Author's Note: The scenes in chapter 1 are not in chronological order and alternate in POV. They occur after the events of The Night Shift, over the course of a few months. Again, a reminder that this story is nonlinear.
It was a minor scrape. Something he could have performed healing charms on himself in the field. But when Lovegood announced that they needed to bring Chang to a healer, he apparated them all to Inverness. It was near midnight, and once Chang was settled and her wounds tended, he waited behind a curtain for the night healer.
"What is it this time?" She asked, casting a diagnostic when she realized it was him. Eyes scanning the readings and hands moving over him where he sat at the end of the cot.
"A scratch," he replied, pulling the sleeve of his jumper up to show her. "See?"
"Deeper than a scratch," she murmured. Efficiently she cleaned the wound and sealed it. Adding a few drops of something he hadn't seen before. It smelled a little like honey.
"What's that?"
Granger blushed. The pink starting at her neck and painting up to her cheeks. "Just something I've been working on. For scars."
"I've plenty of those; what's one more?"
She clenched her jaw and turned.
Draco encircled her wrist before she could leave, tugging her closer, between his legs.
"Malfoy, I have patients—"
"But I'm gravely injured and in need of healing," he said, reaching out to cradle her jaw. For a moment she nuzzled against his hand, letting herself float towards him.
"I really shouldn't," she said, eyes closing as she did. He really shouldn't either, he thought, pressing their lips together. Tasting coffee on her breath and the coppery tang of blood, from when he bit his cheek during the tussle with the giant.
They broke apart to catch their breath. Foreheads resting together. His thumb stroking the soft skin of her jaw. Something buzzed between them before he could continue.
"I have to go," she said, pulling her wand from her pocket and stilling the alert charm.
"Wait," he said, stalling her. The flush of her cheeks, the swell of her lips. He memorized it. "Thanks for the patch job, Granger."
Her fingers slid over his as she walked away. Like she wasn't ready to let go.
Hermione had just finished checking on her patients when Draco crested the stairs. Forgetting procedure when she saw his face.
"Are you hurt?" She asked, reaching for him. Before he answered he pressed her against the wall and kissed her deeply. His hands in her hair, cut to her chin to save herself the time and the trouble. There was desperation this time and she returned it. They'd been apart for weeks. She'd tried not to ask Percy about him directly but she did keep her ear to gossip more than usual. Straining for any mention of him.
Absence made her wanton. She had planned to be coy with him. To be playful like he often was, at the beginning of whatever this thing between them had become. But the war dragged on and she felt herself pulled under. Drowning in the need to touch him. To kiss him. To be as under his skin as he was her own. Her hands roamed over his torso, from the slim waist up to the broad shoulders. Every inch of lean muscle warm beneath her eager fingers. His own reached down to lift her and she wrapped her legs around him. Pulling his face closer when her back hit the wood panelling of the hallway.
Nipping kisses along her jaw and beneath her ear made her squirm, rubbing against him in a way that made them both gasp. He rocked against her, grey eyes burning into hers in a question she wanted to answer. "Granger—"
A wailing moan sounded from the hospital ward. Draco set her down without her needing to ask. She fixed her blouse and went to check on Dawlish, upping his dosage of pain potion. Skelegro was a nasty business, and he needed to regrow his entire left femur. Once she'd finished and performed a cursory check on the others, she crept out the door to an empty hall.
He wasn't in the pub downstairs, and her heart raced as she climbed up to her flat. Picturing him at her table or on her settee. In her bed.
But he wasn't there.
He'd seen her twice since their kiss. Both times to deliver an injured Order member to her. The first time he'd waited, hoping for a word. But she'd avoided him. The second, she'd been cooly professional in a way that skittered across his skin before retreating to her patients. This time he was going to get her to talk to him, whether he liked what she said or not. He waited on a cot. He leaned back on his elbows. He leaned forward with his hands clasped. He stood. He sat. He wondered if he kissed her again, would she hate him?
When the curtain parted he swallowed. Placing a hand on the cot to stay standing.
"Sorry," she said, "Were you waiting long?"
"No, not long," he lied and cleared his throat.
She cast her diagnostics and frowned. There was nothing wrong with him. Nothing that would show on her little scans, at least. "You appear to be fine. What are— What is it you want?"
"You've been avoiding me."
She gripped her forearm and ran her hand over her sleeve and back.
"Why are you avoiding me, Granger?"
When the air became thick and she still wouldn't meet his eye he nodded to himself. Sniffing in a breath so that he didn't say anything embarrassing or worse — cruel. Since she seemed frozen in anger or discomfort he started to step around her, towards the exit. He'd have to go to other safe houses now, if he ever needed—
She fisted his jumper and pulled until he steadied himself on her arms, just in time for her mouth to crash against his. Clacking their teeth. She kissed him dizzy and he forgot what he did with his hands when they weren't on her slender curves.
When Hermione opened the curtain and ushered Malfoy into the medical bay, she glanced over her shoulder twice to make sure everyone was otherwise occupied. And when the white fabric fell behind her, rippling with the privacy she craved, she smiled.
They kissed until she could scarcely breathe. Until gasping turned to whimpers and she had to stop.
She'd always worn her hair in a long braid down her back. He liked to hold onto it when he kissed her behind curtains. Tugging it to make her smile. But when she found him in the small supply closet, leaning against her meticulously labelled vials, he was surprised to see it cut. Framing her face in a cloud of curls. It wasn't like that when he saw her a few days before.
"What are you doing in here?" She asked, nimble hands reaching for essence of dittany. "If you've developed a potion dependency—"
"I haven't developed a potion dependency, Granger," he said. He reached above her to pull the vials forward so she could reach them better. Why she didn't use a summoning charm was beyond him.
"You don't look injured," she said, and her diagnostic proved it.
"Brought Weasley in. The poncey one. Not your—" he grimaced, ashamed at the slip of his tongue.
"Yes, Percy will be fine. It's just a concussion," she said. The bottle of dittany twirling in her hands. "What do you mean not mine?"
He looked away, pulling the threads at the hem of his jumper. It was too big. A hideous brown. Borrowed from someone. The glamour on his hair and nose had worn off. Being undercover was like slipping into a costume that didn't quite fit. Especially if he saw his father. He would cringe beneath his stare, certain that Lucius could see through the flimsy disguise. That he'd known his only son was lying to him about his comings and goings. About his loyalty to the cause.
"Malfoy, I'm not—no one's my anything. How could they be?"
He nodded and stared at his shoes, not sure that what she said was true. The scuffed leather was full of things to look at. Until soft but calloused fingers framed his jaw and tender lips found his own. Her hips under his palms. Fingers digging into the flesh of her backside.
They kissed for too brief a moment before she stepped out of the closet and away from his shaking hands.
Hermione waited behind the bar until the door opened. Ready to ask the required questions to ensure that whoever entered the safe house was who they said they were. It was new procedure that they should have started months before Rowle had polyjuiced himself as Charlie Weasley and compromised their Manchester safe house. They no longer had a safe house in northern England as a result.
When the door opened and a tall, pale figure walked through her heart stopped.
"Whom did you bring with you the last time you were here?" She asked.
"Lovegood and I brought Chang in. Pretty gruesome burns," he replied. His hair was longer, pushed back from his eyes. Half the time she saw him he was coming out of a glamour, dressed in someone else's clothes. This time he wore his own trousers. The dark grey fabric mended poorly just above his knee. The fine make of his jumper, black as night and softest cashmere, told her it was his. There was color in his cheeks, for a change. Like he'd been eating well the last few weeks.
"What did I say when you tried to leave me all alone on a medical bed?" His lip quirked at the corner. Not quite a smile and not the cruel smirk of youth. Something just for her.
"Something dramatic about being gravely injured."
Malfoy stepped closer, slinking through the tables like a cat on the prowl. "Hmm yes, that sounds right. Satisfied that it's me?" He asked.
Hermione swallowed, nodding so that she didn't say something she'd regret later.
The bar caught his eye, and he narrowed his gaze over the bottles of whiskey and rum and gin. "Have a drink?"
She shook her head then cleared her throat. "I don't like to — when I'm working."
"Can't make an exception for me?"
If only he knew the exceptions she made for him. "Not even for you."
The whiskey soared into his waiting hand. "Do you mind? Been a long day."
Another shake of her head. He took a swig, lips pursed.
"Well, it certainly isn't Ogden's."
"No," she circled the bar, standing beside him to lean against the dark wood. "It's Muggle."
He took another pull on the bottle. "I didn't say I didn't like it."
"I didn't say you didn't. Just providing additional information."
Malfoy raised a brow at her. Everything he did had an air of elegance. Even when she fixed his cuts and rubbed bruise paste under his eyes. "Granger," he said, angling his body towards her. She looked up at him.
"What? Are you gravely injured?"
He smiled, and if the rest of him was poised, this was the one moment where he wasn't neatly aligned. The left corner of his mouth raised higher than the right. His smile was crooked. And it was beautiful. "I heard something the other day," he whispered, breath teasing the curls that had escaped her braid. "A Muggle phrase."
"We've a lot of those," she said, her own breath catching when he tucked a curl behind her ear.
"Something about kisses to make it better."
They watched each other, taking infinitesimally small steps closer. Her shoulder brushing his. The pads of his fingers ghosting over her knuckles, where her hand rested on the bartop.
"Do you have other patients?" He asked, leaning down until their noses touched.
"No," she breathed, looking into the storm that was his eyes on her face.
"Will you show me, then?" He traced a line from the back of her hand up her forearm, over her elbow, which tickled, to her shoulder. Before resting his hand at her throat. Her heartbeat hammering away under his fingers. Strong arms holding her lower back, pressing their bodies closer.
"Show you?"
"How to kiss and make better," his words skated over her lips and she took the plush of his lower lip between her teeth. Running her tongue across it until he slipped his into her mouth.