"You think we should what?"
A snowflake settles on Hermione's bare shoulder. Her sparkling burgundy dress, while perhaps one of the loveliest things she's ever worn, does little to protect her from the elements while she stands outside Hogwarts' Entrance Hall and argues with Draco Malfoy.
"You heard my mother. This is the happiest I've seen her in years." He says it as if such things are obvious.
"She was crying."
"They were elated tears, trust me." Malfoy's mouth twists before he shrugs off his outermost layer and offers her his cloak. "You must be freezing."
Comfort supersedes pride; she takes it. "I wouldn't be freezing if we didn't have to hide from so much gossip. And now you want to—what? Just carry on?"
Hermione's adult life has meant a lot of carrying on. A war ends? She carries on. Her relationship ends? She carries on. Her optimism about swift reform in the Ministry ends? She carries on.
An entire Yule Ball full of friends, acquaintances, and strangers mistakenly thinks she and Malfoy are having a grand relationship reveal mid-gala? She probably shouldn't carry on.
"They're happy for us, Granger."
"And that, truth be told, is very unexpected."
"Did you catch Skeeter spitballing headlines with herself? It's going to be in tomorrow's Prophet no matter what we do tonight. Stressed Spinster Hermione Granger and Belligerent Bachelor Draco Malfoy Find Love this Holiday Season! She's probably writing it in the toilets as we speak."
"This little misunderstanding will not be Christmas Day news." A pause. "And I am not a 'stressed spinster.' I am a very busy government employee still under the age of thirty, thank you."
"Don't glare those daggers at me, Granger. I didn't say you were, but Skeeter has used the alliteration several times over the years."
And Molly Weasley had a tendency to repeat it after one glass of elf wine too many, slightly weepy while lamenting her fears Hermione will die alone.
It might have been touching if it wasn't so horribly insulting.
"I hardly think it's an advisable idea to let all these people think we're—we're together. Or something." Absurdity flusters her.
"I believe they're under the impression we're making a dramatic announcement about the nature of our very serious romantic relationship."
"A frankly ridiculous conclusion to draw."
"Well I think you only have yourself to blame there—no, don't huff at me. You asked me to dance."
"I was saving you. It was an act of goodwill."
"We haven't seen each other in almost ten years, we've never come anywhere close to being on good terms, and your first impulse when we're in the same room together is to swoop in and save me from a fumbling dance partner trampling my toes to bits?"
Hermione's tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth, blockading a lie-shaped denial. Malfoy laughs, breath swirling between them as it puffs visibly in the cold. Almost silver, glittering.
"Bleeding Gryffindor. That's exactly what you were doing, wasn't it? I'm perfectly capable of fending off grabby hands looking for my family gold on my own. I've been doing it for years."
"That's not—" she breaks off. Champagne bubbles in her blood; she'd been feeling light and fizzy and oddly hopeful when she first saw him across the Great Hall. She was meant to be having fun, letting go. She had three whole days off work —in a row— for the holidays and this reunion Gala had become the event on which she'd hung all her hopes to decompress.
When she'd spotted him, of all things, Draco Malfoy's hair shocked her first. She'd forgotten over the years just how absurdly blond he is.
The bigger shock, though, was the notable lack of resentment comingling with the champagne in her bloodstream. She remembered hatred, feeling sick to her stomach at the sight of him: a horrible combination of pity and disgust and fear. All of it, gone. In its place, something of a blank slate yet to be rewritten.
And that had been a glorious feeling. Proof that time healed all wounds, she supposed. He was just a man across the room from her, an adult version of a boy she once knew.
"I've had a little wine and you looked like you needed help. I wasn't trying to prove anything." Except perhaps that it's possible for some things to stay in the past.
His mouth is still tight, eyes still narrowed, when he speaks. "Regardless of how we got into this, there's now a whole crowd of people in there who seem to think we're in some kind of dreadfully serious, committed relationship worthy of a public reveal."
"And you want to let them keep thinking that?" She crosses her arms, staving off a shiver.
The tension on Malfoy's face transforms, from pinched brows and tight lips to something melted despite the cold. He lets out another breath.
"Look, Granger. I wasn't exaggerating. My mother—since my father passed. Well, she's been—that is to say, she worries for me." A snowflake lands on his cheek, melting into his fair skin as he stumbles through something startlingly vulnerable. "I realize this is potentially a very large thing to ask—"
"She insisted I stay the night. With you. And her. In her home. So I can join you for breakfast tomorrow morning. The same tomorrow morning that happens to be Christmas Day."
"She doesn't live at the manor anymore. If that's any consolation."
"It—is, actually. But Malfoy—"
"Maybe you should try calling me Draco. For appearances, and all."
She doesn't mean to snort. "Of course, as soon as you call me Hermione."
His brows lift, but it's not a face of suspicion. It looks more like subtle amusement. The corners of his eyes crinkle, mouth twitching with the ghost of a smirk. It almost, almost feels like they might be sharing a joke.
" Hermione." Her own name is a blanket against the cold, unexpectedly warm. "That wasn't so difficult," he continues. "I realize there's very little incentive on your end to play along with this, but if there's anything I could offer to convince you to consider—"
"Christmas afternoon with the Weasleys."
He blinks. "Beg pardon?"
"If I walk back into that gala and act like we're a couple to make your mother—and for whatever reason, the rest of that room—happy, I think I'll need you to join me for lunch at the Burrow tomorrow so Molly Weasley can stop hounding me about settling down."
"You want me to voluntarily enter the Weasley family home? Are you hoping to have me jinxed as a Christmas gift to yourself?"
"They'll behave if I ask them to. And don't underestimate Molly's desperation. She may not even bat an eye at who you are as long as she thinks I'm not doomed to die an old maid. It's a very specific fixation of hers."
"So you'll stay at my mother's tonight and join us for breakfast in the morning? And afterwards, I'll brave a den of lions with you?" He delivers a summary of their ridiculous bargain as if it's nothing but a banal factoid.
Hermione sighs. "Fine. It's not as if I had plans outside of drinking mulled wine in front of my Christmas tree after this."
"Delightful. You can have whatever expensive dessert wine my mother pulls out before we retire instead."
Their oddly dispassionate bargain drifts on snowflakes between them.
"Alright," Hermione finally says, shrugging off his cloak and returning it to him. "Your mother did look very happy despite the tears."
"I imagine she's spent the last several minutes composing herself."
Hermione can't help a small laugh. "This is all a bit absurd, isn't it?"
"Tremendously." He matches her smile. "But it's much more entertaining than having my toes stomped on. You're not a terrible dance partner."
"Words I'm sure no one would ever expect to hear us exchange."
"I do enjoy a spite surprise. Very Slytherin. Shall we go dazzle a hall full of our friends and former classmates into believing we're hopelessly in love?"
He offers her an arm and, in a most unusual twist to Hermione's night, she takes it, almost daring to indulge in excitement over something silly, something bold, and something a bit reckless on her horizon.
—
Draco parades them arounds the Great Hall for the remainder of the evening: a thespian deeply committed to his part in a play, pandering to an actively participating audience.
It's startlingly entertaining, laughing when he laughs, indulging in what must look like shared, secret smiles, and sinking into the use of casual touch.
He's strategic about it, engaging in safe, easy chatter with distant acquaintances and then leading them in several dances to avoid the conversations neither of them want to have.
"Looks like Harry might be headed this way," Hermione warns as she sips on a fresh glass of champagne.
Draco plucks it from her grip with a flourish. "I suppose that means we're dancing again. This way, darling."
Her giggle is genuine. She's having fun.
Draco is an excellent dancer, leading with gentle authority. He's easy to follow.
"Pansy's eyeing us," he whispers into her hair.
"Does that mean we're dancing through the next song too, or stopping?"
"I think we keep dancing. She can be a touch aggressive, and I'm not sure I have the energy for it this late in the evening."
Hermione follows as he leads them through a convoluted pureblood box step she only knows from the plethora of Ministry fundraisers she's been forced to attend over the years.
"Harry's talking to Ron now," she says, spotting her friends from over Draco's shoulder.
"If I'm to be attending their gathering tomorrow won't you have to explain this anyway?"
"Yes, but I told them I'd be arriving alone tonight and I think I've had just enough wine that my ability to spin a believable lie will probably suffer."
"Easy. You weren't quite ready to admit you were attending with me."
"Even though we were allegedly planning this very public reveal?"
"Precious surprise. You wanted to protect it."
"Oh I did, did I?"
"You're horribly romantic."
Hermione suppresses her laugh against his shoulder.
"It's alright," he says. "I am as well. We're disgustingly saccharine, all of our friends will hate us."
"I'd say I believe that if not for the fact that several of them, both yours and mine, have given us thumbs up, congratulations, and a few disturbingly manic smiles."
"Our friends can't help but want to see us happy. It's charming."
"You're charming." It slips from her, encouraged by wine and a genuinely enjoyable evening.
"You're nothing like how I remember you either." His smarmy smile pierces a dimple in the side of his cheek.
She swats his chest. "We were children then."
"And there was that war business."
"Not ideal circumstances, no."
"I'd say not. The lingering trauma hasn't been great either, but we're doing alright, wouldn't you say? I see you in the papers at least once a week. Seems like you're going to overhaul that Ministry singlehandedly if you must."
She sighs. "It does seem like I must. And what have you been up to all these years? Enjoying life as a wealthy layabout?"
"More or less. Even after all the reparations, we really have far too much gold in our vaults. I've been investing in passion projects, as Mother calls them."
"Oh? And what are these passion projects of yours?"
He hesitates for a beat. "I suppose these are things you'd know about me if we're grotesquely in love with each other."
"The imagery just keeps getting better."
"I'm devoted to this farce. And to you, my darling." He spins her.
She scrunches her face when she spins back to him, chest to chest. "I think we've found the upper limit on how much is too much on the sugar-sweetness front."
"We're saccharine, I've told you. We'll give the whole world a toothache with how disgustingly happy we are."
"Manifesting much?"
"Perhaps a bit. But to answer your question—I understand how you've managed to forget asking already, distracted by my romantic wiles and all that—but I donate mostly to a few different charities and non profits. The spell damage ward at St. Mungo's, some war rebuilding projects in the beginning. There's a charity focused on remedial education for Muggleborns after they're accepted to Hogwarts, a summer program that teaches them about the Wizarding world before they're so unceremoniously thrust into it."
Hermione's heartbeat hammers inside her chest, a thud beneath her skin, a drop of anticipation so like anxiety she's not sure which sensation it more closely resembles.
Their dance slows, music quieting. All signs point to the night winding down.
"I'm familiar with it." She can't help but look right up at him when she says it, voice quiet, brows insisting they draw together in a pinch of confusion, or perhaps, surprise. "I've volunteered with them before."
The pressure from Draco's hand at her waist shifts, steering their ever-slowing dance away from the center of the dance floor. "Surprising we haven't crossed paths until now, then. It—it seemed like something of an appropriate penance for the Malfoy name, investing in Muggleborn education. Not that anything will ever be enough."
Hermione finds her head tilting, wonder working its way to the surface of her skin. Light and bright like champagne and snowflakes and the reckless absurdity of letting a room full of acquaintances believe they're in love.
She decides it's nice to live in the present for a bit, leaning into Draco's side as they engage in their performance for the snow drifts and thestrals, awaiting a carriage back to the apparition point in Hogsmeade Village. It's nice to leave the past in the past. To carry on.
"Thank you for this," he says suddenly, quietly, as they disembark their carriage. "Mother's convinced she's unwell."
"Convinced?"
"Since Father died. She's always been a bit fragile but—I think it's why she was so happy to see me with someone. She worries she'll leave me alone. Though to be clear, her healers insist she's perfectly healthy for her age. She just…worries terribly."
Hermione's heart pangs, a solid thump of sympathy behind her ribs. It aches against her breastbone. She doesn't think, just reaches out and lets her hand slide against the cheek of a frowning man. "Should we go make her happy, then?"
"Will you mind if I get terribly carried away? She'll expect me to be fairly doting."
"Do you mean to suggest you haven't gotten carried away thus far?"
"Ah, perhaps a touch."
"And that's what she'll expect of you?"
Draco offers his arm for a side-along. He leans closer as he does so, stooped over her in an elegant, possessive, overwhelming sort of way.
"Malfoy men," he whispers. "For all our faults, we love very intensely."
Hermione's breath stalls in her throat, overcome by the intensity staring down at her. "And have you done much of that in your belligerent bachelor lifestyle?"
"Not nearly as much as I have the capacity to, no."
In a crack, they're gone.
—
Bathed in a silver wash of moonlight and sparkling under a blanket of fresh, powdery snow, Narcissa Malfoy's cottage by the coast steals Hermione's breath even in darkness.
Draco hadn't undersold it. Nor did he undersell his performance. Fairly doting had been an understatement.
He ushers them inside his mother's home with a hand pressed to Hermione's lower back and such a warm, affectionate smile lighting up his features that Hermione must remind herself this is a production, a stage play.
She finds it disturbingly easy to lose herself in Draco Malfoy's wide smile and fondness-laden glances.
To regain her footing, their fireside chat with Narcissa becomes something of a competition, an opportunity for Hermione to elicit the same reactions from him that she feels herself.
Narcissa asks how they met again after all this time, and Hermione lets her hand rest on Draco's upper thigh, just this side of casual. She traces runes against his trousers.
Draco spins a lovely tale about apologies and forgiveness, first dates and first kisses, as he wraps an arm around her shoulders, fingertips grazing her bare upper arm. She leans into it, sinking against him.
Hermione compliments Narcissa's home and the quality of the elven dessert wine they drink. While Narcissa beams, Hermione turns to Draco and whispers a similar compliment in his ear about what a lovely evening she's having. It's nothing but the truth.
And when it's time to retire for the night, Hermione clings to Draco's side, finding him sturdy and sure as he leads them to their room.
Their room.
The one Narcissa expects them to share because of course she would, seeing as how they've just spent the last several hours acting like lovers. Hermione supposes she and Draco are both nearing thirty, and they've put on a magnificent display of being comfortable with physical touch. Anyone would expect them to share a room.
Except Hermione. It hadn't even crossed her mind, too caught up in all the touching and the smiling and the conspiratorial edge of sharing a secret with someone.
Draco closes the door behind them but doesn't immediately step out of her touch. They're still lingering. It's become comfortable.
"I'll sleep on the chaise, obviously."
Hermione shakes her head. "Of course not; this is your room. That velvet monstrosity looks plenty spacious for me."
"Monstrosity? What if I were to tell you that's my favorite piece of furniture? Highly sentimental. Beloved, even."
She wanders further into the room with him, playfulness etching what feels like a near-permanent grin into her face. "I would find myself moderately concerned to know you've formed an emotional connection with a couch."
"It's a chaise." Merlin, he has a nice smile.
"Semantics."
"You know," Hermione begins, finding herself still standing almost flush with him, "this has been some of the most fun I've had in a very long time. Even if it was all for show."
His expression shutters, worry weaving its way onto his face. "Hermione, I should take this opportunity to apologize—"
"It's alright," she says, the flat of her palm coming to rest against the center of his chest. "I understand feeling like you must formally apologize, but I've just spent a surprisingly lovely evening in your company, wherein you've been nothing but a pleasant, well-adjusted adult. I have no interest in holding your childhood beliefs and actions against you. You've clearly evolved."
"That's very generous of you, even more so on the tail end of engaging in this little charade for the sake of my mother's delicate sensibilities."
She's not sure what compels her to do it, but her hand on his chest slides up, over his shoulder, holding onto his outer formal robes. "You must be warm in this," she says. She lifts her other hand, holds it for a beat, before sliding the robes over his shoulders.
"You had wine at the gala."
"I did."
"How much?" Draco asks.
"I was almost entirely sober by the time we arrived here."
"And the dessert wine my mother served?"
Hermione swallows. Draco's face feels very close to her own. "I only sipped. I don't actually care for dessert wines very much, but I didn't want to be rude."
"I'm finding myself very sober as well."
"In control of all your faculties?"
"Most of them, it would seem." His breath coasts across her cheek.
"I do think I require all of them, unfortunately."
"Oh you do? Whatever for?" He straightens just a bit, pushing silver cufflinks through cotton keyholes.
It has a similar effect to stripping entirely naked. For a moment, oxygen entirely escapes her.
Hermione barely avoids clearing her throat. "We've had a very nice night and we have this room with the one bed and yes of course we could transfigure that chaise bigger and each be perfectly comfortable"—her gaze drifts to the bed beside them—"or we could share the bed and…enjoy our night a little more."
"Ah, so that's why you need my faculties."
"I don't make a habit of taking advantage of poor, wine drunk performers pretending to be head over heels for me."
"No of course not, nor do I." He's leaning closer to her again. "If I were to kiss you," he starts, "would it still be part of the performance?"
"I see no audience here."
"A bit early to discuss kinks but I'll mention now that exhibitionsim isn't much my thing. I'm a bit selfish, don't like sharing."
She almost laughs. "I'm an only child too."
She catches a wisp of his grin before he leans in and closes the remaining, infinitesimal gap between them, lips pressed to hers. It's startling, how familiar it feels, how a strange kind of exposure therapy has already acclimatized her to his touch. And while his hand at her waist and his other cradling her jaw feel familiar, that familiarity does nothing to dull the desire erupting on the surface of her skin.
Hermione wraps her arms around his shoulders, dragging her hands through Draco's perfectly styled hair; she very much enjoys the idea of messing him, just a bit, finding the unpolished parts of what has been an extremely polished performance for their evening.
Performances are nice, but she's enjoying reality much more.
Especially because reality now includes him pulling her body flush with his, the slide of his tongue against her own, and a rush of warmth overcoming her senses.
His fingertips pulse against her skin, pressure along her jaw like he's trying to restrain himself, perhaps hold back from what's rapidly unwinding in this lovely room they're meant to share.
Hermione pulls back, meets his eyes with what she hopes looks like mischief, something covetable, and turns. She levels him a look over her shoulder.
"Could you help me with the zipper?" It's a transparent ask, easily solved by a spell. But spells don't make her tremble the way she suspects his hands will.
"Of course."
Except he doesn't, not at first. The zip doesn't start until halfway down her back; that had been her mental compromise with this dress. A high neck and a low back, she'd felt both decently daring and appropriately dressed in a setting that would include several of her coworkers in addition to her friends and classmates.
He brushes a few errant curls over her shoulder before his fingertips touch the nape of her neck. Slowly, his fingers descend, traveling down her spine with a touch so light she nearly takes a step back just to increase the pressure.
Instead, she shivers, breath held in the bottom of her lungs, waiting.
He finds the zip, drags it down, and then his hands ascend again, rougher. Greedy palms drag flat against her ribs and spine and shoulder blades before he pauses, fingers looped beneath the straps on her dress.
"This is okay?"
"Very much so."
Her dress pools at her feet; Draco's mouth finds her neck, dropping kisses at the side of her throat, hands mapping her skin. Hermione lets her head fall back, resting against his shoulder. She liquifies in all the places his hands wander.
No longer a performance, and certainly with no audience, there's still something perfectly choreographed about the series of steps that follow. Stage play or dance, Hermione doesn't know, doesn't care.
Sinking into the bed.
Sliding between the sheets.
Peeling off their remaining clothes.
Whispering quiet conversations against lips and skin. Between gasps.
"What do you like?"
"A bit slower."
"What about my mouth?"
"I insist."
"Can you come like this?"
"Gods, yes."
It's foreign and fantastic, letting go. By the time he presses into her, Hermione's cheeks are hot and flushed from panting, from the way he's wound her up and melted her down.
She sometimes feels like sex reduces her, by halves and halves again, zeroing in on singular sensations and solitary trains of thought: the specific jolt of pleasure that will help her finish, the particular fantasy that pins her in the moment.
In Draco's bed, he opens her up, expanding her with an onslaught. It's not just about the friction every time his hips meet hers, but about the way his fingers bite into her skin, the way he breathes hot in her ear, whispering the ways he wants to see her come undone.
It has her reeling, chest heaving, coiled so quickly and completely her orgasm catches her off guard, ripping a surprised whimper from her throat.
Draco stills, face level with hers as Hermione's features contort: eyes screwed shut, mouth dropped open. He groans as she begins to relax, eyes fluttering open.
"Fuck me," he breathes with a grin. "Do that again. Please do that again." He resumes thrusting. "I'm going to make you do that again. And again and again and again."
Hermione barely has the time to catch her breath, anchoring her hands on his shoulders, steadying herself with nails digging into his skin before he's winding her up again.
"Draco," she says. A plea for relief or release, she's not sure.
"I know," is all he says as one of his hands dips beneath her bum, lower, to the back of her thigh, lifting her leg higher. "Come on, Hermione. One more before me? I need to see that again. Gods, you're gorgeous."
"If you keep"—she swallows—"like that"—she digs her nails deeper into his shoulders and he hisses—"I will. Just like that, oh my—"
He doesn't stop this time. Instead, he drops his face to her neck: kissing and sucking and biting and laving until all the tension holding her taut has thawed in the afterglow of another orgasm.
She turns her head, finds his face, and pulls him in for a languid kiss, feeling like something of a puddle in his bed. She drags lazy fingers through his hair, rubs soothing circles on the crescent-shaped indents she's left in his skin.
"Now you," she says. "I want to see you too."
The fact that he grunts rather than quips tells her he's close, and when he does finish, hands anchored at her hips again, she kisses him through it, feeling warm and tired and deliciously sated after a long night playacting at intimacy.
This is so much better.
—
Hermione wakes on Christmas morning to kisses against her collarbone from the last man on earth she would have predicted spending her holiday with a mere twenty-four hours before.
She can't bring herself to regret it. Especially not as she pulls an endearingly sleep-grouchy Draco Malfoy from his bed, lathers him up in his stupidly luxurious shower, and kisses him against cold, slick tiles until they're both struggling for breath.
She ends up back in his bed, water droplets dampening his sheets. She hardly minds, not as she rocks on top of him and he watches her intently for the exact moment his fingers on her clit have her falling apart. He flips them, pinning her to the bed and finishing with a groan against her hair and the promise of another shower.
"I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever join me," Narcissa says when they finally make their way downstairs. She smiles, eyes sparkling with obvious glee.
"I apologize that you had to send Tippy to fetch us." Draco's overly formal tone betrays what looks suspiciously like embarrassment.
Hermione resists her own blush as she settles at a lovely breakfast table dressed with a small feast. "Thank you again for the invitation to join you this morning, Mrs. Malfoy. This looks delicious."
Narcissa beams. "You won't have seen yet, I'm sure."
She summons a copy of the Daily Prophet. On the front page, Hermione and Draco dance in black and white ink. She can't tell which dance it is; they indulged in so many. They look disgustingly happy. Saccharine, even. The accompanying headline is as frustrating as expected: Draco Malfoy Steals the Show (and Miserable Maid Hermione Granger's heart) at Hogwarts Yule Ball.
"How lucky, darling," Draco says. "Rita Skeeter has given you a new alliteration." He gives Hermione a dramatic wink and it looks like Narcisa might combust with delight.
"And you have plans for your afternoon, yes?"
"I'm to be inducted into a den of lions. Do wish me luck, Mother."
Hermione can't help a smile, lightly swatting his arm. "You'll be fine. You're very charming, after all."
"I have been told as much."
"Besides, there will be lots of loud noises and presents and children and an abundance of food. Plenty going on to keep everyone distracted from the fact that there's a snake in their midst."
Draco matches her grin with his own, beaming much like his mother.
"And after that?" Narcissa asks.
Draco's hand finds hers beneath the table, stroking along her wrist. "So long as Hermione is amenable, I assume we'll carry on."