October

tick

Some days, Draco could almost convince himself that he'd been honest about his inability to be a good friend to Granger. Most of the time, though, he spent his time watching her work and contemplating the impressive depths of his denial, while trying to ignore the knowing looks she kept sending his way: the smug smiles that said you'll figure it out or I don't mind waiting. But he couldn't figure her out. He couldn't comprehend what had her so convinced, so disarmingly certain, that they were—or could be—friends.

Tempting as it was to flake that thought away, pack it up, and silence it with a heavy dose of Occlumency, Draco forced himself to admit that a large part of his inability to be friends with Granger hinged on the fact that he didn't want to be just friends.

He certainly wasn't in the habit of wanking to the image of his friend's pretty pink lips during his morning shower. That seemed like something else entirely, ripped from the hiding places in his head he'd once kept at bay with self-delusion.

He hated those moments of weakness, increasing in frequency as they were, but he savored the raw dose of desire summoned by the image of Granger's wild curls or her lips or her smattering of freckles when he allowed himself a fantasy. And afterwards, he'd remember shiny dark brown hair, delicate bones, and blue eyes, stomach turning at how vile he'd become.

The longer he tried to pretend he and Granger couldn't really be friends, the easier it became for his subconscious to push back, laying out an extensive argument in favor of their continued association. Traitorous fucking subconscious; Draco knew excuses towards friendship would be nothing but a slippery slope towards justifying something more.

"You're occluding today," she said offhandedly as she walked by, already unwarding and letting herself into a new room for decommissioning.

He'd been reviewing notes on his latest experiments, still struggling to successfully draw dark magic from flesh without damaging it. He had several places on his chest that throbbed in testimony to his most recent failures. He sat on a transfigured chaise in the hallway, hardly noticing as Granger came and went from room to room, making quick work of a relatively unused wing in the manor.

She always seemed to know just how much she could push, never too much, but always holding him accountable to whatever standard had become their normal operating procedure. He'd been occluding for several days, numbing errant memories of her looking up at him under the soft streetlights in Diagon Alley, trying to force away the all-consuming want to be accepted into her life. She'd allowed him a few days of his mood, and now, she brought it up.

Before he'd tried occlusion, returning to his cold, numb ally, he simply tried to focus his thoughts on the reasons why they couldn't really be friends. The drawing room usually came to mind. Horrific memories of her screams, images of her torture. Draco couldn't ignore or forget that his home, his family, had been so integrally tied to the movement that tried to ruin her. The first and most obvious reason why they couldn't, shouldn't, be friends: any association with him would be but a reintroduction of a disease she'd already survived.

His grandfather Abraxas had died of Dragon Pox. The bout that finally killed him wasn't his first experience with the disease. He'd had it once, years before, and survived. But upon a second infection, the magic in the disease behaved differently. It looked different, acted different, but still ravaged him all the same. It had been his undoing; a patriarch brought low, broken by a thing they could not see and could not fight.

Draco flipped to another section of his notes: a series of numbers, a tiny running ledger for the account he'd been given control over, a trading venture in only semi-legal potions ingredients. The type of account had either been a lucky coincidence on his father's behalf, or a thoughtful attempt at reconciliation. Draco hadn't asked. The only time he'd considered it, over breakfast the morning after Granger's birthday, he'd realized just as quickly that he didn't want to know.

Like many parts of his relationship with Lucius: having to sift through motive and intent and implication made it difficult to accept any good deed at face value. The risk of disappointment that Lucius hadn't cared—or known—what he'd offered, made not knowing—and therefore not risking disappointment—a reasonable option.

Draco opted to live in ignorance, knowing he'd picked a coward's choice.

Granger exited the room he would have sworn she'd unwarded mere minutes before. A flush of pink crawled up her neck. Her chest rose and fell with quick breathing, but she looked calm, shutting the door behind her.

She smirked at him, back pressed against the door, and then let out a small giggle.

"Just a rather angry armoire. Nothing too challenging, might have tried to eat me"—she giggled again, hand coming up to cover her mouth like she might smother the sound—"but it's fine. I don't think it could actually eat me, just flapped its drawers quite a bit."

She shook her head and pushed off the door, looking far too amused for someone who'd just battled a piece of furniture. She almost looked like she was enjoying herself.

And that was reason two, and three, and all the rest why they couldn't be friends; Granger was interesting, and fun, and brilliant, and giggled about an armoire trying to eat her, and sighed about piano keys biting her. She gasped over old, rare books, and was a chatty, flirty drunk. She became fast friends with Theo and tried to reintroduce Draco to her own friends in kind. She returned his wand. She fixed his grandfather's pocket watch. She liked apple caramel ice cream and had freckles he could trace into constellations sprawling across her face. And she was kind. She was forgiving. She'd stared down the memory of Bellatrix Lestrange in the place where she'd been tortured. She didn't care about the slur carved on her arm but covered it anyway; he knew she did that for him. He didn't deserve any of it.

But he would give her the choice to remove her scar if she wanted to because, fuck it all, he wanted to be her friend. He wanted to be her friend and so much more.

—

Draco couldn't stand the Occlumency anymore. He tried, but his head ached and his stomach twisted, clenched and churning. Preemptive pain potions had lost their efficacy, and even though he'd known that inevitably would eventually strike, he kept turning to his mental wards for protection from everything he wasn't allowed to think or feel about Granger. He hated that he kept coming back to Occlumency: a broken second hand on a clock that could tick forward just enough to feel like it had counted time, only to be pulled back down by gravity, exactly where it started from.

He excused himself from his supervisory capacities later that afternoon, incapable of staunching the arterial flow of fantasies about Granger. Always Granger, taking up so much space inside his head.

She looked confused when he said he'd be leaving her to finish on her own, but didn't comment. He saw the quick narrowing of her eyes, assessing his own, searching for the occlusion he'd already numbed himself with. She looked disappointed, but not altogether surprised, by what she found.

He didn't exactly run through the manor halls, but his walk could certainly be deemed brisk. His head throbbed as he pulled back his mental wards, letting heat flood his veins. He'd grown accustomed to the icy stillness of it. The sudden surge of emotion in his veins nearly scorched him, burning him from the inside out. He'd already undone several buttons of his shirt by the time he stepped into the gardens, intent on escaping to the greenhouses to check on his many and varied potions ingredients for experimentation.

A drizzle of rain greeted him. He paused at the door and raised his arm, letting the rain splatter on his outstretched hand. He half expected to hear a hiss, to see the droplets evaporate into steam and sizzle away from the fire on his skin.

He cast a water repellent charm and walked to the greenhouses, further dismantling the remaining Occlumency he'd let consume him. He entered the greenhouse, immediately stifled by the humidity inside.

One of the scars on his chest throbbed. Draco sighed; he unbuttoned the rest of his shirt and pressed gently against a fading red outline. His worst scar crossed his ribs on the left side of his body, extensive and painful from his attempt at removal. He prodded, trying to get a sense for the stage of healing.

Despite the slow, slogging process of experimenting—testing and failure, over and over—Draco saw progress, too, infinitesimal as it was. The scar on his ribs almost looked normal, felt normal. And when he'd tried to remove it with an everyday scar removing solution, it almost worked. Until it started burning from the residual dark magic that rebelled against it, of course.

"Why are they so—irritated?"

Draco's head snapped up, pulled to the greenhouse entry where Granger stood, door halfway open, eyes wide as she took in the horror show on his chest: silver scars rimmed in red or purple or blue or green, various stages of trauma and healing with a few burns scattered in between.

He pulled his shirt closed, clutching the fabric together with his left hand.

Fuck.

His head felt sluggish, raw, and like a fwooper had taken up residence, in desperate need of a silencing charm. He tried to engage his Occlumency anyway, already panicked under the weight of her evaluation.

He froze it out and flaked it away; panic left in a shard somewhere deep in his subconscious. Granger let the door slam shut behind her and crossed the room before he could blink.

"Stop it," she said. "Don't do that, please just—stop occluding, gods." Her chest heaved, a deep breath as she ran her hands through her mass of curls: a quagmire of twists and turns and spirals he wanted to lose himself in.

He isolated that feeling, too, and flaked it away.

"Draco, stop. Please," she put her hand on his, the one holding his shirt together. He flinched away; her skin felt like fire. But even as he dropped his hand, she didn't, her soft palm coming to rest against his exposed chest.

He froze.

"You're freezing."

He was.

Except for where her hand touched him. There, he was molten: churning and spilling and spreading.

"Please," she said again, and when it felt like she might pull her hand away, he reached up to hold her in place, fingers wrapping lightly around her wrist. His Occlumency crashed in an avalanche under her order, incapable of denying her.

She must have recognized the change because she softened, the stiffness in her hand relaxing against his chest. If she branded him with that hand he wouldn't have minded carrying her mark, better than his other.

"I have them, too," she said. "More than just the one." She held up her left arm in a weak gesture. She pointed to a thin line on her neck he'd never noticed before. "Same knife."

He blinked. He wondered how long this suspension of reality would last: her hand on his chest, his holding her wrist, so close he could smell something warm, sweet, and vaguely vanilla drifting from her hair and skin. It was as if they'd been paused in time, perhaps a new feature of Theo's time turner, where they could speak and move and exist inside a bubble where, for a moment, consequences seemed so very inconsequential.

"I have one on my chest, too. From the Department of Mysteries. It was a nasty curse but—Dolohov, he was silenced at the time, so it could have been much worse."

I'll remove that one for you too, he wanted to say. He wanted to erase it all, every memory, every scar, that made her eyes turn down like that, caught in the unpleasantness of a past she shouldn't have had to endure.

"What's happening to them?" she asked. The pad of her forefinger moved against his skin, brushing the scar beneath it.

"I've been experimenting."

He held her gaze, trying to ignore the litany of reasons why any measure of closeness to Granger was a bad idea. How could it be? When her hands lit him on fire and burned away the fog in his brain. When she looked like goodness, and wholeness, and hope with a halo of ridiculous curls and a constellation begging to be drawn across her face. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to have her on every surface in that greenhouse, learning the sighs and sounds she reserved for lovers.

"Experimenting on yourself? With what?" she asked. He knew he didn't imagine the quiet, breathy tone in her voice.

"I'm trying to extract dark magic from scars. So they can be removed."

A flash and crack of thunder drowned out the sound of her surprise: an intake of breath he had the pleasure of watching in close proximity.

His mother had assumed he meant the potion for himself. Would Granger think the same?

The rain on the glass greenhouse roof reminded Draco of his own heartbeat, hammering inside his ears: thudding erratic and wild.

Sound seemed to go the way that time had, exiting the space around them, leaving a hollow vacuum where time stood still, and he could nearly hear the sound of Granger's blinking, of her thinking.

His right hand moved at the behest of instincts he couldn't control, fingers finding her waist in a halting, almost-touch. But she drifted into it, and he to her, and when he looked again, they were very nearly touching from head to toe, her hand still on his chest between them.

He swallowed: a man hanged by the very last thread of his self-control. With a deep breath or a stiff breeze, his nose would touch hers, his mouth just as close. He employed every last ounce of his unraveling restraint.

"I need you to tell me to stop," he said, and the act of bringing those words to life almost brushed their lips together. Her eyes fluttered shut and the thread holding him up, away, snapped.

Then she opened her eyes again, lips so close to sampling his that her words were traded more by flesh than by air.

"You're betrothed."

And it was like lightning had shattered the glass roof above them, soaking him in freezing rainwater that restarted time and sharpened his lust-hazed brain.

He stepped back, forcing one foot, then the other, to create space between him and a bad decision.

Fuck.

He disapparated before he had the chance to change his mind.

—

Astoria and Narcissa had chosen the solarium for their wedding planning luncheon. They'd decided not to fuss over warming charms in the crisp October air while they juggled seating arrangements, musical accompaniments, and a wine list longer than several of the books found in the estate's library. Narcissa insisted on Draco's presence because of course he should be involved.

Because Hermione had been very, very correct in her assessment.

He was, in fact, betrothed. Furthermore, he'd somehow ended up exactly where he'd been years ago: in his ancestral home doing what his parents asked of him even when he'd come to realize he did not want to. Or, in this case, never wanted to.

From the solarium windows, designed to immerse a viewer in as much of the grounds as possible without leaving the comfort of the manor, Draco could see the greenhouses beyond the rose garden. If he turned his head just so, the glass-paneled roof glinted with a sharp stab of late afternoon sunlight, making it impossible to ignore or forget. The damned thing taunted him while he only halfway listened to a conversation about string quartets.

And that would be his life: half-listening to conversations he didn't care about. Following a social event schedule. A lovely wife he'd have to learn to love. Predictability. Palatability.

He forced himself to look away from the taunting greenhouse and back at the meal he shared with his mother and his betrothed. It felt so impersonal, so unreal. Not unlike how it felt to sit and hear his mother tell him the Dark Lord would like for him to take the Mark, to recoup the favor lost by his father.

Astoria said something about Vivaldi.

Narcissa made a comment about cabernet.

Draco snapped.

"Astoria," he said, turning in his chair to face her more directly. He reached out, taking her delicate hands in his. His fingers twitched; he might break them. "Do you want to marry me?"

Her look of befuddlement over his sudden touch compounded, doubled in on itself as her brows drew together. Her head tilted, and she let out a nervous laugh, baffled, before she transformed it into that socialite tittering he hated so much. She pulled herself together quickly, almost easily.

"We're already engaged," she said with a smile. She tilted her head towards the table between them: scattered with seating arrangements and wine pairing suggestions. "A bit past engaged, actually."

"No—I mean. If you had a choice, would you have picked me?"

Draco tensed at the sharp inhale to his left. His mother's outrage sliced through his determination with better efficiency than a well-cast diffindo. He continued despite the tatters torn into his sails.

"Would I? Draco, you're my betrothed…"

He squeezed her hands and leaned forward, trying to block out the sounds of disapproval coming from the other end of the table where his mother's surprise had likely taken a turn towards ire. Draco astonished himself with his own audacity; he could only imagine his mother's feelings on the matter. But he'd already started, already taken this moment, and all the ones that followed, hostage for himself. He had to ask. He had to know. He had to do something other than sit and agree and take what was handed to him, much as he hated it, with a smile covering his silent dissent.

He sighed.

She had blue eyes, so very similar to his mother's.

"I know we're betrothed but—I don't mean to be cruel. But—fuck, I think I'm going to be. That was a selfish question, I apologize." He grimaced, fumbled like a fool. His mother admonished his use of vile language; he ignored her and forged ahead. "Perhaps I was hoping your answer would be an emphatic no and that it would make it easier for me to say that I would not have chosen you."

"Draco!" Narcissa rose from her seat, flatware clattering. Her voice rose just enough to inform him that she was very, deadly serious. But he could hardly stop now. Like a firestorm, like a flood, like a burst of uncontrolled magic.

"Not now, mother," he said, a thrill of independence shooting through him. "I'm taking a moment to be in charge of my own life."

Astoria looked to Narcissa, searching for something. Draco didn't flinch, didn't move. He gave Astoria his entire focus, waiting for her to return to the conversation that could only happen between the two of them, regardless of how much involvement his mother might prefer. Her fingers flexed beneath his own as she looked back to him.

He'd already dug himself too deep, he kept shoveling: "I don't know you. I have no reason to know you outside of this arrangement. And I'm sure you're lovely. From what I've seen you clearly are but—"

"I wouldn't have picked you."

Her words came out strong, certain, and relieved. It felt like the first truly genuine thing to exist between them.

"I'd like the opportunity to pick," he said. "Wouldn't you?"

She nodded and released a shallow, nervous breath. Draco almost felt bad; he'd effectively just blown up her life. Only through sheer luck of circumstance had she agreed to it.

He released her hands and sat back, creating space but feeling closer to her than he ever had. He turned to his mother.

Narcissa stood very still, controlled breathing moving her chest just enough to confirm she hadn't been stunned. Her lips had nearly disappeared, pressed into a thin, tense line as she seethed. More than that, her eyes searched him: confusion and anger, like she was looking at a stranger, trying to make sense of what he'd just done, who he'd just been.

"I'm sorry to have wasted your time, Mother."

He stood from his seat and bent to give Astoria a kiss on the cheek. He took a half step towards his mother to do the same, but stopped as she lifted a single hand, as quick as a viper strike, warning him not to approach. He dipped his head, acknowledging, and left the solarium an entire engagement lighter.

—

Seeing Granger the day after the luncheon where he effectively lit his life on fire and walked away—his first time seeing her since the things that did and did not happen in the greenhouses—felt like stepping through a fog that finally cleared.

And the day went horribly.

Breakfast with his parents had been a painful, silent affair. Uncomfortable and awkward, as neither his mother nor father spoke to him. Neither of them acknowledged that he and Astoria had effectively dissolved their betrothal the day prior. Lucius focused on the Daily Prophet with a near deadly force, taking deep, calming breaths through his nose, lips only relinquishing their twisted pursing for the occasional indulgence in his tea.

Draco couldn't bring himself to leave until his parents excused him, having already grossly exceeded the liberties he could take with their patience. As such, he didn't leave the dining room until five minutes after nine, dismissal evolving into a stalemate over who might speak first.

Narcissa finally relented with a terse and quiet, "You may go," eyes fixed on a slice of melon in front of her.

He met Granger halfway down the corridor heading to the wing they'd been working in the week prior. Her steps echoed heavily through the space, evidence of an annoyed stomp.

"You're late," she said, and not in a teasing way. It sounded more like an accusation, like a hex she meant to hurl.

And rather than a reasonable response, Draco fell into old, familiar habits. It was so easy to do without the Occlumency, without the betrothal, without anything controlling him. She tapped her foot, watching him like she half expected him to jinx her. She had her wand in her hand, knuckles flushing as she flexed her grip around it. Her hair had taken on a life of its own.

"Your hair looks like a pixie's nest."

She rolled her eyes and let out a frustrated breath, turning and marching away from him. She threw her response over her shoulder, voice tight and bordering on shrill.

"Real mature, Malfoy."

Admittedly, it had not been exceptionally mature. But it also felt oddly like the first time he'd really spoken to her, out from under someone else's thumb. It elated him.

It was hardly as if he could open with I ended my betrothal because I realized I couldn't keep doing what everyone else told me to do. But I also ended it, in very large part, because I can't stop thinking about how you've practically moved into my home, into my head, into the space inside my chest I might tentatively call my fucking heart.

Instead, he insulted her hair and laughed at the way she stomped away. He rolled his eyes when she did something utterly exasperating. He stood too close and listened carefully as she cast her spells and performed her diagnostics, learning whether she wanted him to or not. He let her huff at him and correct his wand movements when he imitated her incorrectly. He called her a swot when she forced him to listen to the entire history of her diagnostic spells because apparently the context was important.

He let himself enjoy the warm vanilla scent of her—shampoo? Lotion? Perfume? And he let the day pass, rife with banter and frustration and relatively tense conversation, because it finally felt like the first they could have without everything else getting in the way. He didn't say a thing about his betrothal, or lack thereof.

He simply existed, for the first time in a long time, for himself.

—

thank you so much for reading! i hope you've enjoyed! i can be found on tumblr and ao3 under the name 'mightbewriting' (no i!).