cries.
He felt dazed with excitement as he watched her limbs loosen and finally relax against the bed.
Draco kissed a path up from her hips to her stomach, lingering at her breasts for a long while, stroking her skin, fanning the flames of her desire until she needed him just as desperately as she had before.
"Draco. Please..." she sighed, writhing below him.
He captured her lips and kissed her deeply, thoughts lingering on the months they had spent apart. The years before it when he was certain Hermione Granger would never let him touch her like this. How much and how long he had wanted to be with her.
She reached between them and stroked his cock, drawing a moan from him with her firm and unyielding grip. His hips snapped forward, aching for more. She touched him like she knew it — knew how her hands and lips and body could be used to ruin him.
"Please," she whispered against his lips, thighs slipping open a little further to cradle him.
Leaning his forehead against hers, he treasured her plea and let her position him against her entrance. He sank slowly into her, his eyes closing tight as she gave way around him. So warm and slick and perfect. He could feel the intensity of her gaze even with his eyes shut. He leaned up on his arm and rolled his hips forward, and as her heat fully engulfed him for the first time, he met her stare.
Her lips parted, fingers splayed on his skin, and all the while her eyes searched his face, like she had asked him an important question and he was about to answer. It was surreal, how good she felt around him.
And there on his bed on the top floor of Obscurus books, bathed in the moonlight, he worked his hips slowly against her. Their lips and hands dragged over each other's skin as they collided softly, learning and being learned. Control wasn't easy when she clenched purposefully around him, when sighs gave way to moans, but he remembered his methods. He knew how to make it last for her.
Emboldened by his playful whispers, daring her to tell him what she wanted, what she liked… the last of their inhibitions finally fell away. She rolled him over expertly and sat on his hips, rocking faster than he had dared and then faster still until they were both breathless and aquiver.
He sat forward, flipped her on her back and licked his lips, determined to give her exactly what she wanted. The bed creaked and rattled as his hips snapped forward in a quick rhythm, giving her all of him. Every vagrant fantasy, every carnal dream. She nodded her head, reduced to incoherence. He braced her shoulders, fingers twisting in her curls, and he held her steady as they lost themselves in feeling.
God, but he was close.
Draco stopped abruptly, clasping her hip tight, and when she stilled he held her jaw and kissed her lips. Slowly he collected himself, drifting out to sea and returning with a new appreciation for this witch. She was incredible. His angel in the moonlight who liked to kiss soft and fuck hard.
Hermione moved her legs along his sides and her hand down his naked arm as it held him firmly above her. She watched and waited patiently, rolling her head back as he played with her nipples and her clit, giving him room to kiss the soft skin below her jaw.
When he moved again, she was already close. They rocked feverishly against each other, the sound of sweat slick skin slapping and whispered affirmations filling the room.
And when he tucked his hand between them again, his finger circling her clit, he learned how tight she could lock him inside, how much louder she cried out when she was full of him. And she learned the curses that sometimes fell from his lips when he was this fucking close—
He stayed locked in the ebb and flow of her orgasm, witnessing her pleasure and reveling in it as he felt his world constrict.
"Hermione..." he breathed.
She pushed his hair back from his sweaty brow, urging him with her hands and her whispers. His heart thudded in his chest, hips crashing quick and steady, each push and pull more urgent than the last.
He gripped her thigh as it tore through him, overwhelming his senses. He reached down for her hand, weaving their fingers together, still moving but only barely.
Draco felt warm and shaky as he buried his face in her wild curls, remembering vividly how they had moved in the wind as they sailed over the Black Lake. It had been a split second decision, his hand reaching for hers that day. But it was a decision — not fate. He'd chosen to act. She'd chosen to smile. He'd chosen to approach her in the bookstore and she'd chosen to speak.
He kissed the palm of her hand and then each of her fingers.
They'd chosen to brush hands and then lips, and when that elusive someday arrived, they chose this — naked truth and naked limbs. Sweat and sex.
Love.
He loved her.
But he wouldn't say it out loud for two more months. They would be in the same bed, at the same time in the evening, the same day of the week even, but… quite a lot would happen in those short months.
They would be in the papers three times, and together they would receive over three hundred owls — and howlers. He would officially be disowned by his father. They would take afternoon tea with his mother. They'd have custard cakes at Flourish and Blotts with Sarah — little hearts charmed on the top. He would dine with the Potters and hesitantly hold their new son, James, and she would go to New York with him to see Blaise and Daphne, twice.
They would spend almost every night together, talking about big things and little things. Holding hands and slow kissing in the moonlight. They would have frenzied sex on desks and against walls, but usually in the comfort of their own bed.
He would brush his fingers over her cheek, admiring her flushed skin. The smile she wore for him would make his heart stutter in his chest. It always did.
"I love you," he would whisper.
Her eyes would look glassy as she laced her fingers between his.
"I love you too," she would say.
And a warm ache would settle behind his ribcage as he kissed the back of her hand.
A/N: Thank you to everyone for reading! I've really enjoyed writing this and reading all of your comments.
-