He was prompt, as always, striding across her living room like it was the most natural thing in the world. Hermione found she was still a mess from the day, as she tried to make dinner that night, her mind kept spiraling. She thought of Lavender and Ron on their date at the fancy Italian restaurant now that he had fancy Italian restaurant money, and how it was inevitable eventually he'd find someone new. She thought of the kiss with Draco, and the way his eyes looked when she said she didn't want to kiss him again. There was a pit in her stomach like she'd made a rotten mess of everything she touched.

"Granger?"

"Huh?" Hermione looked up, Draco was looking at her from the den, taking a long sip of the firewhiskey he had brought to take the edge off.

"I said where are you going to put all the books you steal from me?" He gestured towards the stuffed bookcase.

"There's always room for more books," she objected.

He chuckled, "is that right?" One of his fingers ran along the spines of a row of books and it sent a shiver up hers. "I'll bring you some next time I go back there. Nothing weird, I promise, unless you're into sex magic, pretty sure there's a few of those."

"Draco."

"Sorry," he said with a grin. It was forced around the edges, she could tell. Him teasing her with a sex joke top prove that their relationship hadn't changed, she could almost see his scratch work in the margins.

The knowledge of that didn't stop Hermione from noticing the way his other hand was wrapped around the cold glass, cutting through the condensation with his fingers. He downed the last of it and sighed. "So are we doing this?"

They had a routine by this point, Hermione led the way up to the upstairs bathroom and Draco sat himself on the edge of the tub. He pulled his sweater up over his head, leaving him in a fitted black t-shirt. She almost stopped in her tracks as she washed her hands. It took her a moment to realize how strange it was to see anything that showed his arms, so she had never really noticed how he'd put on muscle since their school days. The crisp button downs he wore to work didn't ever draw her eye like this.

Rubbing the antidote serum on his forearm made her stomach flip, she could feel his eyes on her neck. With a nod from him, she said the incantation for hopefully the last time. She never wanted to look at another dark mark again after tracing it over and over so many times. During the war, she'd seen it plenty of times, in the sky, carved into trees, even on arms like his. But she'd never looked very hard at it. Now she'd memorized every detail, and it made her a little bit sick.

It glowed when she traced it with her wand, like it had before, the dark magic fighting back against her. The fight seemed weaker this time, as as she moved she noticed it dimming, even as Draco continued to grip the edge of the tub until his knuckles turned white. Eventually, it stopped glowing all together and he made an odd sound, half a cry, half a gasp.

She pulled away his wand and looked at him, sweat had broken out on his forehead and he was breathing heavily, but there was something else too.

"Are you feeling alright?"

He took a moment to catch his breath, then said, "have you ever gone swimming and stayed under water too long? And then you come back up for air? That's how I feel."

"Wow."

"Yeah," he laughed, "fuck, I think this worked." He put his hand on hers, almost thoughtlessly. The second they both looked down at it, he pulled it away just as quickly.

Hermione shifted uncomfortably, and cleared her throat. "I uh, I actually don't know how to swim."

"What!?" his eyes lit up.

She shrugged, "kind of an indoor kid."

He shook his head, "We have to fix that eventually."

"Mmm, many have tried."

Hermione went downstairs to make herself a drink while Draco showered in her bathroom. She tried not to think about it, but like everything else she had pushed away that day, it had the opposite effect. Instead of a passing thought, she found herself stuck on the idea of the hot water running down those arms as he washed his hair with her shampoo.

When he joined her ten minutes later, placing a drying charm on his white-blonde hair, she had mostly successfully shaken it off. That was thanks, in part, to the half glass of wine she'd sucked down in the meantime. He leaned against the counter where she stood.

"Shall we?" he said, and she performed the diagnosis spell, watching as the numbers and words arranged themselves on the piece of parchment.

"Oh my god."

It was gone, all of it. Not a trace of the venom remained in his bloodstream. Their jaws both dropped and soon they were both laughing in disbelief.

"Bloody hell, Hermione!" He suddenly had her in his arms, picking her up so her feet left the floor and spinning her around. She was too lost in all of it to care.

"We did it."

"I didn't do much of anything other than cry like a baby. You did this."

She blushed slightly as he placed her back down, still standing a little too close to her. It was odd how even though he'd showered in her body wash, he still smelled distinctly like himself. For a moment she wondered if he reapplied his cologne after.

"We should think about getting this into research at St. Mungos," he said, taking a sip of her wine without asking, though she found she didn't mind. "If you submit it as a new research project, we already know it works, no one has to know that you tried it out on your office roommate before."

"Now that's against the rules. We could get it thrown out, or worse."

He grinned mischievously, "only if we get caught. I believe a shockingly rebellious brunette taught me that."

"It's risky."

"I know, but it could help a lot of people out there, not just me. And not just former Death Eaters either, the theory could be applied to all sorts of victims of Dark Arts. This is why you became a healer isn't it?" His eyes were bright in a way she hadn't ever seen before, so she let him continue.

"And hell, what about you? Your work? Hermione, this is career-making stuff you just whipped up one night because you had a rough go at a party. This is the kind of thing that makes you head healer or gets you an Order of Merlin, I mean you already have one of those, but surely you could make room for another-"

And then she kissed him. Hard, with her arms flung around his neck, and everything, everything came out in that kiss. Everything she'd been pushing down about him since he kissed her, since they started working on this "potions project," since they moved into that tiny office and since the first time she heard him say her given name. All of the rest, the back and forth with Ron, the stress about her job, the feeling like her life was spinning out of control, it all melted away.

Under her lips, she could feel him smiling as he kissed her back, pushing her gently against the counters. When he broke it to catch his breath, he chuckled and pressed his forehead to hers.

"Just say it," she whispered through a laugh.

"Say what?" he teased, grinning.

"Malfoy."

"I bloody told you so."

"Yep," she slipped out from behind him and started up the stairs. There was only one other word she said to him, called over her shoulder, "coming?"