April
tick tock tick tock
The poached eggs, cultured butters, and sugar-crusted pastries didn't taste quite the same. They no longer offered the same richness, the same sense of familiarity, of routine, that they once had. They'd started tasting stale, boring: a repetition of the things he'd eaten his whole life, day in and day out. Made with too much butter, too much fat, too much excess emulsified into every last sauce and spread and sausage offered as a feast on a table only serving three.
Topsy and Tilly cracked in and out of the dining room, dropping off more platters and trays of fruits and pastries and eggs than his family could possibly consume in a week, let alone a single meal. His parents barely seemed to notice, hardly even blinking an eye at the sharp sound each time an elf cracked into the room with them. Once Draco noticed it, realized just how often the elves came and went, tending to their juice glasses, tea temperatures, and errant crumbs, he couldn't tear his eyes and ears from the intrusion they caused, the unending labor they provided. Hermione had wholly and truly invaded his brain, carved sympathy for these creatures that his parents barely even noticed.
He frowned at his porridge. He didn't want to have this taken away from him, too. He'd lost his beliefs, his enchantment with his family home, could he not at least keep an innocent companionship with the elves? They weren't even bound to the grounds anymore; they stayed of their own free will, however much of it they had left.
Everything about this routine meal with his parents felt excessively complicated, overly traditional and steeped in elf magic: anachronistic in every sense.
He stared into his porridge.
They still hadn't talked about her. Hadn't so much as broached the subject. It had started driving him a little mad. Their first meal together after Hermione informed him of her run-in with Narcissa had been a test, an experiment to determine how far they were willing to stretch their adamant insistence that she simply didn't exist. Each day since—five of them now—had become another of several heavy, hard hammered nails in coffins containing his hope for them.
His mother said something about having taken tea with Sakura Parkinson the day before. Narcissa's shoulders, arms, wrists, and fingers all moved in a stiff, unnatural way as she spoke, pointedly making eye contact with Draco, forcing dialogue. The one-way conversation stalled, then swelled again when she mentioned another friend, someone whose name he couldn't bring himself to retain.
Panic surged when she mentioned her friend's daughter, who had made an inquiry after him.
"Isn't that lovely, Draco? A fine, pureblood witch who'd be amenable to your courtship? I've invited her to tea next week; I was hoping you might make room in your schedule for an additional visit with us."
Pinpricks raced up Draco's spine. A rush of cold immediately followed by a flare of heat: anger in sensation, if not name.
"Excuse me?"
His mother blinked, fork paused halfway between her plate and her mouth. She tilted her head just enough to convey she hadn't expected his tone.
He hadn't expected it either, but the bite ripped through his throat with a force he had no intention of controlling.
"Tea, next week," she repeated, placing her fork back down on her plate. At the head of the table, Draco heard his father fold and place his copy of the Prophet aside.
"Are you mad?"
"What do you mean, darling?"
Her question sounded so innocent, so uninformed, as if she had no idea what she was doing. But her eyes hardened to sapphires, solidified by a desperation to withstand whatever he intended to put her through.
More than that, she silently begged. He could see it in the twitch at the corner of her mouth, in the tension settling around her eyes, in the way her palms had flattened against the tablecloth.
"I'm not having tea with your friend's unattached daughter."
"She's training to be a healer. Very intelligent. And their family isn't so appalled by the Malfoy name—they're open to the idea of you as a suitable match—"
"—Mother—"
"—She's bright, lovely, and I'm told she plays the piano just beautifully—"
"—Mother—"
"—And I'd dare say we aren't exactly in a position to decline such a potentially advantageous—"
"—I am. In a position to decline. Because I'm living with my girlfriend."
Tilly cracked into the room with such startling force that unwarranted images of splinchings flitted through Draco's brain. Even Narcissa recoiled at the sound. Tilly placed a tray of croissants in the center of the table and disappeared again.
Everything seemed to collapse: the mood in the room, his mother's face, the sham Draco had been calling optimism.
The strange dream-like quality of their breakfasts shifted, warped into something closer to a nightmare.
Slowly, Narcissa pushed her plate away. Barely an inch, but enough to signal her distaste, the souring of her appetite. The hurt hidden in her gaze hit significantly harder than the anger and the frustration simmering beneath it. Narcissa wore her disappointment, anger, betrayal, and sadness like diamonds: precious, multifaceted stones with several hard edges. Beautiful, but unyielding.
"As this is the first I'm hearing of this from you, my son, you can imagine my surprise."
"You aren't surprised, Mother. I know you spoke to Hermione last week. And it isn't as if I didn't tell you about her at Christmas. You've just been doing this"—a broken, pleading sort of gesture at the buffet between them—"whatever this is."
"You will not speak to your mother in that tone."
Draco's attention snapped to the head of the table, where Lucius had issued his command. For the first time in several meals spent together, Draco looked his father in the eye, matching grey for grey, each as unyielding as galvanized steel.
Draco set his jaw. Excluding how horrible it all was, he found something distinctly surreal in the avoidant extremes his parents engaged in to pretend his decisions didn't exist—at least, not the ones they disagreed with.
"What tone?" He volleyed his dissent right back at his father, not quite a backhand, but with enough force to move the ball back in Lucius's court. "One that asks her to respect my relationship?"
"Relationship?" Lucius's tone cut Draco down in an instant. They weren't playing a game, volleying points back and forth to come to an understanding. Lucius had issued an edict, and he expected Draco's compliance. No conversation. No disagreement. And certainly no resistance. "It is one thing to—exercise a bit of distasteful rebellion. But to invite her into your home, Draco? It's unseemly. It will damage your reputation if it gets out."
Draco's spine met the back of his chair, every muscle in his torso painfully tensed by a fresh crest of anger, carrying with it disbelief. Waves of disappointment lashed at his nerve endings, as if his skin had been hit by an ennervate, suddenly awake and aware and prickling with recognition that this situation had no clean exit, no finesse-able escape.
"Gets out? Father, it's not a secret. We had a fucking housewarming party. Anyone who isn't a hermit"—a quick, flippant gesture towards Lucius—"self-imposed or otherwise, knows."
"That's enough." Lucius's cane came down on the table with a sharp crack. For a moment, Draco wondered if the force had split the wood open, either in the cane or the table. But both seemed reasonably intact when Lucius lifted the cane again.
Malfoy Manor didn't contain nearly enough tapestries to dampen the echo that rattled around the dining room: that sharp crack repeating and repeating and repeating until it was all Draco could hear, ringing in his ears.
"I have warned you," Lucius said. "We have warned you. You are making a mockery of this family and it will not be tolerated any longer. I will tell you this only once: end this dalliance, now."
The wild thumping of Draco's heart supplanted the ringing in his ears. His chest physically ached, seized and clenched and ready for a fight. Gods, he felt like he'd just dueled for his life and barely anything had happened at all, apart from the absolutely impossible order his father had just made.
Draco couldn't decide if it helped or hurt that Lucius looked equally as pained: redness climbed up his neck, jaw ground together with such force that Draco could practically hear his teeth groan in protest.
He didn't necessarily consider his next move. He employed no caution as he forced his chair away from the table and left the room: hands shaking, heart aching, head pounding.
—
Draco managed to ignore the footsteps echoing behind him right up until he opened the parlor doors, momentum delayed long enough for Narcissa to catch up to him.
"Draco, darling—"
He didn't look back—wasn't sure if he could, honestly—with his spine held so ramrod straight by tension that refused to release its grip on him. She called to him again as he reached for the Floo powder.
"Draco, please. Darling, I do not dignify begging but—I am asking, son."
Son. But what kind of son? One she could be proud of? One who'd disappointed her? One who'd tried? One who'd failed? One who'd finally attempted to be his own person, and in doing so had somehow missed the mark on becoming who his parents wanted him to be?
The anger that had carried him from dining room to Floo parlor sank into disappointment, weariness. He turned to face her, and as he released a breath, his chest finally unclenched. That type of anger simply wasn't sustainable, lest he wish for it to turn him to stone like Lucius.
"And what, exactly, are you asking?"
Narcissa's lips thinned as she considered her words, almost as if she hadn't expected to elaborate.
"Please, Draco. Consider the long-term—the generational consequences of what you're doing. The longer you entertain this, the longer you let this endeavor continue, the more painful it will be for both of you when it must end. I don't relish the idea of seeing you in pain."
Draco had never known Narcissa to look uncomfortable in her own home. Normally, she effortlessly captivated every room she occupied, a star around which expensive decor and grand architecture orbited as supporting players in her elegant game. Seeing her standing in front of him, with her arms hanging loose at her sides and genuine concern bleeding from her features, forced a sense of fallibility to the surface. He wasn't used to thinking of his mother as anything less than perfectly composed.
"Why must it end, Mother?" he asked quietly, needing to, but not wanting to wear her down any further. For as furious as she'd made him—she and Lucius—she was still his mother. And he, too, did not relish the idea of seeing her in pain. "Perhaps we will all be stuck with each other for a very long time. You and Father should find a way to accept that."
"Draco," she sighed. She closed the distance between them by half, trying. "I know such things don't register in the mind of a young man who is"—he watched her swallow, struggle against her choice of words—"in love for the first time. It is a consuming feeling, and I sympathize. But when the time comes for children—to sire an heir—Draco, you carry two pureblood lineages in your veins. That—you can't simply throw that away."
She reached up and smoothed a hand over her already perfect, silken hair. "I realize it's not ideal," she continued. "Not especially with times—with times as they are."
She stopped again. Draco had the sudden sense that he was witnessing a breakdown of her understanding of the world, and of her place in it. That same kind breakdown that ripped his thoughts, heart, and conscience to shreds while he toiled away under house arrest, studying for NEWTs and a future potions mastery in an attempt to drown out the overwhelming hypocrisy inside his own head.
She straddled a line—a crevasse—too wide for her petite frame to bridge. She wasn't built for it, raised for it, trained for it. Draco, though, he'd fallen to the bottom of it, sinking on one side before he climbed his way up the other. His mother was too battered to make such a journey. Too war worn. And she looked heartbroken, like maybe she could see the other side, or at the very least imagine it, but knew of no other path than the one she already walked. So she clung to it with everything she had, because it was, in fact, everything she had.
Draco realized that somewhere, somehow, their roles had been reversed. Perhaps by the war or by the rebuilding that came after. He used to look to her for comfort. Now though, he realized how badly she needed comfort from him.
She must have felt it, too, his slipping away. He didn't know how to give her the comfort she needed. He could not and would not lie or omit to spare her feelings; he'd already done too much of that to Hermione.
When had she gotten so small? Objectively, he knew he'd surpassed his mother's height somewhere in his fifth year. But here, now, as he stepped forward to envelope her in a hug, she felt distinctly delicate and frail against him.
Narcissa smelled like flowers every day of the week, a different perfume for each day, probably enough to fill an entire month with a garden's worth of floral notes. Today it was gardenias; he hadn't smelled that particular one on her for years. It reminded him of being a teenager, of different, younger times.
Was this what growing up felt like? Was this the moment that made him an adult? A man in his own life: comforting his mother instead of the other way around? The last time he'd truly hugged his mother had been after his release from Azkaban. She had offered him comfort, warmth, and stability after two months spent locked away, alone in a cell in the middle of an ocean. Her hug had felt like a promise that he would be alright.
He couldn't help but feel like he'd already failed to offer her the same comfort. Would everything be alright? He didn't know.
He spoke into her hair: "I'm not changing my mind."
She stiffened, but did not break from the hug, not for several more beats of her heart against his torso, out of sync with his own. When she finally pulled away, she looked around the parlor thoughtfully, brows drawn together, wandering gaze looking for—something.
"It's different in here," she said after a moment. "Nicer."
Draco knew exactly why: Hermione Granger. She had left her mark in many, many places.
"Where has your grandfather's sofa gone?"
—
Draco took a deep breath upon returning to his flat. He needed new air in his lungs, a different atmosphere. A blur of orange flashed in his periphery. Draco turned in time to see Crookshanks bolt into the kitchen. He followed, rolling his eyes as the cat stopped, turned once, and then sat with a theatrical tail swish in front of his food bowl.
"This is our Saturday routine, is it?"
Draco pulled Crookshanks's food from the cabinet and filled his bowl. He had no problem feeding the cat every Saturday morning if it meant Hermione got even a minute more sleep. She never indulged, rarely slept in, except on Saturdays, a strange twisting of his former day into a time for her to relax, unwind.
From the distinct lack of a human greeting, he suspected she still slept soundly. He glanced at the clock over the sink: barely half eight. His breakfast had been cut terribly short by—well, by all of it, by everything.
He left Crookshanks to enjoy his breakfast—one of them should, after all—and walked to the bedroom. She could have as much of Saturday for her relaxation as she wanted. He'd managed to finagle every other day of the week for himself. Suspiciously, her evenings had more time these days, too. She'd decreased the number of hours she spent at the manor into something resembling a normal work schedule.
She didn't seem to appreciate his implication that the only reason she'd worked so late in the past had been because of him. She'd flush a little bit pink, too.
He paused at the threshold to their bedroom. The creep of sunrise trickled through partly-drawn curtains on the east facing windows, casting a soft lemony glow about the space. She'd invaded the room so fully he couldn't help but marvel at the touches of red and gold warming his cool Slytherin sensibilities. The room felt still, preserved, a place out of step with time and space. Burgundy sheets, a bedside lamp with a gold base, a perpetually unused cat bed near the dresser with a Gryffindor crest embroidered on it. He'd take the admission to his grave, but here, in this stillness, this unrealness, he could admit he enjoyed the warmth of it: the warmth it brought him. He never could have imagined such a thing before she'd invaded far more than his home.
Toe to heel, he popped one of his dragonhide shoes off, discarding it by the door. He shifted his weight, toe to heel again, and kicked off the other.
Hermione released a deep, sleepy breath from the bed across from him. She looked entirely otherworldly: curls splayed away from her face where they escaped her plait, one arm tucked under her pillow as she lay on her side. The covers had slipped to her hip; she'd probably thrown them down in a particularly vicious readjustment. She ran hot when she slept and was prone to heavy tossing and turning; a less-than-ideal sleeping companion, truth be told. He didn't mind in the slightest.
He'd never seen anything more beautiful.
His father couldn't possibly understand what he demanded.
His mother mustn't know what she asked.
Draco sighed: contented, happy.
He popped the link out from his french cuffs.
Cuff links, for a breakfast on a weekend. He wondered what a breakfast routine with Hermione would look like. He imagined a much more relaxed dress code. His heart pushed against his ribs, yearning for something that simple.
He popped out the other cuff link and dropped them atop the dresser. He began unbuttoning his shirt, pausing halfway down his chest. She shifted, stirred.
Draco approached the bed. She wasn't fully awake yet, but her face lacked the total serenity it usually had when she slept, which meant the day's obligations had started making themselves known in the early morning fog inside her brain. He pulled himself onto the bed, up on his hands and knees, crawling over her.
She shifted again, eyes blinking open. Her hands found his chest as he propped himself up on one elbow. With his free hand, he wrangled her mass of freshly slept hair away from her face.
"Hi," he said.
She smiled, tired and slow, but glowing like nothing else. An entire fucking star's worth of light in his bedroom, spilling from her smile.
"Hi." She carded a hand through his hair, sending waves of relaxation rolling down his spine. "How did it go?"
He knew what she meant. She'd asked the same thing at least once a week for months now. For the first time, he could tell her, a small seedling of pride prepared to bloom in his chest.
"They've heard it from me. Definitively."
Her hands fell from his hair and his chest; she blinked several times. Surprise registered in the camera shutter technique her eyes had adopted, perhaps an attempt to memorize the moment. She rolled fully to her back, hands finding him again.
Her shock melted into a smile, an even brighter star than before.
"What did they say?"
He couldn't dim her happiness, not now. He'd told them. That they'd reacted as poorly as expected, despite his hoping otherwise, needn't ruin the day.
Draco released some of his weight from his elbow, settling more fully atop her, one leg slotted between her thighs. He knew her reaction was probably entirely reflexive, but that didn't stop his smirk as she rocked against him, just enough that he couldn't deny the motion had happened. He dropped his head to hers, nearly forehead to forehead. She flushed, just as he'd hoped. She bit her lip, arched her spine, pressed against him.
"It could have gone worse," he told her.
And that was his crime, always his crime. A lie by omission.
It could have been worse, so much worse. He could have been cursed, kicked out, disowned. But it also could have gone substantially better.
She seemed to have lost interest in her question anyway, hands finishing his remaining buttons, slipping beneath his shirt to find skin. She pushed the fabric from his shoulders. He shifted his weight, from one arm to the other, freeing himself of the shirt.
Her hands found his belt at the same time he lowered his lips to her neck, tracing the long line of her throat with his tongue.
Leather slipped through belt loops.
Air escaped lungs in panted whooshes.
Bodies pushed and pulled: desperate for contact, friction, more.
She arched her back again, more intentionally this time, core grinding down against his thigh as a tiny, broken noise found its way to the surface, traveling from somewhere deep inside her lungs to the very tip of her tongue.
She trailed her hands down his chest, and he did the same to her. Lazily, his forefinger found her bottom lip, pressing with just enough pressure to pop it free from where she'd trapped it between her teeth. He descended, over the delicate point of her chin, the underside of her jaw, following the same path down her throat that his tongue had just travelled. He paused at the hollow between her collarbones, nestled at the base of her neck. Flushes of red and pink, blood shooting to the surface of her skin, spotted her chest.
She inhaled; his palm rose with her breast bone.
He descended again, lazy fingers appreciating every inch of satiny skin he came in contact with, memorizing every pink flush and drawn out shiver.
His finger caught on the neckline of the cotton camisole she'd slept in. He pulled it taught, drawing a line between her breasts, stretching the thin straps as he forced the neckline into a vee shape. She'd stopped her own ministrations, hands falling limp at her sides in a boneless, breathless sort of way. Her chest had stilled, and Draco knew without looking that she held her breath. If he did look, he knew he'd find her eyes trained on him, daring him to make another move, desperate to know what it would be.
But Draco had already lost himself entirely to the sight of her newly exposed skin as he pulled her camisole down. He slid his finger to the side, pulling the fabric taut beneath her right breast, exposing it to their warm, Saturday morning bedroom.
She finally drew a breath, rattling through the room, echoing through his skull.
If he loved her enough, earned enough love in return, wouldn't that suffice?
Couldn't it negate everything else that said no, they couldn't have this? When it was just him, and her, and their tacky burgundy sheets, it certainly felt like it was enough.
He kissed the skin above her breast, where a purpling, mottled scar used to live, erased by the potion he'd made for her. Her hands moved again, tracing lines across his chest and torso where his own scars once thrived. This had to be enough. It had already done so much good.
"I told my mother we're stuck together, as you said. Stuck for a very long time."
He spoke directly into her pores, lips to skin.
"How long?" The question rode on a quiet gust of air, barely breathed into existence as he kissed his way down her chest.
"As long as you'll have me."
She hissed when he rolled his tongue around her nipple, hands grabbing at his shoulders, either to push him away or pull him closer, depending on the torture she preferred. He could hear the whining, pleading tone strangling her voice when she spoke.
"That's—that's a very long time."
That kind of confirmation, that she might want him as long as he wanted her, ignited a warm glow in the center of his chest. Relief and awe and wonder made a home behind his ribs.
"The rest of my life, hopefully."
He said the brave, bold words quietly, still nuzzled against her skin as he touched and teased and tried his best to show her what it might look like. He'd been unbound from just one day of the week, but could he be greedy? Could he steal whole years for himself? A lifetime?
She responded with a moan. Her fingers dug painfully in his shoulders. If he could, he'd steal several lifetimes for himself, too. Eternities.