Chapter 5

Injunction


The next three days, Malfoy made it a point to ignore her. He didn't once address his outburst, instead opting to work in complete silence, only speaking to her when absolutely necessary. He didn't even look at her except for the time she switched her trusty clogs for the pair of low heels she remembered him staring at last Christmas. She did not wear them in the hopes of inciting a sardonic remark from him which, and she loathed to admit it, she found she missed.

Not at all.

She just thought they looked nice.

Still, he had only given them a glance before he turned back to his work. So when she came to the Ministry on Friday, she didn't anticipate it when he actually spoke to her. "I see your matronly dressing sense has finally improved," he said from his office chair, his eyes on the skirt she was wearing instead of her usual regulation robes.

Hermione didn't make a habit of dressing up for work, but today was her second and, hopefully, final Wizengamot session. She wanted to look nice for it. Besides, Ginny said it hugged her arse nicely. She'd even borrowed some of her friend's Sleekeazy's Hair Potion, but she didn't think it was working very well since she could already feel the curls starting to frizz up in the humid summer air.

At least she still had the skirt. Scorpius seemed to approve of her outfit too, as he leaned forward from his place on the desk to catch the deep blue material between his tiny teeth. She noted his gums looked less red and swollen, and she smiled a bit, glad that her charm was working. Pulling the fabric from his mouth, she decided this was starting out to be a good day.

Malfoy was coming back to his usual snarky self, Scorpius' crying episodes and magical mishaps had waned, and she was prepared for her court session later that afternoon. Over the last couple of days, with Malfoy's persistent silence and no new legislation proposals to look through, she'd perfected her argument. She had managed to cut down the speech to just forty-seven minutes — which she was still a little put off about — and had memorized the whole thing word for word.

Realizing that she still had an hour and a half until the session, she pulled out the parchment from her beaded bag. Perkins wouldn't have any more folders for her to review until Monday, and besides, one could never be too prepared.

She read through the speech once and then closed her eyes to repeat it under her breath. House-elves deserve the right to… She was had just started reciting it for the third time when she was interrupted.

"Granger," Malfoy said. She opened her eyes to see Scorpius curled up on the cushion-charmed desk, his eyelids fluttering shut as his afternoon kip came to claim him. She realized she'd been speaking out loud.

"Oh, sorry. I'll just practice in my head," she said, imitating his hushed tone.

She started from where she'd left off, intending to finish the speech for the last time, but he spoke again. "I don't see why you need to practice more. I'm sure you know the whole thing backward by this point."

Perhaps this wouldn't turn out to be such a good day after all. "I just want to make sure this legislation gets passed," she sighed.

"Why do you care so much?" he asked, and Hermione startled in her seat, caught off guard. She didn't think she'd ever heard a genuine question come out of his mouth. Snickers, snide remarks, and even the occasional laugh she was used to. Not questions.

She thought about it for a moment. Why did she care about this legislation? Because house-elves were being treated unfairly. Because they were forced to do their Master's bidding and were punished if they didn't. Because it was unjust. But he knew that, didn't he? "I think they're worth fighting for," she decided on eventually.

Malfoy nodded slowly, his hard gaze trained on the wall behind her. "Has it ever occurred to you that house-elves might not want to be another one of your charity cases?"

"And has it ever occurred to you that I might not think of it as a 'charity case'? That I want to help them?" she returned, firm but soft so that she didn't wake the sleeping baby.

"And why do you feel the need to help?" he asked, his eyes snapping to hers. She thought she saw something akin to desperation in his expression and she softened. "Why do you somehow feel morally compelled to help— to save everyone even when they don't ask for it?"

Hermione had a feeling they weren't talking about house-elves anymore.

She rose from her seat and made her way to his desk. "Because maybe I care." She came to a stop in front of him. "Maybe they need to start caring about their own well-being. And maybe they need to forgive themselves and allow someone else to care about them too."

He hesitated for a moment before standing up. "You shouldn't care about them. They don't deserve to be cared about, Granger." She watched him for a moment, taking in his sunken cheeks and the creases in his forehead.

"I..." she paused, fiddling with the hem of her skirt. "I don't think they get to be the judge of that." He was silent for a moment. "Malfoy—"

The words fell away as he pressed his lips pressed to hers. She stumbled back in surprise, but his hands moved to her shoulders, steadying her. Her lips remained stiff and unmoving against his as she tried to process the thousands of wild thoughts exploding in her head. She vaguely registered his nose brushing against hers once before he abruptly pulled back.

His eyes were dark and blown wide, and his voice came out almost panicked when he said, "I didn't mean to, er, I wasn't—" He closed his mouth, swallowing thickly. His stare held hers for a long moment until it snapped to Scorpius, who was still sound asleep. When he looked back at her, she saw a familiar steel fortress building in them. Her heart dropped to her stomach.

"Don't do that," she said, the words chasing from her without meaning to. She looked down at the floor and took a deep breath, steeling her courage. "Don't keep hiding behind Occlumency walls. I want…" Her gaze flitted back to his. "I want you. I want to know you, not this— this mask you're always wearing."

Hermione slowly brought her hand to his face, drifting her fingers across his cheekbones. She watched as his eyelids fluttered slightly, and she continued down his jaw until her hand came to rest on his chest. "Take down your walls. Please," she breathed.

"You want to know me," he repeated. She nodded, feeling something in her chest twinge at the disbelief written clearly across his face.

When he didn't say anything, she was sure he would refuse; that he would smirk and give her one of those sardonic quips only he could think of before he left the office. But then she saw something shift in his eyes. The slightest flicker of silver before the ever-unyielding barrier gave away to something warmer and conflicted. "What if…" He licked his lips. "What if you don't like who you find?"

She lifted herself on her toes so that she could look into his eyes, open and desperate. "How about you leave that for me to decide," she said, her lips grazing lightly against his before she lowered her heels to the floor.

But then his fingers wrapped around her waist, drawing her back in. She watched his lids drift close, letting out a shaky breath as his mouth met hers. She had always associated Draco Malfoy with cold. From his icy grey irises to his frigid demeanor, he seemed cold to her in every way. She'd been silly to think he would taste cold too. No, he tasted inexplicably, intoxicatingly warm, and she lost herself in it.

His hands traveled from her hips to the small of her back, pulling her flush against him until there wasn't a single place where her body wasn't touching his. His kiss was slow, but heated, stripping Hermione of her ability to think and think, and overthink.

The only thing she could think about was his fingers digging into her back with a vice-like pressure, his tongue sweeping between the seam of her lips to tangle with hers, his gold wire-rimmed glasses scraping the skin of her cheek, his soft, almost indiscernible sigh that tickled her nose and—

Celestina Warbeck's voice ringing through the room.

Wrenching herself away, she glanced at the clock above the office door, its hands pointing to four minutes past twelve, 'A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love' chiming out of it. She followed the movement of the small hand for half a minute before her eyes widened.

"The Wizengamot session!" she remembered. Quickly extracting herself from his grip, she rushed to her desk for her speech parchment. She tucked it into her blouse pocket and turned to see him looking at her dazedly, his face flushed and mouth slightly parted. Her eyes caught on his swollen lips for a moment before she shook her head. "Hurry up, Malfoy, we're already four minutes late."

At her words, he finally moved, taking his cloak from the back of his chair and shrugging it on. He faced her again, his eyes falling to her blouse. "You have, er… you have a button awry," he muttered, his cheeks tinged pink.

She glanced down to see not just a button, but three buttons on her blouse completely undone. When the hell had that happened?

She clicked her tongue, a flush starting at her chest and moving up her neck until she felt her cheeks flame. She found grey eyes tracking her reddening skin as she quickly moved her hands to right them. Her trembling fingers didn't seem to want to cooperate with her. For Merlin's sake, why did this need to happen now? Now they were going to be late to court, and her legislation wouldn't be passed, and—

Her struggle was interrupted when he sighed and strode forward until he came to a stop in front of her. He raised a hand to the buttons, his fingers righting each of them in one swift motion. He gave an irritatingly sophisticated snort. "She can cast fifty spells in under a minute, but can't figure out how to loop in a button."

Recognizing that particular breed of snark, her eyes snapped to his, searching for a familiar barrier she hoped beyond hope she wouldn't find. And she didn't. Instead, the grey irises were filled with what looked like reverence, and something deeper she couldn't quite read. "You really meant it? What you said about wanting to know me?" he asked.

Then she placed it. Vulnerability.

She tried to make her expression light instead of sympathetic. She had come to learn that Draco Malfoy didn't care for sympathy all that much. "I meant it," she said, raising her hand to where his own was still twiddling with a button to entwine their fingers. "I want to know everything about you. But that means you'll have to be honest with me."

The tightness of his jaw gave away, his lips curling in a smirk— no, this one wasn't a smirk. This was a smile. The two were almost identical, except his smile was warmer, showing a flash of his teeth.

"In that case," he said, picking a resting Scorpius up from the desk and making for the door, "I had an idea about that legislation of yours. But it might involve a slight rearrange."

Hermione listened to his far too smug explanations and his far too sophisticated snorts all the way to the courtroom.


Just one more chapter to go! Can't wait to hear your thoughts on this so far :)