A/N: I guess I'm back lol. Enjoy!


Pressing her body flush against the rickety, wooden door, Draco dragged his lips down Granger's neck as the muffled th-thump of dance music echoed beyond the walls of the broom cupboard. A wiser and more sober person might have thought to take the party back to his flat, but the thrill of fucking her senseless in a dark, unlocked storage room where anyone could have walked in, only made him want her more.

"Have you got a condom?" she asked, her plunging neckline hanging on for dear life.

With a quick nod, he shrugged his designer coat to the dirt-ridden floor and squeezed handfuls of her floor-length midnight blue number as she went in for an even deeper kiss. Her lips tasted of firewhiskey and dark chocolate. Decadence. Were it not for the way in which she had pressed her fingernails into his shoulders as he lifted her up and against the door, he would have assumed it was all just a drunken hallucination.

One Hour Ago

Approaching the outdoor wedding reception, Hermione ignored the influx of stares and whispers. Had she known she was going to be the main attraction of her ex's wedding, she might have had the foresight to have secured a date for the occasion.

Not only were half of wizarding London in attendance, The Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly had also sent representatives in the forms of Pansy Parkinson and Susan Bones, respectively.

She had only agreed to attend after Luna had convinced her it was the right thing to do. Wheeling a look around, past the floating lanterns and endless wedding guests, she was unsurprised to find her Ravenclaw friend twirling around on the dance floor on her own. In the back of her mind, she had always wished she had acquired the talent of not giving a fuck like Luna.

Maybe then she wouldn't have had to have made a bee-line for the open bar.

Settling into one of the stools, she hoped a drink would help. "One firewhiskey neat, please."

The bartender, a dark-haired and tattooed young wizard in a uniform of black and white, gave her a swift and unexpected double take. "Not a problem."

Were it not for the fact that she had gone eight months without as little as a kiss on the cheek, she might not have noticed his very distinct and uncanny resemblance to the vocalist of that band she had used to listen to when she was in Hogwarts. The Stone Roses, was it? She wondered whether he was old enough to have even heard of them.

"One firewhiskey neat," he uttered, breaking her train of thought as he slid her drink over, a tiny square napkin tucked under it. "Let me know if you need anything else. I'll be here all night."

She smiled to him in thanks, indulging in no more than a sip of her drink before she had gathered the nerve to ask, "Any recommendations on round two?"

Pouring a row of tequila shots for the group of young women who had crowded the open bar, and ogled him the past minute, he gave it some thought. "I'd have to ask you a few questions first."

"Such as?"

"Have you ever been married?"

Lifting an eyebrow at that, she wondered if he was trying to play dumb, and hated herself for it a little bit. "No, can't say I have."

"Have you got a good relationship with your family?"

"Er … yes."

"And how do you feel about cold weather?" he probed further, shaking a cocktail for someone.

She stopped in thought. "I like it but only if I'm on a date … or cuddled up to a fireplace."

"With a good book?"

"Always."

His lips smoothed into a smile, as though a single drink had come to mind. "One moment."

In a matter of seconds she was faced with a martini of some sort. Only instead of an olive, it was topped with a pickled onion. She looked to the bartender in soft bewilderment, having expected a blended, fruity concoction or a glass of red wine. "A martini?"

"Close," he let her know. "It's called a Gibson."

She nodded along, having never heard of such a drink. "I was half expecting a Cosmopolitan."

"I can make you one of those as well if you'd like …"

"Maybe after I've had these," she chuckled, having a sip of her firewhiskey and then her Gibson, only to find that she much preferred the latter. "Very smooth."

"Right?"

"The onion offsets the vermouth in the most unexpected way …" Only then did it hit her. "Much like a date or a good book on a cold night."

He winked, taking a few more drink orders before he came back. "I know my drinks … almost as well as I know my films."

"Films? Does that mean —?"

"I'm Muggle-born," he cut in. "One thing we have in common."

For whatever reason she was comforted by that fact that he had finally acknowledged he knew of her in some capacity. It was always worse when they pretended they didn't know. "Favourite all-time film?"

"Loaded question!"

"I seem to recall you had asked me a couple of those a moment ago," she reminded him, lightly.

He laughed. "Fair enough. I'll give you my top three. Pulp Fiction, Taxi Driver and Chinatown."

Sipping on her Gibson, she couldn't help but smirk. "You went to film school, didn't you?"

"Four years at Tisch. What gave it away?"

"Apart from the absolute lack of Hugh Grant films in your favourites?"

Wiping the counter down, he chuckled. "I may or may not own a copy of Notting Hill."

"A man of taste!"

"Also I've got the perfect drink in mind for your third."

She raised her Gibson to that, pointing a look over her shoulder as a blend of laughter and cheers had erupted on the dance floor. It appeared Daphne and Ron had taken to the middle of the dance circle, laughing their way through Tainted Love by Soft Cell.

A small smile tugged at her lips as she watched from a distance. Only as she turned back around, did a familiar voice fill her ears.

"Not going to ask if you can cut in?" Malfoy inquired, swirling a gin and tonic a couple of spaces to the right.

Hermione suppressed the urge to run away, mostly because she was still waiting for round three. "I would ask what you mean but I just … don't care."

"Good to know you haven't outgrown the hostility."

"What can I say? Certain people just bring it out in me."

"A talent which I hold dear to my heart."

"More than your ability to maintain the same hairstyle the past twenty years?"

"When it's right, it's right."

There was a twitch of laughter between her lips as she went in for a sip. "Never change, Malfoy."

"I don't plan on it," he reassured her, ending with a hint of a smirk. "And for what it's worth I've missed our contentious back-and-forth's."

"If there's one thing I can count on, it's the latent animosity that we feel toward one another."

He raised his glass. "I'll drink to that."

Following suit, she cleaned off her Gibson and glanced around for the bartender only to find him chatting up the young women who had been ogling him earlier. Had he not prepared a third drink for her, having left it to rest on a small napkin with his phone number scribbled across, she might have questioned her memory of their exchange.

"Do I detect a hint of jealousy?" Malfoy asked, breaking her train of thought.

Hermione downed a mouthful of her third drink, which appeared to be a Death in the Afternoon. "You'd love that for your monogrammed diary."

"Was it the neck tattoo that did it for you or the skin-tight trousers?"

"You've come to an animal rights activist's wedding in dragonskin boots. Do you really want to dissect style choices?"

He smirked. "Daphne's as much of an animal rights activist as Weasley is an Auror."

"Just because they've left the Ministry to build their respective businesses doesn't mean they've given up on the causes they had worked hard to —"

"You're shit banter when you're overcompensating, you know that?"

"Overcompensating for what exactly?"

He gave her a look as though it should have been obvious. "You're at your ex's wedding."

"So? I love him with Daphne."

"Is that why you've gone for a plunging neckline and a thigh high slit?"

Her cheeks prickled as she went in for a mouthful of her drink. "I'm allowed to look hot if I want to."

"Not a soul in London believes the occasion is a coincidence," he furthered, laughing. "Honestly, I think it's great you've taken the initiative to turn some heads. Might as well look good if you're going to be the main topic of conversation at your ex's wedding."

Although she knew he was right in part, she refused to give him the pleasure of knowing it. "You should consider a career at Witch Weekly. With an imagination like that, they'd give you a corner office on your first day."

"Sounds to me like I've touched a nerve."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Only a bit. Self-pity works on you."

She rolled her eyes. "You're a bad flirt."

"You'd know if I were flirting."

"Let me guess," she began. "You'd start by taking me back to your penthouse flat in the heart of London and then you'd lube me up with the finest wine that money can buy only to end the night with a private tour of your fully equipped and scarcely used sex dungeon."

He laughed, as though he couldn't help it. "Glad to see you've polluted your mind with all of that Fifty Shades nonsense."

"Like you've got a move that doesn't involve Malfoy blood money," she snorted.

"That sounds like a challenge."

She looked to him, all three of her drinks flowing through her body. "One you would lose."

Locking eyes with her from inches away, Malfoy held the silence. Some small part of her had expected a starved, overly aggressive kiss of some sort. Something to establish his dominance, at least in his head. Only he didn't do that.

Instead he got up and held out his arm, nodding to the dance floor. "Shall we?"


A/N: Thoughts?