September
tick tock
The eighth room in the guest hall tried to kill him. Not so much in the way that several of the rooms had quite literally tried to kill him. But more in the sense that his heart might collapse in on itself, the first stage of a supernova, before exploding outward in an eruptive display of his cosmic quantities of stress. It was the second to last room left to tackle, and it had belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange during the war. Draco's skin crawled just looking at the door, imagining the things inside.
And Hermione—in all her stubborn, symbolic, ruthless wisdom—made it abundantly clear from the moment he told her who the room belonged to that it was hers to handle, and hers alone. Draco had been relegated, with confident reassurances and a kiss for good measure, to practicing his Patronus as he waited, with horrifying anticipation, for something to go wrong.
Dark and ominous and filled to the brim with red runes and haunting memories, Bellatrix's room stole every happy memory Draco might have used to cast a Patronus. But Hermione insisted he practice, that she could—and should—do her job without him. That didn't stop the paranoia, or the creeping edge of unease that inched its way over cursed carpets and expensive tiles.
He hated trying to find a way to conjure a Patronus while watching as Hermione tackled Bellatrix's room and all its looming threats.
"It won't work if you let yourself get so agitated," Hermione said, placing a hand on his forearm after he, yet again, failed to cast the charm. He hadn't so much as managed a feeble mote of light in nearly a month, worry derailing him. For her part, Hermione seemed too calm, too eerily unaffected by working, day in and day out, in a room steeped in so much dark magic that it nearly choked the breath right out of him.
"I'm not agitated. I'm fine." He shrugged away from her touch and immediately missed the contact. He'd been allowed in the room as she worked, a compromise to calm nerves that simply could not handle having her out of his sight. Not here.
She considered him for a moment, curiosity crawling across her face, before she came to a decision. She stepped closer, slipping her arms around his midsection and forcing him to face her in a loose hug. He let his wand arm drop, resting it atop her shoulder with a sigh.
"Draco. It's clearly not fine."
Normally, she knew when to push and when not to. In this instance, he wished she hadn't. But she offered him closeness and affection in the middle of the workday, which meant that her concern stemmed from something deeper than mere curiosity. He'd acted out of sorts enough for her to abandon her sensible working morals in favor of his needs.
He held her closer.
"I just wish you were done with this room so I can lock it and have Theo come over and ward it. I don't like you working in here."
She stiffened in his arms.
"This is my job and I'm fully capable of handling it."
"I know. That doesn't mean I like it. Everything about Aunt Bella gets under my skin. I want to be done with her. And I don't want you to get hurt in the process."
Her grip around his torso tipped towards painful as she squeezed, briefly, before letting her arms drop. She stepped back, out of his reach, watching him with her brows drawn together, lips pursed.
Her head swiveled, taking in the dark, mostly empty room around them as if for the first time.
"I didn't let her win, remember? It's just a room."
He grimaced.
"Then shouldn't I be allowed to help?"
"I expected it to be worse, honestly," she said with a shrug, not answering his question. He wondered if she thought avoiding the flaws in her logic could vanish them from existence, evanescos for her inconsistencies. Although, he supposed if ever there was a point where one's logic should break down, the border of madness Bellatrix so skillfully straddled would be it.
"Did she spend much time here?" Hermione asked, another direction, another diversion, another deflection.
"I don't think so."
She crossed her arms, pivoting in a slow circle. Unlike many of the other rooms in the guest hall, and quite contrary to Draco's expectations, this one had been in relatively good condition when Hermione began, apart from the swath of red warning runes. The furniture bore no signs of recent reductos and subsequent reconfigurations. The wood paneled walls had no scorch marks that scarred so many of the other rooms. Even the window dressings remained intact, although they did have an inclination towards suffocation that Draco found both unpleasant and alarming when Hermione encountered them for the first time.
When she turned to face him again, she tilted her head, annoyance melting from her features.
"I have my sleeves pushed up today," she said.
And she did; her cream colored jumper must have overheated her, and she'd shoved the sleeves above her elbows. His gaze flickered to her left forearm.
"I can have my sleeves pushed up, and it doesn't bother either of us," she continued. She took in the room again. "It's rather nice to be able to do it in here, in a way."
She brought her hands to her mouth. For a terrifying moment, heart jumping to the back of Draco's throat, he thought she might be crying. But the sound that escaped from behind her hand was more of a giggle, shoulders shaking as she tried to hold it in.
"Are you—" he tried to start, not knowing if he meant to end that statement with okay, losing it, or something else entirely.
"I think you've corrupted me," she said through a laugh, finally dropping her hand and allowing herself the amusement.
Draco's entire body tensed, a flare of hot fear slingshotting from his chest to his throat. He'd what?
"No—I'm sorry, don't look so shocked. I only meant—" she said, breaking off as she wrangled her giggles, shaking her head as if to shake off her unwanted mood. "I was just trying to think of a way for this room to be less awful, and the first thing that popped into my head was that we should have sex in her bed."
Draco had never been so stunned in his life.
Had she learned how to cast a wandless, wordless stupefy? He didn't know if he could move his limbs, engage his breathing, pick his jaw up off the floor.
She bit her lip, barely stifling another giggle.
"I know. It's so silly and immature. It was just the first thing I thought of. Probably because that's a lot of what I think of—you. You've really invaded my thoughts, you know. But"—a pause, a mournful glance at Draco, then the bed—"we can't. I am working, after all."
Draco dragged himself out of his shock, disturbingly aroused in such a vile place. He pulled out his pocket watch.
"The workday is nearly done," he said, lifting a brow at her.
She shook her head, smiling. He didn't miss the flicker of indecision as it sparked to life, burned bright, and then fizzled on her features.
"You're very attractive. And very convincing. But realistically, I don't think there's a cleansing charm strong enough to convince me to touch her bed."
She pulled up her runes, easily transitioning back to her work, as if the air between them hadn't just nearly ignited from the sudden sexual tension. Though he couldn't disagree with her; as poetic as the fuck you to aunt Bella might have been, Draco didn't much enjoy the idea of touching her bed, either.
Sighing, he thought of Sarajevo and tried to cast a Patronus, failing each and every time.
—
"Are you really not going to tell me what we're doing?" Hermione asked as she stepped into his flat on the evening of her birthday. Conveniently, Hermione's birthday fell on a Friday this year, which meant Draco had the opportunity to plan a full evening, assume an overnight stay, and then enjoy an entire Saturday in her company.
She brushed a few shimmering cinders mixed with Floo powder from her dress: a pretty purple thing that Draco had never seen before. She absently twisted a sleek curl around her finger before tucking it behind her ear. Briefly, she patted at the back of her head to assess the twisted updo she'd forced most of her normally wild hair into.
"Is that a new dress?" he asked in lieu of actually answering her question. He stepped forward and kissed her cheek, lingering when her hands found his waist, her breath catching. He felt her skin warm beneath his lips.
She nodded as he shifted, dropping closer to her ear. "You look beautiful," he said, savoring the way her fingers tightened their grip on his shirt before he stepped back. "But no, I won't be telling you."
She pouted, an edge of wariness peeking through.
"I don't love surprises," she said, words slow, cautious.
"You already know we're going to dinner. Can a man not at least keep the destination a mystery? I can guarantee there will be no huge surprises, nothing grand or extensive, per your request. And I can absolutely guarantee there will be no jewelry involved."
She laughed in a surprised burst, eyes widening as she lifted a hand to her lips, face blushing prettily at her slip.
Draco smiled, reaching for her hand, absently drawing patterns against her skin with his thumb. "You might recall, it didn't go very well last time." He kissed her before her embarrassment had a chance to grow. She sighed against him. That simple act, that acceptance, that giving in, ignited a warm and comforting glow inside his chest.
"I suppose it didn't," she said as they broke apart, yet lingered close.
Draco could have laughed, his turn to appreciate understatement. Instead, he found himself idly playing with her fingers.
"I will give you more jewelry one day," he said, releasing her hand. He kissed her cheekbone. "Expensive jewelry." He wound his hand in her hair. "Heirloom jewelry." He kissed the corner of her lips. "Meaningful jewelry." He let his fingers dance down the line of her spine. "But tonight," he paused, listening for the sound of her breathing, which he was fairly certain had ceased altogether in the anticipation he cultivated. "The only thing you get from me is a lovely dinner."
She released a breath in a small whoosh. His own lungs contracted, heart hammering behind his ribs.
"If I didn't know better, Draco Malfoy, I might think you're trying to make me fall in love with you."
Her words were quiet, eyes locked to his as they hovered close together, in an orbit that could end in a kiss or oblivion, perhaps a combination of both.
"You're a clever witch," he said. "I'm sure you already know that's exactly what I'm doing."
—
The zucchini blossoms weren't as offensive this time around. In fact, they were rather lovely, delicious and reminiscent of his absurd experience the last time he'd been to this restaurant with her. He couldn't help but find amusement in it.
Hermione sipped her wine, smiling at him as the candlelight flickered and danced across her skin.
"I didn't have you pegged as the sentimental sort," she said between bites of their appetizer. "But it's rather nice."
Draco scoffed.
"I am not sentimental."
Hermione tilted her head, watching him with a faint, calculating smile playing at her lips. He saw several thoughts, several questions, wind their way through her features before she finally settled on one. He savored that anticipation, waiting for her to choose her words, knowing she'd challenge him in some way, or surprise him with something thoughtful or extraordinary.
"Why did you choose this restaurant, then?"
A simple question. An easy answer.
"It felt appropriate. And—I value appreciating the pleasant moments in my life, few and far between as they may be."
"That is…nearly a textbook definition of sentimental," she said, distracting him from what might have been a rebuttal by running her foot along his calf beneath the table. That certainly hadn't been an activity on the menu the last time they were here. Then, quieter: "When we ate here, that was a pleasant moment for you?"
"Excluding the part where you'd been injured, yes."
She hummed in agreement.
"The injury wasn't ideal."
"But it was"—he drummed his fingers on the table, a split-second of indecision over his words—"almost like a first date. Accidental, of course."
Her foot, which had been gliding up and down his leg, froze. She blinked, a smirk twitching into her expression, and then resumed her movements, reaching for her wine again.
"I wondered," she said after a sip. "There were moments—that evening. Sitting here. With you. It felt like it might be something of a date in a strange way."
Draco slid his hand across the embroidered tablecloth, seeking hers. Had they not been sequestered in a tiny, dim corner booth, such a public display of affection might have made him uneasy. But in what felt like relative privacy, he pulled her hand to the center of the table, where he gripped it, leaning forward.
He dropped a kiss to each of her fingertips, enjoying the way her gaze darkened, eyes fixated on his every movement as she spoke again.
"But you were betrothed then, so I knew it wasn't really."
He hummed against her knuckle, thumb tracing the tendons up the back of her hand.
"And now I'm not."
"Now you're not."
He brought her hand back down to the tabletop, still absently tracing her skin, addicted to the comfort of contact.
"You won't be again, will you?" she asked, fingers twisting and flexing within his.
Draco let out a small laugh. "It took Lucius nearly a year to negotiate that contract."
"It's been nearly a year since you broke it."
"That's not what I meant," he said, squeezing her hand when he felt her pulling away from him. "He won't. He wouldn't—Hermione, it's your birthday. Let me make this a lovely night for you. Don't worry about things that won't happen."
She nodded, but he could see a flicker of concern stashed out of sight, dashing in and out of his periphery. She worried—about many things, he knew—and this now, among them. He tried to corral the concern in a different direction, send it elsewhere, lull it to sleep for the evening.
Draco tried to lure it away with expensive wine and rich entrees; he tried to coax it into submission with casual, affectionate touches and dessert so sweet he could taste it on her tongue when they kissed, stealthily and silently, while waiting for their bill.
And when he still sensed that tiny flicker of unease winding through her thoughts, her evening, he resolved to banish it through sheer devotion, determined that if he could not wine and dine her worries away, he could show her with his hands and his mouth: a lovely counterbalance between her head and his heart.
The purple dress had been lovely, but it looked best on his bedroom floor. For as much work as he assumed she put into taming her curls into a smooth, elegant updo for her birthday, Draco much preferred the sight of her hair fanning out around her head, wild and untamed. He preferred to lose himself in those curls, tangling his hands in them as she threw her head back against his pillows, mouth dropped open, cries of pleasure falling from her throat.
Draco loved her brain, he really did. He loved being surprised by it, impressed by it, turned on by it. But there was an extra bolt of love and lust he got from seeing it shut down completely: the woman beneath him reduced to whimpering rapid, broken chants that alternated his name with affirmations of her desire.
In these blinking moments where she stopped thinking and merely existed, she surrendered so much of herself. He knew, even if she hadn't said it yet, that his devotion was not one-sided. He knew that this overwhelming thing he'd decided to call love, this thing that scraped and clawed at the inside of his chest, this thing that fought so hard for proximity to her, did so because it knew her as well as it knew itself.
—
It took an embarrassing amount of self-control for Draco to pull himself from bed the next morning. His incentives to remain between the sheets were high, what with a naked, beautifully disheveled Hermione Granger sleeping there. But he'd foregone dinner with his parents the evening before and to miss breakfast the next day would raise several questions he had no interest in answering.
He felt reasonably confident Hermione wouldn't even note his absence. Considering how late they'd stayed awake—a mess of lips and limbs, thoroughly exhausted—the note he'd left beside her pillow felt superfluous.
He allowed himself one grossly self-indulgent look at her before he left, chest cavity tight, constricting. Blue-tinted early morning light trickled through his bedroom curtains, gently illuminating the sleeping woman wrapped in his sheets. There was something so light, something so bright, something so distinctly not dark about it, that as Draco slipped out of his bedroom he couldn't quite shake the dream-like sensation, the unreality of his life.
The manor had a habit of returning him, forcibly and unkindly, to reality.
His mother fussed over the efficacy of his ironing charms, dissatisfied with the single crease along the shoulder that he'd missed. He pointedly did not mention that he'd hastily pulled this particular oxford from where it lay draped across a settee, forgotten, where Hermione undressed him the night before.
His father pushed for more details surrounding Draco's investment account, a line of questioning ever increasing in frequency as his numbers continued to stall, and worse, dwindle. Not even Blaise's interference, helpful as it had been, could turn his holding's downward trajectory around quickly enough to escape Lucius's notice.
Over a soft-boiled egg, Draco offered the most bland, perfunctory responses he could muster, lacking both the motivation and skill to dissect the complicated interplay between supply, demand, international trade markets, and exchange rates, especially at barely half eight in the morning.
Further, he simply did not care. And for the first time, he got the sense that Lucius realized it, too, a sneer pulling at his lips as he reached for his copy of the Daily Prophet and abandoned their obligatory morning conversation.
Narcissa smiled at Draco over her tea, the kind of empty, sad smile he interpreted as her wish to understand why her breakfasts had taken a turn towards unpleasantness over these last several months.
But she didn't really want to know; Draco knew she didn't. The answer likely still lay sound asleep, naked and thoroughly fucked, in his bed.
Which brought him to the question Hermione had planted inside his head. When he took her worry, banished it with hot kisses against her neck and thrusts so deep that his vision spun with each drag and pull, he'd simply siphoned it into his own mind instead. He'd sucked the poison from her blood, but taken in too much himself, new concerns burning his bloodstream.
Draco sliced a melon on his plate, careful to ensure his silver made neither scrape nor scratch against the china. He speared the fruit, dread gathering in his stomach. He noticed his mother's eyes following him, and he knew he had to ask.
"Father," he began, proud he did not flinch when Lucius flipped his paper down to look at him. He wondered when he had last voluntarily initiated a conversation with his father over a meal. Their breakfasts and dinners had been so quiet, so stunted, so choked by rampant omission that he'd nearly forgotten what his own initiative looked like, a perpendicular angle jutting away from his avoidance.
Lucius inhaled through his nose, nostrils flaring: the only indication that Draco had been heard at all.
"I was wondering if you were currently engaged in or"—a fumble with his words, confidence melting under Lucius's stare—"were intending on engaging in any further marriage contract negotiations on my behalf."
Forgetting he already had a piece of melon on his fork, Draco stabbed another onto it, taking a reluctant bite, chewing, swallowing, and then setting his jaw, all in the time it took for Lucius to decide whether or not he would answer.
"They have been unsuccessful thus far," he finally said.
Something in Draco's chest dropped to his stomach, cold anxiety winding and curling, latching onto every nerve it could find.
"Why do you ask, darling?" Narcissa asked from across the table, a curious, almost-hopeful lilt to her words.
He hadn't thought this far ahead, hadn't entirely considered the consequences of broaching such a fraught subject so openly. He'd mostly noted the line between Hermione's brows, the hint of possession in her tone, and sought to do anything, everything to eliminate her worry.
He cleared his throat.
"I would prefer"—he tried not to cringe—"if you did not." The words felt wrong, off, too formal or maybe not formal enough. "Please," he tried again. "Don't."
"Don't what?" Lucius asked, paper crinkling in his hands where he'd started to form a fist. "Don't provide for the future of this family? That is my role, Draco. And this is yours."
Draco couldn't look at him. Perhaps foolishly, he pleaded to his mother's sensibilities instead.
"It wasn't just that it was Astoria," he said, realizing too late that if anyone would have sympathy for the implosion of his betrothal to Astoria, Narcissa Malfoy would not be that person. She'd had to survive the initial impact damage, after all. "It was more...all of it," he finished lamely. Neither of them would understand.
"Is there a girl?" Lucius asked suddenly, rough and demanding.
Draco didn't hesitate to consider his response.
"No." It was the easiest lie he'd ever told his father. Not out of shame, or guilt, or regret, or all of the many other reasons he might have tried—and mostly failed—to deceive Lucius in the past, but purely out of respect for her privacy, out of a need to protect her from his family's judgement, from their wrath. "If there ever is one, though, I wouldn't want to worry."
Lucius sneered again, letting out a heavy breath.
"There is a girl," Lucius said, as if that might be the most offensive thing he could imagine over breakfast. "You're transparent, and you've been quiet, and your clothes are creased. Are you keeping her in that secret flat of yours?"
Draco placed all of his effort in not letting his fork wobble out of fury and fear as he brought another bite of melon to his mouth, forcing some measure of control into his posture. He glanced at the large grandfather clock on the opposite side of the room: nearly nine, an acceptable concluding time for breakfast.
He set his fork down, sliding his chair away from the table.
"Please do not engage in any further contract negotiations on my behalf," he said, attention focused on the ornate silver egg cup just in front of his mother's right hand. He watched as she flexed her fingers around her own fork. He couldn't bring himself to look her in the eye.
He nodded to no one in particular and excused himself, a quick pace down the manor halls and through the Floo, back to his flat where peace took precedence over decorum, over duty.
He'd said there was no girl. The easiest, boldest lie of his life. His lie greeted him as he stepped back into his bedroom, still curled beneath his covers, a book propped open in her hands, and a wide smile offered freely upon his return. Of course there was a girl. A woman. The girl. The woman.
And he couldn't imagine how there could ever be any other.