Draco unties the parchment from the leg of the Ministry owl that just landed on his balcony. He's been sitting on his terrace a lot lately, lost in thoughts staring at St Paul's. He is torn between fits of maniacal laughter and bouts of despondency whenever he recalls his infamous date with Granger. Hermione. Mild shame too. For his cockiness and vanity: he had assumed that such a witch would be his easily, that following a set recipe for courtship would de facto end with a happy Draco and a content Granger admiring the cathedral's dome from his master suite. "Not quite." He chuckles to himself self-deprecatingly.

He unwraps the scroll to read the message contained within:

"Hello Malfoy,

I just wanted to say thank you for an unforgettable experience the other day.

And if you ever want to see your jacket again you can come by Borough Market tonight, around 7pm. Look for a stall called 'Epicurious Brews', I'll be waiting outside.

H.G."

The owl toots and takes flight without waiting for a reply. Draco's mouth is still agape.

Hermione is pacing in front of the stall in Borough Market. At that time in the evenings, the energy of the place changes from loud and hectic, to quieter but happening. A new crowd makes its way inside, with friends meeting up after a day of work to grab a drink before heading home.

She loves the sight of pubs overspilling on pavements, people standing around and chatting casually holding their beverage of choice. So long as it's not raining, pub goers will always prefer to be standing outside, rather than standing inside. Standing is the word though, a proper drink after work must be enjoyed on your feet or not at all.

She must be anxious that he's not going to show. That staccato in her chest has been beating all afternoon. Rationally she knows that he wouldn't turn down her invitation, it would be bad form, especially after their shambolic date. Not that it was his fault, but he must not have expected it to go this bad. Bad. Such a small three-letter word for a complete catastrophe of a date. Inverted correlation. Ironic really.

No, she must be nervous because she needs to play her hand well to somehow extract further data to plug into her equation at work. Malfoy is a conundrum. She cannot understand why she would want to see him again after everything. It's unexplainable and defies all rules of arithmancy she's been applying to her research, surely it must mean something? And to think she's almost done it, her current model now matches the outcome of Amortentia with a 93% certainty. Over the last few weeks, since her epiphany at Pansy's diatribe on friends-with-zero-benefits, she has closed the confidence gap by over 20%. But she is now stuck in the final percentiles.

She ran her model again with Luna's suggestion that plurality, or rainbow love as she poetically puts it, would have an effect. She wasn't surprised to realise that indeed no, genders and orientation have absolutely no impact on love. As a matter of fact, the narrower she forced the parameter on attraction, the more negative vectors for happiness were found in the residual matrix. Put simply: force attraction and you lose happiness. It shouldn't take arithmancy to tell you that really.

Although Luna's latest theory, unhelpfully doled out over lunch the day before, is that Malfoy and Goyle are now going through a torrid love square with none other than Lavender Brown, Hermione being one of the four corners. She had uttered that gem after seeing Gregory with a large bouquet of flowers, waiting outside the Magical Menagerie for Lavender as she was closing up. It had taken a sceptical Hermione much digging into her own whimsy to convince Luna that a love square is as implausible as spotting a ladybird in winter. Hermione had decided to stop chasing Luna's increasingly outlandish theories for the time being. But maybe at least it would provide her with a diverting topic of conversation to start tonight with.

Hermione takes a final turn, pacing in front of the stall, when she finally spots Draco approaching.

"I wasn't sure you'd come." She greets him shily with a small smile.

"I wasn't sure you owled the right wizard. You must have a taste for disasters." He replies with a bright sparkle in his eyes, but that soft smile she remembers from the church gardens.

"Either that or I really want to get you back." Hermione answers with a mock threat. She hands him the jacket she was carrying on her forearm. "I think this is yours."

"Thank you." Draco casts a reducio on the jacket and pockets it quickly. "I'm going to frame this for my wall of shame."

Hermione's smile morphs into a grin. "Really? There's a whole wall?"

It feels like falling into the abyss. The exhilarating rush of speeding faster and faster to a destination unknown, pulled down by Hermione's gravity. Draco cannot repress a bark of laughter. But internally he is struck by the wonder of this witch. How does she do it? Her presence alone is comforting, yet her vibrancy is stimulating to the highest degree. One cannot let their guard down near Hermione Granger, as she skewers those around her mercilessly while never losing her warmth. It's as if she delights in the ridicule of life and wants to share her observations with others. Come, look, she beckons. See how all of this is droll and funny. Isn't life amazing for it?

Draco is aware that he needs to check himself. He's gone far too deep, too quickly this early in their night. "So what are we getting into?" He quips to get back on course.

"Ever been to a potions cook-out before? Happens once a month, all around the city. The host pairs haute cuisine with magical potions of all kinds. But the cooking is up to us. And I believe French is on the menu tonight. Are you any good in the kitchen?"

"I can stand the heat of a cauldron, if that's what you mean." Draco replies with a challenge in his voice.

She smiles taking his hand, leading him underneath the Epicurious Brews sign.

Their host tonight is a small and rotund French wizard, with a wild streak of unpredictability that unnerves Draco from the onset. If Mrs Sprout, his Herbology Professor at Hogwarts, were to have had a lost French twin, then Draco would have bet his Gringotts vault that this wizard was him. What did he say his name was again? Chef something deranged? No, DeRangeois. How apt.

The space inside is surprisingly large, considering how small the entrance to the stall is, but it doesn't phase Draco in the slightest. Having grown up in the magical world, his brain has never linked external shape with internal space, that being a pure muggle construct. All the same, he can still appreciate the airy atmosphere of the place, with neat cooking stations side by side, the host on a platform at the front for potions brewing.

"Ladies and gentlemen, honoured guests, welcome to Epicurious Brews!" Chef DeRangeois announces with a booming, heavily accented voice. Even though Draco considers himself fluent in the language, that French accent is so thick, it's a struggle to understand the Chef clearly. Draco looks around discreetly but no one else seems to have an issue with it.

"We will begin tonight with 'Oeufs pochés aux asperges vertes et leur sauce Hollandaise' which we will pair with a custom brew of Euphorix, a potion I adapted myself to suit the citrus undertones of the dish." Chef DeRangeois continues to announce almost unintelligibly. Ironically Draco understood the dish's name better than the rest of the English sentence.

"A vos fourneaux! Ready, steady, cook!" At the Chef's last word the ingredients appear on the cooking stations, along with a small platter holding two small and delicate stemmed glasses containing a shimmering golden potion and a note card that reads "Euphorix: relaxes the mind, eases the conversation and lubricates social interactions. Ideally paired with our first course."

Draco decides to get more comfortable before wrangling steaming asparagus into submission. He removes the jacket he's wearing and sets it aside. Starting with the left cuff of his shirt, he frees his cufflink but leaves it in the buttonhole as he proceeds to roll it up neatly, stopping at the thick of his forearm. He absentmindedly thanks Merlin that his Dark Mark faded completely following Vodlemort's death. Already with his skin smooth and untarnished, he could never look at his left forearm without a sense of shame rising in his chest. He can only imagine his daily torment if that evil imprint had remained behind as a reminder of the war.

He works quickly on the right arm, his long fingers familiar with the movement and after checking quickly that his cuffs are folded evenly, he looks up to see Hermione staring at his hands, a blush to her cheeks. She licks her lips quickly, swallows visibly and gives a little shake of her head as if she had suddenly remembered something important.

Hermione clears her throat audibly. She needs to say something to distract herself from the sight of Malfoy's taut forearms and industrious hands. Think of something to cool off, quickly. "Your friends Gregory Goyle and Lavender Brown were spotted on a date in Diagon Alley the other day." She stiltedly states while also sort of asking as a question. She's at a loss for anything less awkward to say.

"My friends who and who?" Draco can already feel the pull of his vow with Gregory clogging his vocal cords, shutting them down and preventing him from speaking his client's name.

Hermione scrunches her brow. "Gregory Goyle and Lavender Brown? How do you know her by the way?"

"I don't."

"But you do know Gregory Goyle, right? From Hogwarts?"

"Knew." Draco is starting to swelter from the strain of not saying Gregory's name. He's never before been confronted with the compelling force of his own spell. He's starting to regret weaving such a strong secrecy charm into it.

"My friend Luna saw you two together just recently on Diagon Alley. Intimately so as well, if I'm to believe her." Hermione drops the whisk she is holding to stare at him intently. He's never been shifty or awkward before. This is new. Is it meaningful? She notices the two stemmed glasses on the side and reaches over. She offers Draco his and he downs it distractingly without even pausing to check its content.

"I mean yes, I enjoy spending quality time with my accountant." Draco is now in panic mode, he ploughs through trying his hardest to circumvent his own spell. "I'm hoping for a reconciliation of accounts at the end of the cycle. I mean, I mainly deal with asset acquisition myself. But I can assure you that double-entry bookkeeping is, hum, absolutely out of the question."

Bloody hell. If Hermione understands that he means to say that no, he's not in a relationship with Gregory, and that yes, he's hoping to be friends with him again after helping him win Lavender over; then indeed, he'd declare her the brightest witch of her age all over again, Merlin Order First Class and all that.

Draco's collar is choking him, his throat raw and arid like the Sahara desert. His clammy hands are slipping on the knife. He is aware that his face must be shiny from his nervous perspiration.

Hermione is used to following the thinnest threads of conversation since befriending Luna. Piecing together seemingly random sentences that ultimately form an idea. But even with that self-taught talent of hers, she is perplexed by Draco's segue into accounting practices. When she finally stops trying to make sense of their exchange, she observes his face as he is shakily unbuttoning his collar. She realises that his flush is out of proportion to his apparent discomfort and that his lips are inordinately plump. Were they ever that way before?

"Are you all right?" She asks with a frown.

"Yes. No, I'm fine." He counters defensively. She pauses briefly to consider him but chooses to change the topic instead. "So you mentioned you were a consultant?"

"Yes, mostly marketing, little advertising, brand management."

Hermione is growing restless. Crikey, how much work will tonight require to sustain a coherent conversation? She's nothing if not dedicated to the task though, willing to bridge the uncomfortable gap their exchange seems to be mired in at all cost. "Oh yes I've read about these marketing terms, but I'm not sure how they apply in practice?"

Draco is no longer just flushed but full-on red in the face. He's pulling at his tie and his lips have now doubled in size. "No one does, that's why I get to charge so much."

Hermione drops everything then asks him, alarmed. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yes I'm fine. Is it itchy in here or is it just me?" Draco responds in a scratchy voice.

"I know what's happening…." The penny drops for Hermione, she's seen this very same physical reaction before. Only the culprits were sesame seeds and the sufferer was her mother, the Christmas holiday during her sixth year. She's about to explain to Malfoy that they need to seek medical help urgently when he interrupts her mid-inhale:

"You think that I'm in a stressful state because I'm trying to make a good impression while also dealing with my commitment issues trying to avoid all these awkward conversations."

"No, I think you're having an allergic reaction." Hermione grabs his hand, and on second thought she reaches for his jacket and the potion card as well. She disapparates them in a resounding crack, leaving Chef DeRangeois gasping like a carp out of water on his demonstration platform.