Why would you ignore me? Draco thought furiously, as the Mudblood turned her back on him. Bint obviously didn't know who he was — who his father was. And now because of a bloody troll of all things, she was suddenly best friends with Scar Head? Madness. She'd learn. Soon enough she would learn her place.


Why would you talk to me? Draco thought, behind a heavy wall of occlusion as he politely, but rotely declined the Head Girl's offer to join her in the Great Hall, at the newly mixed tables set up in the wake of the war. Theo was sitting beside her, gamely chatting her up. Even Pansy had tentatively joined, uncharacteristically keeping herself on the fringe of the conversation. But at least she was there. Of course, thing might be different if Potter had also returned to school — after what Pansy had done. Because Draco could not sit at that table. Not after what he had done — or failed to do — when Granger was at the Manor. His heart started pounding, the memory of her screams always fresh in his mind because he relived them every time he closed his eyes. He left to go to the library.

It wasn't as though he had much of an appetite.


Please talk to me. Working with her in the Department of Mysteries had started off awkward, but had moved into his greatest torment. Granger had ceased making friendly overtures to him before they left Hogwarts. She wasn't prickly about it either — she just stopped trying. She probably thought she was respecting his wishes. She probably thought he held on to the beliefs he had been taught. She probably thought he hated her.

She was wrong, if she thought those things.

Please talk to me, he endlessly screamed within the confines of his own mind.


She could do this.

She could.

It was simply a nice thing to do for her co-workers. By their very nature, the Unspeakables were an insular bunch within the Ministry. They could really only discuss their work with each other, after all. It was good for her to connect with the others. To build morale within their department at large.

Never mind she had a more specific target in mind.

She cleared her throat. "Excuse me, Malfoy?"

He looked up — startled by her interruption — his eyes wide. She could see the moment he started to occlude, a now familiar blankness settling over his features. It used to be all that she would see from him, but after working together for six months she noticed that he let his guard down occasionally. But only with the others. Never with her.

It was a point of differentiation that made her curious.

"I made chocolate chip cookies — too many in fact — and I'm sharing them with the entire department. Would you like one?"

"I — um, yes Granger. I would, thank you."

He gingerly reached out and took a biscuit off of the plate. He blinked and his face became marginally less blank. "I didn't think you were much for sweets."

She gave him a deliberately small smile — not wishing to scare him off at the first sign of progress. Malfoy knew something about her.

Perhaps it wasn't indifference after all.

"Yes well. I've reached a point in my life where I'm experimenting with sugar. I don't have much experience with baking though, so I ended up with enough cookies for the entire department."

He took a bite, swallowed it and wiping the crumbs from his mouth before speaking. "These are really good," he said, sounding vaguely surprised.

"I know." Though the first two batches were decidedly not. "Take another."

He did. "Thank you Granger. And if you want me to test any more of your baking experiments, you have only to ask."

"I will hold you to that, Malfoy," she said, meaning it.

He blinked. His eyes cleared. "I hope you do."


"Well Granger, what do you have for me today?"

Draco Malfoy loved Mondays. They were by far his favourite day of the week. Not only did he get to leave the confines of the Manor after spending two days in the company of his parents, but Monday was the day he got to see Granger again. And it was also the day she brought in the results of her most recent baking experimentation.

"Muffins," she said, without enthusiasm. "Blueberry or carrot. Or both. You could always take one of each."

Draco looked at her curiously. "What's wrong? Not pleased with how they turned out?"

"No. They're fine muffins," she picked up a blueberry one and split it in half, offering the other piece to him. His breath hitched lightly as he took it from her hand, willing himself to maintain a professional demeanour as she pulled his guest chair up next to his and took a seat beside him, taking a bite of it before speaking to him. "I think I'm angry at the concept of muffins in general."

Draco paused with his half of their muffin on the way to his mouth. "You are angry. With the concept of muffins," he said slowly. Maybe he misheard?

"Yes. I've been thinking about this all weekend. I feel the same way about frozen yogurt, actually. Like frozen yogurt should just be ice cream. Not a 'healthier' version of ice cream that doesn't taste as good. Muffins should either be cupcakes or bread. As they are, they feel like a compromise that satisfies no one."

He managed to swallow a bite as she spoke, closing his eyes briefly at the taste of yet another superb baked good that had been made by Granger's own hands. He knew from their past conversations that she only baked without magic, explaining to him that she had found the experience soothing. "Well, I like it, but I'm the last man who would ever say 'no' to a cupcake. I don't suppose you have any of those with you?" He raised an eyebrow at her.

She snorted. "Maybe next week. If you're good."

Draco resisted the urge to shiver. "Ah. About that. I don't feel right being the recipient of so many hand-crafted sweets without doing anything in return. How about I return the favour?" He hoped he was keeping his expression casual and friendly, because his stomach felt like it was doing backflips as he waited for her response.

Hermione swallowed the last of her muffin half, licking her fingers as she finished. Draco shifted in his seat as he watched. "Well, you do provide me with valuable feedback, so I wouldn't say you are doing nothing. But what do you have in mind?"

He mentally steeled himself for what came next, ignoring his racing heartbeat. "I'd like to make you dinner. Friday night after work, if you are free."

"Oh. Where?" she asked, a hint of trepidation in her voice.

"My flat," he blurted out, recognizing that tremor in her voice for what it was. Shit. Why hadn't he thought that far ahead? Of course she wouldn't want to come to the Manor.

Fuck.

"Okay," she said with a shy smile as she tucked a curl behind her ear. "Can I bring anything?"

"Just yourself. I will give you my address on Friday and you can come by around seven o'clock? Give me a couple of hours to prepare after the day is done here?" Draco's mind was now racing as well. He would have to spend his lunch break finding a realtor who could help in purchase a flat in Muggle London. This was fine. He had four whole days to figure everything out.

"Sounds good. I will see you then. Do you want me to leave you a carrot muffin as well?"

"Yes. And another one of the blueberry ones, please. Someone stole half of mine."

"Or I gave you half of mine, prat. Must you always be so pessimistic?"

"Sorry. Habit."

Between finding a realtor, settling on a flat in Muggle London and trying to figure out how to cook full stop, let alone cook like a Muggle — in additional to his actual job — the rest of the week practically flew by. Granger had blushed when he gave her his address and told her to floo directly in at seven o'clock in the evening. He was extremely grateful that the Department of Magical Transport had fulfilled his last-minute, extremely urgent request to connect his new flat to the floo network — even though he'd had to give the wizard prime tickets to the next Hollyhead Harpies match to see it done.

He rushed to the flat after work and began frantically reading Muggle recipe books as he tried to make a meal of roast beef, grilled vegetables, and risotto. Unfortunately, he wasn't having much luck. Draco had burnt the vegetables and the beef was still looking disturbingly raw — not passably rare, but raw. He didn't think he was using the oven correctly. Fuck. He cursed himself for not having made a practice meal, but he had simply run out of time.

He just noticed that the pot on the stovetop had started to smoke, when he heard the floo roar to life with green flames and a smiling Hermione Granger entered his flat for the first time.

"Hi," she said breathlessly, with a large smile on her face just as a loud alarm started blaring from Merlin knew what or where.

Fucking perfect.

"Oh!" Hermione's smile dropped as she rushed over to the stove and turned off the burner. She flipped a switch above the stovetop and Draco heard a wind noise and the smoke started to go into whatever the blasted thing was called. She looked around a bit frantically before walking over to the closest window and opening it up. Next she dragged a chair into the centre of the room, climbed on top of it and pressed a small red button that had been blinking on the ceiling. The noise stopped.

"What happened?" she asked, as though Draco had the faintest idea of what was going on.

"No idea. What did you just do?"

She looked at him curiously. "I turned off the stovetop, turned on the exhaust fan — that's a good idea to just always have on when you are using the stove, by the way — opened a window and shut off the smoke alarm." She pulled the lid off of what was meant to be risotto and grimaced. "I think this is ruined."

Draco sighed, feeling deflated. "I am so sorry, Granger. I — fuck, I've never done this before and I severely underestimated how hard it was to cook like a Muggle."

Hermione furrowed her brow. "You don't normally cook in your flat? How do you usually eat?"

He pulled at his collar and sighed. "Um, usually, my food is prepared by house elves." At the Manor. With his parents.

"Do you not have elves here?"

"No," he replied before grimacing. He should have lied and said yes, blast it.

"Draco have you ever used a stove before?"

"First time."

She paused for a moment, looking around skeptically. "How long have you lived here?" she asked.

Draco occluded hard and fast. "Not long," he said neutrally.

Hermione watched his face, suspicion written across her own. "Stop occluding and tell me specifically how long you have lived her," she demanded.

"I've just got the keys two days ago and I've never spent a night here," he said reluctantly.

"Draco, why do you have this flat?"

"Because I wanted to make you dinner. And I didn't think you'd be comfortable at the Manor." He sighed, and putting his hand on the back of his neck.

For a moment, Hermione's face went slack with shock. Then she rushed forward, seized him by the collar and dragged him down for a kiss. Draco's mind when blank as her lips touched his, frozen for a moment before he remember he should move.

Granger drew back with a smile, before opening the oven and frowning — evidently displeased by what she found. "I suggest we order pizza instead, because I don't think any of this is salvageable. Have you had pizza before?"

Draco was still reeling from her kiss. "Um, no." What was happening?

"Okay. We should order a couple of different kinds then, for you to try. Pepperoni and cheese is the classic, of course. We should get a meat lovers and a vegetarian to compare and contrast. And I also think a Hawaiian, which is a controversial choice amongst Muggles, but one that I think that one might end up being your favor—"

"You kissed me" he blurted out, interrupting her.

She stopped and looked at him. "And you rented a flat so you could make me dinner."

"Bought, actually."

Her jaw dropped as she looked at him, incredulous. "You bought a flat for this. In London."

"Yes."

"Right, so okay then. You bought a flat in one of the more expensive real estate markets in the world so you could make me dinner. I — look, if I have misinterpreted your intentions, I apologize and I can — I can just go. I suppose we can pretend this never happened." She looked disappointed and a bit hurt.

"No — it's not that, it's just you kissed me."

"I know. I was there."

"I — I don't deserve you, Granger. I — I had planned this out. Even though my execution led something to be desired, I had a plan. I wanted to show you that I was worthy of a place in your life. That I could make the effort to earn that place."

Hermione tilted her head while she looked at him. "I have a small confession to make. While I genuinely adore baking now, I actually started doing it so I could have an ice-breaker with a colleague of mine who didn't seem to want to talk to me. Even though I had known him for a very long time. Someone who notoriously has a sweet tooth."

He looked up at her in surprise. "I — I wanted to talk to you, Granger. I just couldn't after the war. Even though I wanted to. More than anything, I wanted to. You started baking for me?" Draco was thrown by the revelation. Granger's baking had given him the impetus to get over his fears about interacting with her and he enjoyed almost everything she had made — the meringues were not his favourite even though he still took seconds so she would smile at him when he did so. He had been grateful every day since that first biscuit that she had decided to experiment with sugar. The fact that she had done so intentionally just to get closer to him was blowing his fucking mind.

"I did." She moved closer, biting her lip in that way that had driven him mad even before he had kissed her. She tentatively reached out and took his hand in hers. "And you actually only got to try the third batch. First was barely edible and the second wasn't much better." A faint blush graced her perfect, lightly freckled cheeks.

Draco wanted to kick himself. He knew he should have done a practice run at cooking dinner! But getting the flat bought and set up had taken so much more bloody time than he had expected it too.

She exhaled as she looked up at him, her eyes searching for his. "People aren't prizes to be awarded to the most deserving, Malfoy. They are people. Do you want to kiss me?"

"Yes," he breathed. Salazar did he ever. Now that he was prepared for the possibility, he felt he could take a more active role.

"Okay. I want you to kiss me too. But can I order the pizza first? I am starving and it will take awhile before it gets here."

He smiled at her, but hesitated before answering. This felt too good to be true. "Why though? Why me? Of all people."

She shrugged. "Why did you buy a flat just to make me dinner? A flat that you promptly came perilously close to burning down with your efforts to do so?"

"Because — because I want you Granger." He couldn't tear his eyes away from her beautiful honey brown ones as he spoke.

Hermione smirked at him. "I have the same reason, Draco." He inhaled sharply at the sound of his name on her lips and she continued. "I want you too."

He moved into kiss her, but she held out a finger before retrieving her mobile from her handbag she had dropped on the floor by the entrance to the floo.

"First let me order the pizza. I know I frequently skip lunch, but I never miss dinner. Trust me, that's best for everyone. And then if you want, we snog in the kitchen until it arrives."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Now just hold on for a minute. Hello, yes. I'd like to make an order for delivery?"