Without further ado, but with a lot of love for niffizzle and the nerd group, I give you the final chapter with an epilogue to follow.
It was weird for Hermione to enter Snape's office alone. She had never done this before. Usually, if she wanted to pester him, she cornered him after class or during patrols when another student was with her.
This was probably only the second time they were alone in a room, the incident during the Battle of Hogwarts being the first. Though, back then, she'd had her hands full of saving his life, applying all the healing knowledge she had gathered over the war. And he had barely been lucid. Now, it was as if she had lost her ability to speak at first.
"Miss Granger, I believe you came here for a reason. Otherwise, I'd say you leave so I can resume my grading." He patted the stack of parchment in front of him, the abundance of red ink on it very clear for her to see.
"Obviously," she replied, and almost laughed at the Potion Master's raise of eyebrows. "I've been investigating the cause of Draco's— Mister Malfoy's and my disposition you have been witness to."
Was that a smirk on Snape's face? "Continue."
"It wasn't a spell targeting the potion you have administered on us to relieve us from our predicament. Moreover, it was—"
The door flew open. Instinctively, Hermione reached for her wand, whereas Snape didn't even flinch.
Draco. Of course. "It wasn't the potion!"
Hermione started clapping slowly. "Good job, Draco. A bit slower than me, but still." Then, she remembered what she had found out, and she felt ashamed. Draco, to her surprise, looked a bit hurt. "I must apologise. That was uncalled for."
"You seem to have similar intentions for your visit as Miss Granger here, so why don't you take a seat and remember that you have manners, Draco," Snape suggested.
A grim nod, and the blond sat down beside Hermione. Before an uncomfortable silence could spread between them, she started speaking. "As I was about to explain to Professor Snape, the phenomenon we experienced wasn't caused by the potions we brewed, but by us, ourselves."
"Our magical cores interact, to be precise. That's what I found out, too." Draco nodded almost solemnly.
"Like magnets, sometimes we push each other away, fight, like two with the same polarisation and other times—" She spoke quietly, coming to terms as to how accurate the metaphor was.
"We are so different, we feel a pull," Draco finished for her.
"Exactly." When Snape spoke, Hermione had almost forgotten about his presence. "An unusual, but not unheard of incident. Not dangerous or harmful. Barr any deeper meaning. Basically, a form of accidental magic."
Draco snorted derisively. "So we have to live with it?"
"Yes and no. Mostly, it lessens after a while when the persons themselves mature. Grow," Snape enunciated.
"Are you saying we're acting like children?" Hermione's anger flared up again.
"No, that is not what I said. Quite the opposite. You both have had a very… stressful couple of years, and it forced you to grow up. Now that the war is over and the two of you are Heads, you have more chances to interact and react to each other than before, without any restrictions of house, friends, and, dare I say, blood status."
Hermione felt too many things at once. Hurt, because what Snape said was true; they had grown up so fast and lost too much innocence on the way. A strange embarrassment because she had allowed herself to basically project her feelings through her magic, making herself act stupidly, irresponsibly, and irrational. And, finally, a sense of pride because she and Draco had many instances where they were… great with each other. Not as Heads. Not necessarily as students of magic. But as two people interested in one another.
She looked at Draco. His face, too, was flushed, and she thought she could read the same set of emotions in his; though, the remark about the blood status was probably more directed at him than at her.
"Enough talk about emotions," Snape said and slapped a hand on the table. "How are you going to tackle the core magnetism?" He looked at them with a clear expectation of an answer. When it didn't come, he reached for his red ink quill again. "Well, that is clearly something you need to find out, right? I want a co-written essay, ten thousand words at least, from the both of you exactly one week from now." Ignoring their gasps, Snape pointed at the door. "See yourselves out. Have a good night."
Realising the visit had come to a somewhat sudden end, Hermione rose from her chair simultaneously to Draco.
Automatically, Hermione started walking towards their dorm, just like Draco. The wizard walked alongside her, seemingly processing everything that had just happened. Just like her.
"Well…" she started, then trailed off.
"Yes, well…" he answered about a minute later, when they had almost reached their dorm.
They entered the dorm, slipped out of their robes and shoes, and both plopped down on the sofa.
"So… magnetism?" he spoke into the sparsely lighted room since no one had bothered to light the torches. With only the fireplace alight, the room felt calm and focused. "Like in Muggle physics?" Draco formulated the words like a question, but Hermione could hear they weren't really.
"Have you been reading about it?"
"Well yes. I wanted to understand. Once I had gotten behind the basic concept of magnetism, I wanted to know more.
"Electricity?" she guessed from her experiences with Arthur Weasley.
"You're doing all kinds of stuff with it from heating up meals to communicating over the phone just with ionized particles. That is fascinating!" Draco gestured with his hands to underline his excitement, and Hermione couldn't help but chuckle.
"That is a bit adorable," she admitted, smiling. He snorted as an answer. "It is. I should introduce you to the concept of science shows one day. Something tells me you're going to love the television."
"I've heard about it in Muggle Studies, but I couldn't believe it. Do you have one at home?"
For the first time in a while, Hermione thought about it. "I don't really have a home anymore. My parents are in Australia, and once we finish school, I need to find a place for myself and a job — quickly." Draco, school, and everything else had made her concentrate on her all day life, but now, it all came rushing back.
"What about Potter's home? From what I've heard from my mother, the Black townhouse is now in his occupation." Draco's question was genuine. And that alone had tears well up in her eyes for some reason.
"Could we save this for another conversation?"
He nodded, solemn. For a few heartbeats, he remained silent. Then, "What's your favourite movie?" There was so much curiosity in his voice that Hermione felt a chuckle pushing through her sadness.
"That's hard to tell. It's more of a favourite genre, really." She leaned back and impulsively threw her legs over Draco's lap. His eyebrows shot up for a second, but then he simply placed his hands on her shins. "Let me tell you about rom-coms."
She conjured some snacks with her wand and started explaining. From the topic of TV, they somehow slipped into talking about newspapers (and the lack of quality of The Prophet); then, they chatted about Quidditch, followed by favourite food, the use of dragon blood, and if Flitwick and Pomfrey had something going on.
They talked for hours. About too many things and not anything at all. Ugly truths. Heartbreak. Pasts long forgotten and history unknown. And more than once, one or both of them had to blink away tears threatening to spill. Though, this time it didn't feel like a tabula rasa, it felt like carefully traipsing into something new.
"And, mysteriously, the morning after Bobby Fenwick bit my father, all of the boy's teeth disappeared in the middle of the first class of the day."
They were discussing embarrassing accidental magic when suddenly, Draco said, "We should kiss."
Hermione almost dropped the mug of tea in her hands. "What?"
"Hermione," Draco started and placed her mug on the table before taking her hands in his. "Listen. You were right. Sometimes, when we fight, I don't know if I should hex you or kiss you, either." Heat blossomed on her cheeks. "I just needed a while to realise that, maybe, I want to give into that pull, not only when we are pushing at each other, but also when we get along."
"I have had a theory going in the same direction, I admit." She avoided looking into his eyes, knowing that they were her weakness. Instead, she concentrated on their hands. Interlaced. Skin to skin, one holding to the other. "Why did you push me away last night then?"
"I am not entirely sure. Though, we both were so incensed that it would have ended in angry shagging instead of a kiss. And that would probably have made it worse."
Hermione felt a surge of heat, though she knew he was right.
"But what if I don't like kissing you?" she asked, fully aware that that was largely improbable. She was only a bit afraid of what would happen if she liked it too much.
"It's just a theory we are testing to see if the magnetism of our cores is really there, to see if we willingly choose the pull, it can outrule the push. And if it's neither, it's just a kiss." While talking, he had gently pulled her towards him, the grasp on her so careful that she could have slipped out of it at any moment.
Though, she didn't want that. Quite the opposite. To counter his gentless, she let go of his hands, gripped the fabric of his shirt, and, with a decisive tug, she bridged the gap and let her lips fall onto his.
Draco emitted a small, surprised sound before relaxing and melting into the kiss. His lips were warm, and soft, and Hermione grinned when she felt one of his hands cupping her neck and bringing them even closer together. She countered by tapping the tip of her tongue against his upper lips, and he opened his mouth, letting her in. Hermione had no idea if it was him or her moaning when their tongues met. She threw herself into the snogging with everything she had, so when he gently slowed down much later, she was sitting on his lap with no memory of having climbed up there.
"So?" Draco asked, his eyes wide and skin flushed.
"I have no idea if it helped cancel the magnetic effect, but… I definitely like kissing you."
He blinked, processing her words. "Merlin, I hoped you'd say that."
She giggled but was quickly resuming to sighing and moaning when Draco pulled her close again.