A/N: Again, I want to say thank you (especially since it's a week when some of you celebrate Thanksgiving) for allowing me to be a part of the fandom.

Endless beta love to niffizzle!

The next morning came and went, and Hermione found herself amiss of any progress by the time she sat down for lunch in the Great Hall.

Despite the house system softening, the eighth years had a habit of still sitting at their house tables. One simply didn't give up their seat at the table.

However, today, Pansy Parkinson wriggled herself between Harry and Ron. In the past months, she had developed quite the habit of doing that, and no one stiffened anymore at her sudden appearance. "What are your plans for the evening? It's Friday, after all."

When the three of them shrugged, Pansy rolled her eyes. "Let me make an educated guess. Potter and Weasley want to fly around the Quidditch Pitch, whereas Granger has an exciting date with the library books." Another shrug. "Don't you want to tag along? Most of us are going to the Three Broomsticks." She turned to Ron and trailed one of her perfectly manicured hands over his biceps. "Come on. These muscles don't need more training. They are huge already."

Ron almost spit out a part of the sausage he had been chewing before he remembered how to swallow.

Hermione suppressed a laugh at yet another of Pansy's tries to wrap Ron around her finger. "Does 'most of us' include Malfoy?"

"No. Theo tried to talk him into coming, but he wants to work on his Seeker skills."

"Maybe it's a good idea to socialise a bit," Hermione admitted. Without Malfoy there, the Three Broomsticks could even be fun. And it would certainly distract her from the non-existent progress in her research.

Yet, it wasn't in Hermione's cards to enjoy a Malfoy-free evening. He showed up an hour late, right after she had just emptied her second glass of Firewhisky and was waiting at the bar for another.

Malfoy sauntered over to her. Or rather: he approached the bar and rolled his eyes when their eyes met. The blond wizard didn't let her be but instead walked up beside her.

When the bartender handed her the drink, he spoke up.

"Odgen's, Granger? Really?"

She took a sip, already starting to feel comfortably tipsy. "Yes, Malfoy. Odgen's."

"You clearly haven't developed a finer taste for that beverage."

Hermione gulped down the rest of it, glaring at Malfoy while doing so. "Which, naturally, you did."

"I did." He smirked. "And you will, too." Malfoy gestured for the bartender.

Hermione felt her anger rising. Was he really trying to show off his experience with expensive contraband? Lucius and his stash — the stuff of legends among the Slytherin eighth years — be damned.

Just when Malfoy lifted his head to probably order something to rub under her nose, Hermione felt a pull again. Before she could swear or react in any other way, she felt herself being rapidly attached to him.

"What—" the seemingly oblivious Malfoy said, trying to push her away.

"Oh no. It's like in the dungeons," she harshly whispered, trying to keep her voice low.

Malfoy's eyes widened. "Fuck."

For once, she didn't disapprove of his choice of language. After all, she was plastered to him, front to front, as if she were hugging him.

"What are we going to do?" he muttered, more to himself.

"For starters, we should get out of here." She wasn't keen on being caught in what must seem like a very long hug to everyone else. There would be questions she couldn't exactly answer.

Malfoy nodded, almost butting her head in the process. Together, they made an exit that hopefully didn't catch anyone's attention.

Hermione had left her cardigan over her chair inside the pub, and when she felt the cool wind outside hitting her body, she immediately started to shiver.

"Are you cold?" Malfoy asked. It sounded genuine.

"Yes, but I can't reach my wand." Her arms were glued to Malfoy's ribs, so casting a Warming Charm with it wasn't really in the cards. She considered trying it wandlessly, but then she felt him reaching for the back pocket of her jeans for her wand.

An irrational fear flooded her veins — a surge of panic that came with a former adversary taking control of her wand — even though the realisation hit a second later that Malfoy wouldn't do her any real harm. Not anymore.

"Hey!" she voiced, nevertheless. After all, grabbing another person's wand was a rude thing to do.

"Sorry, Granger." He cast a Warming Charm on her before putting the wand back.

It must have looked like he was feeling her up, for a bypasser shouted, "Merlin, get a room!" not very friendly before entering the pub. A heat flushed Hermione's cheeks when it occurred to her that she knew that voice.

"How rude. Who was that?" Malfoy's — considering the situation — misplaced aristocratic drawl made Hermione snigger.

"Michael Corner. He tried to invite me to a date a few weeks ago."

Malfoy grinned, and the light from inside the pub illuminated his mischievously glinting grey eyes. Hermione could very well imagine by that glint alone that many witches and wizards would want to be in her place right now, closely wrapped around Draco Malfoy.

But she wasn't.

"Michael Corner? The Ravenclaw?" Malfoy scrunched his forehead. "Why didn't you say yes?"

"Because he dated Ginny a few years back, and the image of him slobbering her face is stuck in my brain," she felt compelled to explain.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "But you have no problem with Pansy having an inexplicable crush on your ex?"

Merlin, were all Slytherins such gossip girls? Yet, Malfoy's intrigued question was reasonable.

"I love Ron, but he and I were a bad idea. It was fun while it lasted, though."

Before Malfoy could add a question, she tactfully changed topics. "Where do you keep your wand, by the way?"

"Strapped to my forearm."

"Like an Auror?" Weirdly, Malfoy becoming an Auror was something she could picture clearly. After all, they wore a fancy uniform.

His visibly mood sank, and the spark in his eyes became a cloudy mist. "Like someone who had one duel too many."

"One could say the same for me, but I still keep it in the back pocket of my jeans," Hermione said, voice lacking malice.

They both had leftovers from the war. His was wearing his wand ready to fight, hers was a still fully stored beaded bag that allowed three people to survive in the wilderness for at least two weeks.

A thought occurred to her. "How did you know it was in the back pocket of my jeans?"

The ever present smugness in Malfoy's features returned. "It was a logical choice, wasn't it?"

"Yes, that, or you were staring at my bum earlier?" It could be the light betraying her, but a slight pink blush seemed to decorate the aristocratic face in front of her. "Oh, and that's not even the first time you did it, right? When this entire debacle started, you were complimenting my pretty bum!" She wasn't really mad, just surprised.

"Shall I compliment your breasts instead?" he drawled drily. Seemingly, he had gained his composure. "This would be the perfect position to look at your decolleté, were it not for your ugly Gryffindor sweater."

"So I do look ugly in it?" She was on the verge of stomping.

He sighed as if he was frustrated explaining a levitation to first years. "Not you, the sweater. Truth be told, you are one of the few witches I know that could wear anything and still look good."

Flabbergasted, Hermione let her arms fall to her sides. "Why thank you," she replied and meant it. That had been an honest compliment.

Malfoy nodded, intently rightening his sleeves. Then, he inhaled sharply, appearing to realise something important. "Circe, we're free!"

They both took a step back, putting some distance between them. Hermione felt a flitter of confusion.

"I think I'll go back to the castle now," she said, taking yet another step backwards. A bit of fresh air during a walk would do her good. Clear her thoughts and help her focus.

Malfoy nodded. With his hands in his pockets and his shirt untucked from where she must have accidentally pulled at it, Hermione had never seen him look so boyish. "I think I'll go back and drink the Firewhisky I was about to order."

She, too, replied with an acknowledging nod. Malfoy reentered the pub, and after a few moments of processing what had just happened, Hermione went her merry way. Only a few steps into her walk, though, someone called her name. She turned back around, and to her surprise, it was Malfoy.

"You forgot something." A flick of his wand sent Hermione's cardigan towards her, and she was barely able to catch it. "Can't have the Head Girl catching a cold. Who's going to criticise everything I do then?" The smirk was back.

"First of all, only pathogens would cause a cold, most probably—"

She couldn't continue because Malfoy had blown a bunch of dried leaves into her face. Next thing she knew, Hermione heard a door falling closed, and when the leaves had fallen to the ground, she was alone in front of the Three Broomsticks.

Snorting at the wizard's childish behaviour, Hermione slipped into the cardigan and headed towards Hogwarts. She really needed to tackle their problem.

The next morning, Hermione skipped breakfast and entered the library as it opened.

A spill-free thermos cup filled with coffee to her person, she set up her working space. Fresh parchment, a pen, sticky notes in different colours, and a sharpened pencil all found their way to the desk in the back of the Arithmancy section.

Her desk.

Well, not hers exactly. But the one she considered hers since she had made it a habit to use it throughout the years whenever she needed some study time for herself, working out a particularly difficult problem without the traffic the tables in the D.A.D.A., Charms, or Transfiguration section suffered, but within a reasonable proximity to retrieve books from there if need be.

After her setup was complete, she lined up the heavy tomes and began researching.

"Alright. This can't be the first time this has happened to students, correct?" she spoke to herself. Full of hope, she opened Potion Panic: A Compendium of the Most Exciting Mishaps, delving right into it.

The sun was already colouring beautiful patterns of light and shadow in the library when Hermione closed the ninth book with more force than necessary. Just like the others, Surprising Side-Effects of Plants:When Snapdragons Make You See Snakes had been a huge failure to provide her with useful information.

"Tut, tut, Granger. Be careful with that precious book. It's not his fault you've got your wand in a knot."

"Be careful what you say, Malfoy, or I will have your wand in a knot!" she hissed at the wizard that stood in front of her desk. He had the surprising talent of approaching her as quietly as a cat. "You are the last person I want to see right now."

Grinning, he pulled something from the pockets of his dark navy trousers. "Really? So I better leave and take this delicious muffin with me?"

Hermione's stomach started growling. She hadn't realised that she was indeed very hungry and desperately wanted that muffin.

"I think I already received my answer then." He threw the muffin at her which she actually caught, sat down on the second chair at the huge study desk, and helped himself to another one. She didn't spare him with a reply, and for a few minutes, all that was heard was peaceful munching.

"Thank you," she said once she had taken her final swallow. "How did you know I'd be hungry?"

Malfoy shrugged. "I noticed you weren't in the Great Hall for breakfast, and if you have an early study lesson in the Head quarters, you wake me up with your stomping, so I figured you must have skipped breakfast to get a head start on the research. And a hungry Granger is one I'd rather avoid researching with."

"Ha ha," she commented drily, knowing that he was right nonetheless. "Wait, who says you can research alongside me?" it occurred to her.

He threw her a wink that supposedly had caused a fifth year witch to faint last week. "Reasonable thinking, Granger. You need my brilliant head — and my potion recipe."

She groaned. He annoyingly was right. The first thing she had written down in her notes was, "Find out Malfoy's potion recipe!"

"I definitely agree on the latter, but the existence of the former is yet to be decided," she quipped. Calmly, he pulled his own parchment, quill, and something that looked familiar. "Malfoy," she inquired. "Are those highlighters in different colours?"

Appearing caught, he defended, "They seem useful. The marking and retrieving of information is much more haptic that way."

"And who brought that to your attention?"

"The bossiest, most headstrong, annoying witch of all time —you," he threw back..

"Touché," she admitted, smiling slightly at the off-handed compliment. "And now let's see if you are as useful as you think you are. Have you found anything?" She pointed at the book in his hands.

Instantly, Malfoy's features lost any superiority and smugness. "I'm not sure. This part here looks promising, but the referenced sources are more than sketchy, I am afraid. Will you look at it?"

Hermione relaxed. Even if she couldn't admit it out loud, she was aware that Draco Malfoy — at least intellectually — deserved the Head Boy post. He was witty, possessed a lot of knowledge, and could draw connections between information while most others sat there with their mouths open and their minds blank. He also had a keen intuition Hermione knew she lacked at times, an instinctive understanding how (not necessarily why) magic worked — something she secretly envied because it was likely the result of growing up in an ancient wizarding family. Though, she grew up learning how to use a microwave, and that was almost like magic.

Recognising that, again, her thoughts had drifted away, she forced herself to focus on his words. "Sure."

She pushed herself from her comfy armchair and crossed the short distance to Malfoy's side of the desk. His finger hovered over a passage. "I must say I agree with you here," Hermione said after reading it. "Samantha Seethrough isn't a reliable source when it comes to potions or their ingredients. Wasn't she banned from Diagon Alley because she ran around there naked?"

Malfoy snorted, nodding. "Indeed. My great-grandfather Pollux was quite senile in the final decade of his life, but he still remembered, and I quote, 'These perfect pair of tits even Merlin couldn't have helped but suckle on.'"

The last words were spoken with a broken, aged voice, but so full of verve that Hermione threw her head back and laughed.

A short tickling of something coursing through her body was the only warning she got before the curse stroke again. With an elegant, "Whoops!" Hermione was pushed into Malfoy's lap by an invisible force.

Luckily, he steadied her tumble with his arms around her hip; otherwise, they would have both fallen and landed on the floor.

"Here we go again," groaned the wizard.

"There is no real pattern behind it. No rhythm and no triggers," Hermione analysed.

"I noticed, too. The only condition for this to happen seems to be that the both of us are in a room and in a certain physical proximity."

She nodded. Stuck on his lap sitting sideways, Hermione put an arm around his shoulders to sit more comfortable. It was strange to suddenly be confronted with the form of a wizard she had avoided for years.

Touching him made him feel so… real. Human. She couldn't help but notice that beneath the soft fabric of his expensive sweater, the muscles of his shoulders and neck were quite defined. Strangely, he didn't react to her touch.

"We should add this to our notes. Can you reach my quill?" He had pushed his chair back during the imitation of his ancestor, so he couldn't grab it by himself anymore.

By now, they knew they couldn't change much until the effect that glued them together the meantime, they could at least take some notes.

"Let's see—" Hermione stretched towards the table, but Malfoy's quill was still out of reach. "That's not enough. My arms aren't long enough…"

"Your wand?"

"In the dorm. And yours?"

"Same. I'm making an effort to leave it there."

She turned her head upon his admission and gave Malfoy an appreciative glance. "I know that isn't easy for you."

He nodded curtly. By now, she was aware that divulging his motives, emotions, and struggles wasn't something he was keen on sharing. Slytherin to the core, war ridden or not.

She made a decision. "I am going to Accio it wandlessly."

His eyebrows shot up so that they almost touched his blond fringes. "You can do that? Accio is difficult to execute without a wand."

"It takes some concentration, but yes, I can do that. Most of the time."

For whatever reason, she had always kept her talents concerning wandless magic mostly to herself. Harry and Ron, having accompanied her through her highs and lows, had taken a glimpse into her capabilities, but not even they knew that she could wandlessly summon objects. Most inexplicably, sitting in Draco Malfoy's lap in the library of Hogwarts felt like the perfect moment to share.

She concentrated on the beautiful white peacock quill on the desk, felt the signature of it, the special, arrogant air that came from the peacock ancestry, and then, she pulled on it. When the feather tickled the inside of her hand, she knew she had been successful.

"You did it! You did wonderfully!" Malfoy praised with a low voice and a pat on her hip.

Hermione felt herself blush. "Thank you."

He blinked slowly, and she knew he had just realised his words and actions. "I am—"

"Oh, for Minerva's sake!" came a voice from above some shelves, followed by hasty footsteps approaching.

"Fuck," Malfoy whispered, half groaning, half laughing. He let his forehead sink against Hermione's shoulder. "That's Pince."

"So what? We're doing nothing inappropriate."

"No, we aren't. But this isn't what it looks like, right?"

She was still wondering about his almost familiar touch when Pince rounded the final corner and stood in front of him.

Hermione had always been in the librarian's good graces, but judging by the deep frown on the older witch's face, those times were over.

"Mister Malfoy! You should have learned by now not to be caught in positions like this in my library. And Miss Granger! I am deeply disappointed!"

"We are not making out! We are just— The potion— I can't help it!"

"Of course, Miss Granger. Say no more," the librarian dismissed Hermione's stammering sternly. "The next thing you'll say is that you fell onto Mister Malfoy's lap! This isn't the first time I've caught the Head students in a predicament like this. Though, I am surprised this year. The times are strange, but I still expect you two out of my library stante pede! And I don't want to see you again this weekend," she finished with an angry huff and disappeared somewhere between the shelves.

Hermione stared after her, too discombobulated to say anything, until she realised that the head against her shoulder was shaking, making her a bit concerned. "Malfoy?"

He lifted his head, and soon she noticed that he was laughing. Not in smirking, grinning, or cackling evilly. No. Draco Malfoy was laughing so hard that he had to wipe tears from his eyes.

She had a hard time believing it. As soon as he looked at her, he started laughing even harder. It was a rich, deep sound from the bottom of his belly, and it was so infectious that she started laughing along.

"Merlin, Granger. I have been caught making out in the library numerous times, but you and me? This was the most hilarious time of all!" He was so at ease in that moment, so relaxed and open, that Hermione knew it wasn't an insult of any sort. He sincerely found it very funny.

"Well, since this is the first time I've been caught in the library, I am quite relieved that you enjoy my role in this so much." She tried to sound serious, but a giggle escaped her.

"Really?" he said, surprised and slowly ceasing his laughter. "You've never snogged in the library? Must you always be such a good girl?"

Hermione felt the physical attachment to Malfoy lessening and tested if she could get up from his lap. Slowly, she could, and almost missing the contact, she stood and gathered a few books she intended to take to their dorm.

"I never said I never made out here. But, as you said, I am a good girl." She winked at him and turned to leave. "And good girls don't get caught."

Hermione swore she heard his jaw drop.