December
tick
After, evidently, did not have a timeline. Time and distance from the conversation about Draco's shattered betrothal agreement only made it worse. Every day that passed—turning into weeks, taking them fully into December and steadily approaching the holidays—felt like another lost opportunity to do something about this new state of reality.
What could have been an abundance of freedom, gloriously absent of Draco's obsessive experimental brewing, had only morphed into an equally obsessive management of the account his father had entrusted him with. His numbers plummeted, something about supply problems in a particularly rare herb. Draco could hardly keep it straight, lost in a mass of letters delivered by owls at all hours of night and day: informing him of price changes, supply shortages, and a coup in a country he'd never heard of, but that apparently had some bearing on the numbers in his account.
He hated it. Truly, wholly, and completely hated it. It had none of the control, none of the finesse, none of the reward that brewing gave him. It felt like guesswork at best, and at worst, like wandering through a fog with his eyes closed, hoping he stumbled upon his destination. He'd been given one account. One tiny sliver of responsibility. And when he finally had time to devote something of himself to it, he probably would have had better luck letting his owl make the decisions. Or Topsy. Perhaps she knew a thing or two about rare herbology imports.
"I'm taking a few days off," Hermione said.
Her words came completely without warning, and in the middle of another long, awkward day of talking to each other like they didn't have something enormous and awkward and wanting hovering in the space between words and blinks and breaths. She'd just finished the room she'd been working on for most of the week, a troublesome one with an especially unpleasant gobstone set.
"Oh," Draco said, lacking for any other kind of response.
"I was only planning to work half the day today, actually. The Ministry already approved it. I would have taken the whole day, but I wanted to finish this one"—she tilted her head backwards, towards the room she'd just exited—"since it's the last room in this hall."
"Who'd have thought gobstones could be so troublesome," he said.
She laughed: quiet, but genuine, filling the awkward, unknowable spaces between them.
"Anyone who's ever played with a Weasley prank set. Though this was certainly more difficult than those."
"I honestly didn't even know we had a gobstone set here."
She rolled her eyes, stepping away from the door—closer to him, but also to her bag, which was more likely her destination. That didn't stop the wondering, though: the intrusive little thrill that perhaps she sought closeness.
"To live in a home with so many rooms you don't even know what's in all of them."
"I don't live here anymore," he reminded her, a little tease, as she slid her wand into her bag. "We used to be a much bigger family—the Malfoys. But it's just the three of us, now. We hardly need to use all these rooms."
A beat of uneasy silence hovered.
"So you don't mind?" she asked, piercing the quiet. "That I leave a little early?"
"As exciting as the prospect sounds, I'm not actually your employer. You're free to do as you wish."
"As long as I don't defile the estate, of course."
"Of course."
She didn't move, bag slung over her shoulder, pulling at a curl caught beneath it. He almost reached out to free it.
But he didn't move, either.
When he noticed the silence again, so loud in its nothingness, his chest twinged, uncomfortable.
"Plans?" he asked. "Sorry—I mean, do you have any plans for your time off?"
"Oh, not especially. I'll just do some relaxing."
"Do I need to send Topsy to save you from your version of a holiday?"
"I might see my parents," she said, finally freeing her trapped curls from beneath the strap on her bag.
"Might?"
"We're—figuring it out. After…"
She trailed off, still looking at him, but her eyes unfocused, pulled into whatever thought had crossed her mind. He had no idea what she meant, and he felt like he shouldn't ask. Something about the fragility in her tone and the distance in her eyes told him that whatever it was, it was personal.
And really, what right did Draco have to anything personal about her? Excepting for his very personal desires to touch her and kiss her and fuck her. But that was—different. That was fascination, attraction—it couldn't be more.
Self-delusion tasted sour these days.
"Oh, sorry," she said. "I forget sometimes. I don't have a particularly large social group and, well, everyone else knows. I forgot you probably don't."
That felt like an opening, a crack in a door he might pass through.
"Know—what?" he asked, hesitating only just.
She swallowed. Her smile looked strained, cheek twitching just enough that he wondered how hard she fought to keep it in place.
"I obliviated them. During the war."
The shock felt like a full body bind, locking him in place and freezing his muscles. Surprise with enough force to hold his body still while his mind spun, whirling out of control as he tried to make sense or reason out of what she'd just said.
"I sent them to Australia," she continued. "They were safer not knowing me—they never would have understood, otherwise." Draco wondered how many times she'd told herself that, trying to find her own belief in the words. He knew the feeling well. He'd just felt it: it couldn't be more. "I managed to reverse it last year. They—well, things have been tense. We try to have dinner together every month or so."
Draco couldn't conceive of that. For as complicated and dysfunctional and wildly unhealthy as his relationship with his parents could be, he took at least two meals a day with them, every day. They had a routine, a foundation of togetherness that existed outside of any conflict they might have. Even when his mother likely wanted to slap him for sabotaging his betrothal, or when his father had to lecture him for speaking out of turn or with disrespect, they still dined together. Every morning and every night; they were family, which meant they stuck together.
"I—" he tried to speak, say something. He both could and could not fathom it, how horrible it must be to have such uncertainty with one's family. He almost said so, but he didn't know if that would make her feel better or worse. Something inside him suggested worse.
Hermione seemed undeterred, continuing despite his failure at interrupting. Perhaps she needed to get it out, words flowing in a deluge of confession, and he, her confessor.
"I defied their trust. I know that. They don't understand—not really. But it's getting better. We'll have breakfast together, on Christmas, I think."
Draco's chest clenched, something so sad, so heartbroken for the woman standing in front of him. To have any doubt, even a shard of it, that she might not get to spend a holiday with her family, it gutted him. Even knowing that he didn't always want to spend time with his parents; he always had the option.
He absolutely, positively, was not worthy of this woman. How could a person like her even exist? It seemed outside the realm of possibility that a strength and a determination and a bravery like hers could be contained in one person's body. Surely her magic would combust, or implode, or shatter under the weight of it.
"Anyway," she said, still forging on as if that hadn't been the most remarkable story ever told. "I have a gift for you. I hope you don't think it's too"—she blushed, a pretty pink—"well, it's not really a gift, anyway. You can't keep it."
Draco arched a brow. That she'd thought to give him something pulled him from the melancholy of thinking about her parents.
She reached into her bag and pulled out a wrapped package: suspiciously book shaped.
"Hermione, if you're trying to give me that copy of Hogwarts: A History back—"
"I'm not, no." She smirked, though, like maybe she'd thought about it. "This is my favorite book, my personal copy I've had for ages. I love it, I would like it back. But—I wanted to share it with you." She blushed heavier, pink flushing into red as her words tumbled faster and faster. "You said you were open to muggle literature—it's, well, I love this book."
"To confirm," he said, smiling through what felt like true, overwhelming gratitude. "You love this book?"
She laughed, but looked away, clearly embarrassed. It was precious.
"Don't be a prat, yes."
"Thank you," he said. He tried to sound as sincere as possible. He didn't want her to feel uncomfortable, as fun as it was to tease and annoy her. That she'd thought of him, wanted to share something so personal with him, Merlin. He had to truncate that thought: not necessarily to pack it up and put it away, but rather save it for later when he didn't have to actively engage in conversation. "I—have a gift for you, too."
She tore her gaze from the stonework on the floor when he spoke, the corners of her eyes crinkling with excitement, tempering what looked an awful lot like surprise. Gods, it nearly killed him, realizing she might have thought her gift giving would be a one-sided affair
"I didn't know you'd be taking time off," he said. "I don't have it wrapped or—well, ready. It's at my flat."
"Oh." Her face fell, lip pulled between her teeth. "Well, I'm sure it can wait until later. After the holidays."
It sounded like a question.
Could it be a question?
"No, I'd like for you to have it—do you, would you like to come over and I can grab it?"
He knew it was a bad idea even as he suggested it. He could have gone to get it and came back. He could have owled it to her. He could have done or suggested any number of things that did not involve Hermione Granger walking into his flat again. But gods, if he didn't want her there. He liked the idea of having her in his home again. Of seeing her there, with him.
She smiled at his suggestion, and he knew he was done for.
"Yes, alright. That would be fine."
—
It took less than ten seconds of standing awkwardly in his living room for Draco to regret his impulsive decision to invite Hermione over. It wasn't so much the literal sense of having her in his home that was problematic. But more, having her in a place that was his, was him, and not clouded by his family history and the cold stone interior of an aristocratic manor.
The floors in his flat were a woodgrain. They'd been grown. And that felt—different.
"Just, give me a moment," he said, gesturing to the green velvet sofa so she could sit.
He required time to breathe when he entered his potions lab. Firstly, over the relief that he'd made and kept a large batch of the potion, constantly tweaking and refining the effect of his experiment so that it not only worked, but it worked well, and quickly, and pain free; he couldn't give her anything less than the best. But secondly, he had to catch his breath such that terror did not completely seize him.
It threatened to crack him, brittle and ready to break, like his bones might snap and shatter.
What had he been thinking?
Panic felt like ice lit on fire, contradiction in his veins.
She wasn't ashamed of her scar. She'd said so, very literally, to his face. She didn't need to cover it, she only did it for him; he knew that. Because who couldn't notice how pathetic he acted every time he saw that slur carved into her arm, how he sought it in flagellation by guilt?
How disgustingly presumptuous did that make him? He pressed his palm to his chest, over his heart, as if the pressure and heat could stop it from beating so fast. She would think him an absolute arse obsessed with image. Superficial. Vain. She'd already called him that, too, once.
Really, what had he been thinking?
Fuck.
He'd just wanted her to have a choice. That was it. That was all. She didn't have to take it. Didn't have to use it. But then his gift to her would be a bottle of something she did not want and months of work she'd probably be mortified to know about.
He could feel an unfortunate sheen of sweat, probably cold and clammy, forming on his brow when he finally bottled a vial and left his lab. He felt like an uncertain teenager again, roiling with nerves.
Twenty two years of age felt old enough to not experience nerves like this. He walked back into the living room and found her sitting on the sofa, legs tucked beneath her, flipping through a potions periodical he'd left on the table. Gods, he'd spent so much time fighting with himself that she'd gotten bored and needed entertainment.
When she looked up at him, he saw a crease between her brow, hovering over wide, curious eyes. Nerves of her own.
His fingers twitched towards the vial in his pocket.
He couldn't do it. Not yet. He needed—more time. A distraction. Fucking something to calm him.
"Would you like some tea?" he asked.
She'd clearly been expecting something—anything—else to come out of his mouth. Her head tilted. The crease between her brows grew.
"Yes—please. Thank you. That would be lovely."
She sounded so formal, like her words had tried to trip her, trick her, like she couldn't decide on which version of them were hers and which belonged to the formalities she hid behind.
"I make an excellent cup of tea."
She rolled her eyes at his boast, shoulders relaxing. Draco's own did the same.
"I'm surprised," she said. "I would have thought Topsy did that for you."
"Mother doesn't prefer it. Certain things are sacred, and all that." He waved his wand to summon his supplies.
Tea preparation didn't last nearly long enough to fully settle him. As he offered her a cup, his thoughts obsessed over the vial in his trouser pocket: either a very bad decision or a very good one. He suspected the former but hoped for the latter.
He sat beside her on the sofa, one full cushion's worth of space between them. Hermione took a sip of her tea, smiling kindly. It felt like an indication she enjoyed it.
Honestly, he expected a little more of a reaction than that. He made an excellent cup of tea. Objectively. She didn't seem nearly impressed enough. He sipped his own. Confirmation, an excellent brew.
Brew. Fuck.
"So," he said, setting his tea aside. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small vial. The potion, in its current iteration, was a lovely shade of lavender that reminded him of flowers and deep breathing and peace. So very different from the dark, angry purple so many curses manifested as. He held the bottle out to her.
He could see the curiosity, the questions, obvious in wide eyes as she reached for it. He wondered if she'd put it together already. She was brilliant, after all. And he'd told her, before, that he was experimenting with potions to remove cursed scars.
Surely she'd make the connection.
"I've realized I don't think you'll like it," he said. Hot, uncomfortable anxiety flushed him. He'd call it mortification, but the root of that word implied a death of some kind, and as he still unfortunately drew breath despite this embarrassment, mortification surely couldn't be the right term for it. Although, he wouldn't mind throwing himself out a window: death by defenestration.
"Why not?" she asked. She didn't say anything about what must have been a bright red flush creeping up his neck. His skin felt like embers crawled across it, up it, emanating from his heart and seeking his extremities. "You brewed something for me?"
She held the vial against the light, head quirking as she examined its properties. She wouldn't find any answers in its transparency, or its color, or in any floating particulate. She wouldn't find any acceptable combination of properties to help her identify it. And evidently, she hadn't connected the thing he'd told her two months before with the vial in her hands.
"I did. Well—I invented a potion for you."
She froze, blinking. Then, her hand and the vial dropped to her lap as she looked back at him. He watched her fingers tighten around the glass, as if protecting it, cherishing it.
"It—ah. It's the one I told you I was working on, a couple months ago, do you remember?" She had to remember, how could she not? They'd nearly spiraled into a black hole together. "It's for cursed scars, like I said. I found a way to bind your diagnostics to it, actually. It—well, it draws out the cursed magic so the scar can be healed. It was for you." He needed her to know that part. If nothing else. She needed to know. "I was only testing it on myself. But it was always for you. Only for you. In case you—"
He'd been trying so hard not to look at her arm. But his gaze flicked there, mostly out of instinct, a reference to the thing he mentioned. He really, desperately, hadn't wanted to look. Because then she looked, too, following his gaze.
She would hate it.
He was an idiot.
But she didn't yell at him. Didn't say anything. She stared at her arm for several beats longer than he did, his attention now on her face, watching as his act of stupidity sunk in.
Her knuckles flushed white around the potion, and he worried for a moment that she might crack the glass with the force of her hold.
"It would," she started, then paused, then swallowed. She looked up at him. Gods, she looked like she might cry. He'd truly fucked this up beyond all measure. "It would—remove this?" she asked. She held up her arm, covered by a sleeve, but they both knew what she meant, as if there were ever anything else she could possibly mean.
"Yes. I'm sorry—I didn't mean to suggest that it's needed. I know that you—"
He broke off, watching as her hands shook, setting the vial on the table. It clinked, an unsteady tapping of glass on the marble top as she struggled to place it upright. She pulled her hand back to her lap, clasping it with her other, wringing them together. She hadn't reached for her wand. Hopefully that meant she didn't intend on jinxing him.
She looked up at him, agony on the brink. He heard a rush of breath, a rough, strangled sound, and then she burst into tears, head dropping into her hands.
—
Draco didn't move for nearly a full minute. He knew because he watched the second hand on the clock behind her, ticking away every moment he did absolutely nothing as the most remarkable witch he'd ever met sat a cushion away from him bawling into her hands.
Then, as the second hand ticked past the twelve for a second time, he finally moved. From his cushion to the one between them, he closed the distance. She didn't look up at him when he moved, but the intensity of her tears seemed to abate. Carefully, Draco reached out to place a hand on her knee, offering her some kind of comfort, some kind of apology, not that anything he could say would ever be anywhere near enough.
She flinched at his touch, and he immediately pulled his hand away. Of course, why would she want any comfort from him? He'd done this to her, after all.
He wasn't prepared for her to launch herself into his arms, practically crawling into his lap as she wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face into his chest.
His breath stuttered, confusion mixed with a rush of desire he couldn't control, inappropriate and ill-timed as it may be. His response was automatic, one arm wrapping around her waist as the other smoothed her hair, curls already threatening to smother him. He could think of no finer way to go.
He couldn't help himself; he leaned against the top of her head, resting his cheek against the curls he'd known would be so, so soft, despite the frizz and the madness and the crackling magic that lived inside.
He realized, then, that she was blubbering, apologizing, against his chest.
"I'm sorry—I didn't mean, I'm sorry. I know this shirt is probably stupidly expensive. I—"
She started to pull away but he tightened his grip, hand on her back drawing circles against the fabric of her shirt. She melted into him again.
He watched the clock. She cried for another five minutes, on and off, surges of grief, or agony, or embarrassment, or melancholy, or whatever it was he'd caused her, surfacing in fresh bouts that flowed before they ebbed. When the space between gulps for breath and fresh tears became wide enough that her breathing felt almost normal against his ribs, he let his hand against her back slide away: space to leave if she wanted to.
She leaned back, looking up at him. Her knees bracketed his hips, quite literally straddling him. In any other circumstance that realization might have sent him spiraling, drunk with lust. But guilt overrode that carnal instinct, strong as it may be.
"I'm sorry," she said again, and he couldn't comprehend it. "That was just—so overwhelming, I'm sorry—"
"Why are you apologizing to me?" His words came out tight, snappish. He felt her tense, her thighs against his, and there was nothing sexual about it in the slightest. What a nightmare.
She wiped a tear from her cheek and waved vaguely in his direction.
"For your shirt," she said, as if it were obvious. "I've cried all over it."
He wondered why she hadn't removed herself from his person, but when he looked down, he saw that his hands rested on the top of her thighs, close to her hips, one smooth motion from her arse. He hadn't realized he'd done it, but he could hardly move them now, lest he draw attention to this unintentional slip in intimacy they ought not be sharing.
"I didn't mean to cry like that. I—tend to cry when I'm overwhelmed and that was, well. I never expected to have the option." She looked down at her left arm. "I'd accepted it. I was fine with it. Really, I was. You saw, what am I saying, of course you know. You probably know better than Harry and Ron. But, well. I—you're giving me a choice."
"Am I to surmise that you're not furious with me?"
"Furious? Why would I be furious?"
"It was rather presumptuous."
She seemed to consider that, consider him. One of her hands found his on the top of her thigh. She smiled.
"It's hardly your worst quality. For example, your propensity for hair straightening charms…"
A playful squeeze at her hip felt natural, smile breaking across his face as he pulled her closer, tighter against his lap. He did it before he'd even considered the consequences of having her so close. But she kept smiling at him, a faint pink spreading across the apples of her cheeks.
"I wanted you to have the option," he said, voice dropping. He could be quiet with his words; so close, they needn't travel very far. "When I saw you standing in the drawing room, back in April, accepting it. It was—honestly the most incredible thing I've ever seen. I started brewing that night."
That close, when her eyes widened, he saw not only a deep, expressive brown, but a mahogany blended with umber, swirled with chestnut, copper, russet, and bronze, as complex and confusing as the witch they belonged to.
"You've been working on an experimental potion"—a swallow—"since April?"
"I really wanted you to have the choice."
"Why?"
She'd barely asked: a whisper.
"I think if anyone deserves to move on, fully move on, from—all that. It's got to be Hermione Granger, doesn't it?"
She sat close enough that when her eyes moved this time, a flick towards his own arm, his left arm, he didn't miss that either. She looked back at him a split second later, regret seeping from between streaks of copper and bronze inside her eyes. He didn't mind, didn't begrudge her for it. He hated the thing, too.
"Thank you, Draco," she said. "Honestly. I'm speechless."
He smirked, trying to force something normal, something simple, something easy, into a situation where Hermione Granger straddled his lap on an antique sofa in his flat. He'd wanked to far less than that.
"Speechless? Never thought I'd see the day."
She rolled her eyes, smiling.
All the moments before that. All the errant impulses to touch or taste or kiss her. They all paled in comparison to this. Those moments contained barely a fraction of the want barreling through him with those lips, so close to his, stretched into a beautiful smile. It twisted inside him, pulling him apart at the seams, shredding every thread of self-control he thought he might have left.
"Granger," he said.
"Hermione."
"What?"
"If you're going to kiss me, you should call me Hermione."
He swallowed, panic strangling him. She'd just—said that, hadn't she? He would have laughed at her Gryffindor tendencies if it hadn't so utterly paralyzed him.
"You are, aren't you?" she asked, an edge of self-consciousness creeping into her tone.
"Yes, I am," he managed. He could taste his heartbeat, thudding against the back of his throat.
She slid a hand along the side of his neck, up into the back of his hair. He closed his eyes, just for a moment, staving off a sensory overload.
She whispered his name, syllables he could inhale by proximity. He opened his eyes, long enough to orient himself, and brought their lips together in what he might have called an impulse had he not fantasized about it, wanted it for so long.
He pulled her closer, savoring the brief but staggering sensation of finally crossing the event horizon, slipping into a black hole together. The kiss flashed, fleeting, and ended far too soon. Warm, soft lips, lightning in his blood, relief on the surface of his skin. He held her against his chest, forehead against hers.
"Merlin," he breathed, and saying it brushed their lips together again, giving him the distinct, erogenous pleasure of watching her eyelids flutter.
She leaned back, pulled away, and stood.
He absolutely had an erection and she had to have noticed. But she just kept staring at his face. He didn't move, effectively melted into the sofa by a firestorm named Hermione Granger.
"I need to go," she said.
And he agreed. If for no other reason than his self-control had already been ripped to tatters by an overwhelming want of her. She'd just cried for several minutes and then let him kiss her. Those things, they should not interact, overlap. He didn't want finally knowing what it was like to kiss her to be tainted by a lingering sadness. He'd had one, brief and beautiful, and it would have to be enough for now.
She reached for the potion and her bag, pausing at the Floo. He could hear the heaviness in her breath.
"I was planning on going by myself," she said. "But—if you're available. I was wondering. I could use a date for Harry's wedding—"
"Yes."
He'd go to Harry Potter's wedding ten times over if it meant going with her.
She smiled.
"Good. Ok. Yes, well. It's just after the New Year. I'll, um. I'll owl you the details."
And before either of them could say—or do—anything else, she vanished through the Floo.
Draco wasn't entirely confident he had a perfect grasp on reality in the span of seconds after she'd left. But he was fairly certain he now had a date with Hermione Granger.
He watched the second hand on the clock again. It felt unreal, as if he'd stumbled into a formerly unknowable version of a future where Hermione had just straddled his lap and kissed him before asking him on a date.
He summoned the book she'd given him, almost entirely forgotten on the tabletop while he'd descended into a panic about his potion. He ripped the wrapping away and examined the cover.
The Count of Monte Cristo.
He'd never heard of it. Not altogether surprising; she'd said it was muggle. With a shrug, he flipped it open to find her name written inside the front cover. It was a child's penmanship, shaky and slow, but clearly done with care and precision. He could imagine her, a younger version of the woman he'd just had in his home, marking this book as her own, claiming the thing with her name.
He wondered where she'd written her name on his body, because she must have. She had to have done it, snuck her name on him somewhere, if the rush behind his ribs bore any indication.