March

tick tock

"I'm not allowed to kiss you while you're working, but you're allowed to teach me how to cast a Patronus in the middle of the workday?" Draco asked through a clenched jaw, resisting the desire to throw his wand at the wall.

It took nearly all of February, but they'd managed to clear the entire first guest room of its dark magic, cursed objects, and general disarray, righting it into a reasonably pleasant looking space once more.

The second room didn't provide nearly the same challenge; this led to a strange sort of multitasking wherein Hermione worked through her decommissioning while simultaneously instructing Draco on how to cast a Patronus in what had to be her swottiest, most frustrating tone. If he didn't want to kiss her so badly most of the time, he might try jinxing her.

Casting a Patronus was an impossible task and he'd never be able to do it.

She adamantly refused to accept this fact. Every time he tried to tell her as much, her eyes grew wide and round and looked oh-so-disheartened that he'd stopped insisting and instead just played along.

He wouldn't mind being able to cast a Patronus. He just knew that the Dark Mark on his arm represented more than a very, very bad decision. It spoke to the content of his soul, the magic in his blood. It put him squarely in a subset of the population that didn't have the right stuff inside them to cast magic so helplessly dependent on joy.

"I'm still working. And you're not focusing. You barely even did the wand movements."

Maybe he could get away with sending a tiny tripping jinx her way. And then he could catch her, and kiss her, and map every inch of her skin with his mouth.

"Hermione—"

She paused, several glowing yellow runes floating near her face.

"I don't want to hear it today, Draco. I know you can do this. You're excellent with charms, and you have a unicorn hair wand for Merlin's sake."

She kept reminding him of that, as if his wand core alone told her everything she needed to know about the types of magic he could and could not do.

She returned to work on a cursed settee with barely a second glance. He rolled his eyes, fingers flexing around his wand. All his failed magic exhausted him, leaving him annoyed and frustrated.

Despite his persistent vexation, he enjoyed spending his days practicing magic with Hermione, casually chatting while she worked, and ever-so-rarely sneaking a kiss, even when he wanted to jinx her for correcting his technique every few minutes. Time passed in rolling waves, surging forward under the momentum of an interesting conversation or thought-spinning kiss. Dream-like. Unbelievable. Wonderful.

He focused on that: how her lips tasted, how her skin felt, how easy it was to know her now, to be with her. He'd turned into a right sop, the vast majority of his day spent orbiting this witch.

He concentrated, pulling a deep breath in through his nose. He let that feeling fill him up, lush and lovely. It felt like satin against his skin. Smelled like vanilla and amber. Tasted like apple caramel ice cream. Sounded like annoyed huffs and reluctant sighs. It looked like her.

"Expecto Patronum," he said, voice level, confident, strong.

He kept his eyes closed; he needn't open them to know that he had once again failed. He couldn't feel the magic. Or rather, he couldn't feel it in his wand. He felt it filling him up; he knew that's what it was. But no matter how hard he focused, how clear his incantation or how precise his wand movement, he couldn't convert that magic in his bones into magic in his wand, ready to defend. It kept tumbling off craggy cliffs of bad decisions, grabbed by swaths of guilt, and swallowed by shame.

He let his wand arm drop and opened his eyes. Hermione watched him.

"Any light at all?" he asked.

She nodded. "A small burst."

"Not enough."

"It takes time, Draco. It took me months—"

"When you were a teenager. I'm an adult wizard with a mastery. And I've already been practicing for almost a month."

"Would you rather go back to reading all day while I work?" she asked with a smile, teasing. She already knew the answer.

He might hate failing but he hated boredom more.

"I was researching for my potion. Now that it's done I don't need to do nearly as much reading."

She laughed like his response had been funny, the sound floating through the space between them, brushing up against him. She poked at a yellow rune with her wand and sent it to a nearby desk for analysis.

"There's always something to read," she said. "How is The Count of Monte Cristo going?"

He tried to control his reaction, not tense out of guilt. His answer was a resounding: not well.

Thankfully, she seemed too engrossed in her work to catch his beat of hesitation.

"The print is very small," he said.

He saw her wand pause, rune hovering, before she moved again.

"And how are you enjoying it?" she asked again, more careful in her wording.

"I've been getting headaches when I read it. The print is very small."

"That's not an opinion on the story."

"I think I might need reading glasses."

"Best buy some, then. You have the galleons, don't you?" She arched a brow, still watching her runes and the desk, but he could feel that her focus had shifted.

He didn't say anything.

After another beat, she cancelled her runes, waving her hand through the air where they'd been. He almost smiled at the action.

"You haven't finished it?"

"Hermione—"

"Do you not like it?"

She didn't sound angry. She sounded sad. And that was so, so much worse.

"I really do think I need reading glasses," he started, and he watched her draw breath, ready to rebut. "But, no. I'm not especially enjoying it."

"That's—oh."

"Please don't do that, Hermione—that, with the frown—don't."

What exactly had Draco become? Dismantled by a frown on a pretty witch's face? Debilitated by the idea of having disappointed her?

"It's alright," she said. "I suppose I was just hoping you'd enjoy it."

"I'll finish it. I promise I will."

"You just need glasses first?" She offered a tiny smirk and conjured her runes again.

"Truly, I might."

He felt a bit like he'd just sidestepped a potentially terrible character assassination wherein his taste in literature almost cost him the affections of the woman in front of him.

"Let me take you out tonight."

"It's a Friday."

"A reasonable day of the week to go out and socialize with one's boyfriend."

She blinked, staring at him through one of her yellow runes. For a brief, terrifying moment, he thought he'd said something wrong, offended or upset her in some way. His pulse pounded beneath his skin, uncomfortable against his collar.

He watched as the thoughts scrolling across her face coalesced into a tiny grimace.

"But I like to catch up on my reading on Fridays. Saturdays are your day. I've given you a whole day." She'd started sounding a little pitched, a little panicked, at the end of her sentence.

"And I'm extremely grateful for that," he said, stepping forward, through her runes. He'd already committed, so he doubled down. "But I want to take you out tonight. I could take you to dinner, or dancing, or both. Or what if I let you take me to one of those muggle movies you've been talking about."

He started playing with her curls as he laid out his proposition, knowing it probably wasn't fair. She'd admitted more than once that she found him distracting. It wasn't as if he could just ignore that kind of information. Nor could he deny that he enjoyed watching her react to him: hitches of breath, tides of blush, wide eyes boring into his. "Could we strike a bargain?" he asked. "Let me take you out tonight and then we could read together all day tomorrow. I'll let you catch up on everything you want to read and I'll read The Count of Monte Cristo."

She lifted a hand, trailing a path with her palm up his chest, around his neck, nails dragging through his hair. She left fire in her wake, fresh burns where sectumsempra scars used to live.

He didn't even realize he'd closed his eyes until he heard her voice and noticed he couldn't see her face, couldn't watch her lips as she spoke.

"I'd like it known that I've been swayed by the promise of a full day of reading and not your attempt to seduce me."

He opened his eyes. She stood much closer than she had a moment before. Her hand at the base of his neck dragged through his hair, sending pleasant shivers shooting down his spine.

"You're doing an excellent job with a seduction of your own, please continue."

He wouldn't have said anything if he knew she'd immediately pull her hand away, stepping back.

"I have to finish my work," she said, smile pulling at her mouth. "But I accept. We'll see a movie tonight."

He risked it, swooping in to kiss the curve of her neck, wrapping his arms around her. She laughed, swatting him; he stepped away before she could land another blow, laughing as he ran a hand through his hair.

"Excellent," he said with a grin. "I'll let you get to it then. I'll just be over here, trying to cast a Patronus, thinking about your hands. And your mouth. And that noise you make when I—"

"Draco."

—

The film turned his stomach, not totally dissimilar from a heavy and sustained dose of Occlumency. Like operating through a fog. Everything was too big and moved too quickly, and he had trouble keeping track of what he was meant to focus on when the perspective kept shifting and swooping, each time giving his insides an unpleasant lurch. It was bright and loud and overwhelming and an altogether unenjoyable experience. He could see how it might be awe-inspiring without all that—Theo would have gone mad for it—but Draco couldn't see past the nausea.

He gave up watching partway through. Instead, he angled himself so that he could watch Hermione enjoy it. This was something she did with Potter sometimes, that's what she'd told him. And now she'd shared it with Draco.

It felt oddly like a successful move on a chessboard, an infiltration behind enemy lines. Like he'd slipped past her defenses and integrated himself into her life. He wanted to learn about all the things she liked to do, big or small, and do them with her.

She seemed enthralled by the muggle entertainment: laughing when other people did, brows furrowing as the music swelled over what must have been a dramatic moment, chewing at the inside of her cheek when things grew tense. He liked watching her reactions, memorizing them, and wondering which of them he might provoke in a different set of circumstances.

What he enjoyed most about his muggle movie-going experience—apart from the end—was her hands. Her arm lay casually on the divide between their seats, begging for him to touch. With a smirk, watching as she stared at the screen ahead of them, he let his index finger trace lines on the top of her hand. He found the tips of each finger and, with the lightest touch he could manage, drew a line from her nail, to her knuckles, over the top of her hand, and to her wrist.

She didn't look at him. Didn't acknowledge him in any way. But he saw her swallow, saw her breath stutter as she inhaled. He drew circles against her wrist and runes along her forearm. He experimented with how light he could make his touch while still making contact: tiny thrills of barely-touches. He slotted his fingers between hers, savoring the span of seconds where Hermione simply closed her eyes and all Draco could hear was his heart beating in his ears. Another dream-like experience in the sharp turn his life had taken with her inclusion.

As the film finally ended and they walked quietly, hand in hand, to the apparation point in an adjacent alleyway, Hermione startled him with a thwack against his shoulder.

"You didn't even watch the movie."

The lines across her forehead said she was annoyed by that fact. The smile breaking across her lips suggested otherwise.

"You were much more interesting," he said, pulling her against him with their interlocked fingers.

"You are very distracting," she said, attempting to disentangle herself from him. She smiled as she said it, only transforming her expression into a frown once he lifted a brow.

"You've mentioned that once or twice in the past."

They could have apparated, then; they were far enough from the muggles. But Draco found he rather liked the idea of prolonging his time with her in a dark, unknown place. He stepped into her space, hands encircling her waist as he walked her backwards, against the brick wall.

He swallowed her sharp intake of breath with a kiss, one hand roaming up her side, finding her neck, her hair. She melted against him almost immediately, chest pressed against his, her hips dangerously close, too. She made a whimpering noise that shot a hunger, a need, running wild up and down his spine, gathering heat below his belt.

He let his hands slip to her sides, her hips, and then beneath her arse where he gathered her flesh in his hands and hoisted her up, closer to his height, as he pressed her firmly against the brick wall. She wrapped her legs around his waist, rocking into him on the tail end of the most beautifully strangled sound he'd ever heard slip from her mouth.

He paused, breathing heavy, head spinning from lack of oxygen and utter awe. He'd endure the boredom of a thousand muggle films if he could have the promise of this kind of kiss at the end.

He kissed her jaw and she sighed, breath spilling and shaky.

He kissed her neck, and she squirmed against him.

He kissed the hollow just above her clavicle, and her heel dug into the back of his thigh.

He kissed lower, daring, narrowly above the neckline of her blouse, on the soft skin of her chest, so close to the curve of her breast.

She whimpered again, hands flexing in his hair. He rocked his hips into hers, scalp stinging, breath heavy, brain in a haze.

She made another noise, throat exposed, head tilted towards the sky.

"Draco," she said, words sounding scraped and forced through a raw throat. He'd done that to her.

He hummed against her pulse point, savoring the rapid flutter of it against her skin, his tongue.

"We should—I mean, we shouldn't—"

He drew his head up as she tilted hers down, eye to eye. Whatever she meant to say came out soundless: a breath against his mouth as he drew her lip between his teeth. He held her tighter, fingers digging into the underside of her thighs, exposed from her dress riding up.

"We shouldn't—" she said again. "In the middle of an alley." Her words wavered, entirely unresolved.

But he agreed. Just barely.

"Not against a wall—not the first—" he said.

"Right."

She swallowed.

He struggled to breathe.

Neither of them moved.

"Come have a drink with me," he said.

Almost a question, but not quite.

"Where?"

"My flat."

"Only a drink?"

"No."

She blinked several times, perhaps not expecting that answer, or the honesty propelling it from his lungs. But something about her, especially in such close proximity to her lips and her skin, robbed him of any impulses towards dishonesty.

She nodded, slowly at first, then with more certainty. Her grip on his hair tightened again, his only warning before she kissed him again.

Hermione Granger. The Hermione Granger let him pin her against a brick wall somewhere in the middle of muggle London and snog her senseless, rocking against her like a lust-crazed teenager, and drinking in every delicious sound that spilled from her mouth.

If he didn't stop he was going to fuck her there, too.

They'd agreed on a drink. And his flat. And more.

He loosened his grip on her legs, letting out a tortured groan as she slid to the ground, dragging against his erection, a fresh bolt of bliss careening down his spine.

He cleared his throat as she smoothed her dress back down. The next moment, with a turn and a pop, they were gone.

—

For as much as Draco enjoyed seeing Hermione in his flat, he'd only managed to have her over a handful of times, opportunities constantly constrained by her packed schedule and extensive list of commitments. He'd never known anyone who went to as many book signings, brunches, and museum exhibit openings as Hermione Granger.

The first time she visited after the Potters' wedding in January, a week after their explosive kiss in the gardens, she hand-delivered a thank you card for the wedding gift she'd apparently given him co-credit for gifting. He kissed her against the kitchen cabinets, abandoning his attempts at preparing her a cup of tea and acting as a proper host. She introduced him to the rigorous schedule that ruled her life shortly after he discovered a spot behind her ear that made her arch into him with every touch of his tongue.

The second time, only days after they'd been trapped together in the guest hall, she visited on a Saturday afternoon, riled up over an argument with Ronald Weasley. Draco had been planning on snogging her for several hours. Instead, they bickered over something they agreed on; Ronald Weasley sometimes said idiotic things, including several snide comments about Draco. Evidently, Potter had let slip how he'd found them in the trapped guest room together and that had set off a rant. Even though Draco agreed with Hermione's outrage on his behalf—was touched, honestly—it didn't help her mood. Apparently, everything Draco said, in agreement with her or not, simply irritated her into an argument out of principle. Weasley apologized to Hermione the next day, and Draco learned something very important about her.

Hermione valued the power of a sincere apology.

Which was around the same time he realized that he, in all his idiocy, had not actually, ever, apologized to her for, well—anything. Everything.

He had nightmares that night for the first time in months, since moving to his own flat, probably. He dreamed of her screaming; he dreamed of her crying. He dreamed of himself, hating her.

The third time she visited, towards the end of February, he intended to apologize. Properly and completely. He intended to beg for her forgiveness and would accept whatever scraps of a relationship she'd allow him. He planned to cook her a meal, loosen his tongue and her heart with a lovely vintage of red wine. But he'd burned the food, cursing over cooking spells. She dissolved into laughter, giggling over his failed attempts at domesticity. And it was so easy to laugh with her, to sip their wine and order take away and sneak kisses in-between debates over the ideal hybridization of muggle and magical kitchen and cooking processes.

The fourth time, this time, an apology for reprehensible ideologies, horrific decision making, and several years' worth of guilt, didn't seem in the cards. Not when she pushed him against his own fireplace the moment they apparated into the living room, pretense of drinks utterly abandoned.

He could have stopped her. He could have insisted that he get his guilt off his chest, that he verbalize the things he knew she'd already forgiven him for.

But he had trouble finding the motivation for such maudlin things when her devious, delectable, daring little hands slipped to his rapidly hardening cock, palming him through his trousers.

"Fucking—Merlin, Hermione."

"Sorry," she said, lips against his neck. He buried his hands deep in her hair. Either his eyes were closed or he'd been blinded by pleasure; both seemed equally likely. "Did you actually want drinks?"

He laughed, back of his head thudding against the mantle.

"Not at all," he said. Her fingers found his belt buckle.

He leaned forward, stealing a kiss, slowing her.

"Did you want to—sit, or—we're practically inside the fireplace."

She stepped back, and he immediately regretted his words. He was an idiot. An actual, certifiable idiot who'd just blown his chances at having her touch him. Which was unfortunate, because he ached for her: desire burning up his blood, drying him out.

She raised a brow at him, a slow smirk spreading across her kiss reddened lips.

"Is this too much spontaneity for one day?" she asked, taking another step away, towards the velvet sofa. She sat, watching him, pinning him to the fireplace with her stare. "We've already deviated from my schedule once today. I certainly didn't have any of this"—a pointed look at his trousers where his interest was still very, very apparent—"on the schedule this week."

She sat, crossing her legs and lobbing a serene smile across his living room. He blinked. She was going to kill him. Undoing, indeed.

"Granger." He lost himself for a moment to the idea of her sitting and considering the best day of the week, the best time of day in between all her other responsibilities, to engage in some kind of, any kind of, physical intimacy beyond the delightfully frustrating kissing they'd been doing. "I can't decide if I want that to be a joke or not."

She didn't comment. Instead: "So. Are you in favor of or in opposition to the spontaneity?"

Only Hermione Granger could make what effectively boiled down to a sexual proposition sound like a bloody board meeting.

"In favor," he said. "Strongly in favor."

He finally moved, pushing off the fireplace and crossing the room. He dipped, leaning over her and stealing a kiss. She ran a hand along his jaw, so soft, so warm. Her fingers trailed down his throat and caught in the buttons running down the front of his shirt.

"So," she started, voice coming out shaky against his mouth. "I can touch you?"

He leaned further down, pushing her against the back of the sofa as he dropped to his knees in front of it.

"Gods yes," he nearly growled, voice roughened by the image that flared to life inside his head. He kissed the spot at the base of her throat that made her keen prettily against him, skating his hands along her sides. "But I want to touch you first."

The wobbling whimper that escaped her throat didn't sound entirely like the enthusiasm he sought. He broke them apart, leaning back against his heels, literally on his knees for her. His hands now rested on the tops of her thighs, one small movement from dipping beneath the hem of her dress.

He met her eyes, fingers dancing against her skin.

"May I?" he asked.

She nodded. Then, in a croaking voice that betrayed her nerves, "Yes."

That sound, that strangle in her throat, made something in his chest tighten: a clench behind ribs, a drop in a still pool sending waves rippling outward. He leaned forward to kiss her again, bracketed between her legs. She let out a startled breath when he looped his arms around her middle, pulling her against him, perched closer to the edge of the sofa.

His hands dipped, playing with the hem of her dress, before beginning a path beneath the fabric, up her legs, to her knickers that he quickly removed. He would make this perfect for her. He had some—enough?—experience with women to do that much. He would make her forget her nerves, wonder why she'd ever had them. He'd make her come panting his name, forgetting all the things he'd not yet sought forgiveness for, forgetting all his flaws that made this endeavor of theirs impossible, forgetting that she could have anyone and, for some reason, had picked him.

With his head between her thighs, her nails scratching against his scalp as she gripped his hair, he lost himself in the flush of red creeping up her chest. He twisted his hands in the soft fabric of her dress, bunched above her hips, anchoring him.

She flushed, panted breath growing heavier at every careful swirl and swipe of his tongue, savoring the noises he could pull from her throat: a symphony of sounds in pleasure. He loved them. Loved—this.

He groaned at a particularly rough drag of her nails, which only encouraged her more, a quiver beneath him. She arched, head thrown back: so close, so close. He disentangled a hand from the fabric of her dress, touching her, teasing her, tasting her. Under the debilitating force of his focus, determined to drive her to the edge and over it, he nearly forgot to breathe, to think. The entirety of his world had narrowed down to the feeling of her canting her hips against his mouth, stuttering breath punctuated by shattered attempts at speaking his name.

She flexed her hand in his hair again, "Like that—Draco, gods."

He watched her face tense, eyes screwed shut, mouth agape as she arched against him. He was certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he'd disassembled every last one of her nerves, lit them on fire, and repurposed them for her pleasure. He held her tight, slowing his touches, dropping kisses against the inside of her thighs as she shuddered, panting.

When she opened her eyes again—looking down at him as her hands went limp, falling from his hair—her eyes had a distinctly glassy, distant look to them. He let himself smirk, fully satisfied that he'd been able to please her.

She lifted a hand, pressed a finger against his bottom lip as she looked at him with curiosity, like perhaps she'd never really seen him before.

"Your hair," she said, voice dry and stunted. It must have looked a mess, and she was the only one he'd allow to do that.

"Your fault."

He let her pull him up, off his knees that had started to ache against the hardwood: entirely worth it.

When he kissed her again, her mouth felt different, languid and lazy in the afterglow of an orgasm. Another shape he could add to his catalogue. He kissed her, let her kiss him, let her maneuver him.

Around the time she wrapped her beautiful lips around his cock, a prettier sight than any fantasy he'd ever had, he identified a foreign feeling behind his ribs, swelling with every bob of her brilliant head, threatening to overflow.

He wound her curls around his fist, resisting the instinct to thrust into her, hips begging for movement, for agency in this endeavor. Instead, he let his head fall back, lost to soft, warm sensations that he might transmute to round, full sounds inside his mouth, his throat, his heart.

His mind ran blank, lost to the feeling of her mouth on his cock, driving away coherent thought. This—surely this—could be Patronus worthy.