Author's Note: I want to thank Mightbewriting and Icepower55 for helping me get this chapter out, for talking me through my many meltdowns, and for teaching me so much about writing. I can't say enough about how lovely and amazing they are. Both have stories out, so if you haven't read them GO DO THAT! :D

For everyone who left comments, liked, followed, and favorited, I can't thank you enough for sticking with me and providing unbelievable support. As always, comments, criticisms, and predictions are ALWAYS welcome here. Hang out with me on tumblr if you're there. Mightbewriting made a pretty for this chapter and I'm in awe of it 3

Until next time lovelies!
Endless_musings

Secrets of the Moon
Chapter 7

The Floo spat them onto the Persian carpet in Draco's study. Mere days ago, she'd been enthralled by Malfoy Manor. Now, woven within the carpet fibers and memorialized in the moving portraits, she saw only spilled blood, a mausoleum of privilege erected from violence.

Draco spun her, long fingers still secured around her wrist like a cuff, and the tip of her nose nearly collided with his chest. With his free hand, Draco lifted her face, and from this angle— staring up at the sharp curve of his jaw—the menacing potential in their size discrepancy felt all the more threatening.

Hermione watched as a war suspended in his grey irises—anger and guilt, fire and ice—melding and churning. She stiffened, held her breath and waited to see which won. Then, all at once, his face lost any trace of discernible emotion.

Grey eyes became a void. His face pinched, tight and severe, features turned to marble all except for the brief flare of his nostrils.

"This isn't how I anticipated telling you." His voice may as well have been made of marble too.

Her own anger—which she'd momentarily forgotten while watching the dance of emotion in his eyes—surged against his clinical tone, a flood of heat and tar scorching her insides in protest of his hollow-sounding words.

Hermione yanked her wrist away, much to her wolf's dismay, and put a step of space between them, crossing her arms to refrain from shaking his humanity loose from wherever he'd concealed it.

"And how exactly, did you anticipate telling me?" She asked, not because she particularly cared about the answer—she didn't think so, at least—but because she'd much rather fight against fire than ice.

"Telling you that I used to take orders from a sociopath intent on systemically ridding the world of muggles doesn't exactly lend itself to appropriate introductory conversation, does it?"

His flat delivery made her jaw snap shut so hard the sound reverberated in her eardrums. "You never actually anticipated telling me."

"The only thing I didn't anticipate was Potter telling you over a cup of coffee." She could almost hear his sneer, trapped just below the stony plane of his face. "I had planned to tell you. Eventually. You'll have to excuse me if I've been too caught up dealing with your being so utterly afraid of everything."

The bite behind his words bore deeper without any facial expression to temper it. No charming smirk to indicate his teasing, no quirked eyebrow to show his disdain. Not even a pursing of lips, nor a sucking of teeth.

She thought about lying, declaring I wasn't afraid, in the same indignant tone she reserved for arguments she'd already lost. But Draco wasn't human. He'd smell the bitterness of her lies.

Draco clasped his hands behind his back. "Well, get on with it. I'm sure you have questions. You always do."

Hermione stiffened, her previous bravado peeling from her inflamed bones, the fur beneath her skin coming to heel, leaving behind only a bewildering disorganization of thoughts: confusion steeped in rage.

But why exactly was she angry? It was hard to remember while breathing in Draco's scent—burnt pine and heady musk. She tried to think back to Harry's warning, his admission of Draco's participation in the war: The Malfoy family is cunning and manipulative... self-serving... power-hungry.

Hermione followed that trail of anger, followed its fire down her veins to its root, and at its birthplace, she found a question: What if she weren't pure? She'd never know if her mother had been more wolf than woman, or if she even wielded magic. And what of her father? Had he just been another lowly muggle?

And would this have made her unworthy of her own magic in Draco Malfoy's eyes? Would he have called her nasty names as a child, and fought for her death as an adult?

Hermione felt like a fraud surrounded by the ancestral grandeur of Malfoy Manor. Unlike Draco, she'd never have the privilege of answering questions about her bloodline—her ancestors weren't moving in golden picture frames on the walls of her cabin. Her ancestors were all dead.

Between Draco's questionable past and his absurd interest in her future, he bewildered Hermione to the point of madness. Because all this time Draco—charming, protective, handsome Draco—had made her feel as though she belonged, made magic so accessible, shattered doors and reached out his hand to pull her through. She'd followed, put aside her reservations and trusted, for once. But his life had proved him capable of hatred, and as he stood before her now, he still proved capable of hiding away his humanity with cruel precision, at the very least.

"Well?" Draco shifted, breaking the spell of her jumbled thoughts.

Well. Where did one reasonably begin when accusing an alpha of committing hate crimes and of manipulating her for reasons he'd yet to share?

Draco took another step closer and leaned over her, consuming her personal space, breathing ice against her neck.

"You were a Death Eater," Hermione began, trying to hide the wobble of her tone behind false confidence.

"That's not a question." Draco released another breath, this one coating her forehead, sliding down her nose, disappearing against her lips. "You know I was."

"And you fought for Voldemort."

"Yes."

"Why?"

He didn't want to answer, that much was obvious from his clenched fists, so tight she feared she'd soon smell blood. "It was best for the pack."

"And for yourself?"

"I always do what's in the best interest of the pack," he said, his voice an insidious parasite sliding over her skin, leaching warmth from her spine.

Her anger made her relentless. She toed closer, stealing another inch of space between them, and asked, "Even when it goes against your personal beliefs?"

"It rarely does."

The air soured a touch, spilled milk left in the sun too long. Hermione's nose crinkled.

"But you defected—Harry said you spied for the Order."

"I did." Clipped. Controlled.

"But why?"

"I've already told you the driving motivation behind my decisions."

For a moment, her anger flared in riotous waves at his inability to sound even remotely apologetic. "So you didn't actually care about what the Order was fighting for?"

Leading the witness, her wolf said in a low, bored tone between her ears.

Draco didn't respond. Rather, his eyes scanned her face. She remembered a white wolf in the forest; his eyes had demanded control and order, both of which she still refused to give.

Their minutes-long staring contest ended with his simple analysis: "You haven't asked the questions you really want to."

Her tongue felt dry as she clicked it against the roof of her mouth. "You've barely answered the ones I have asked—"

"But you've already learned this all from Potter. I don't understand why you're—" his mouth locked shut before he completed his thought. His eyes narrowed, still actively searching hers. Evidently, he'd found something interesting, because his face flashed with an emotion she couldn't place. "You don't like my answers."

Hermione huffed, nails elongating slightly, digging into her thigh. The audacity of this man, to think his monotone words and clinical answers could suffice what she needed.

His eyes remained fixed on her. "Why keep asking questions if you know you aren't going to like my responses?"

Now, she nearly laughed. Nearly launched into a comprehensive explanation of what being a lawyer meant, how her whole life was always tied to a series of questions: those she could answer, those she couldn't, those that, with the right manipulation, could win battles—none of which relied upon whether she'd particularly liked the answers.

"I'm giving you the chance to defend yourself."

He took a step back then—a harsh, sudden movement, almost a stumble—neither graceful nor poised. Her face felt bare without his breath suspended over her skin, her only reminder he was, in fact, living behind his statuesque coldness.

He closed his eyes, taking a small, shuddering breath, and she could sense him trying to maintain control. "I can't defend any part of my past actions. Not a single solitary decision, and I won't pretend to make justifications so you can feel better in my presence."

Her lips parted. It was an unexpected answer, to be sure, not an apology, rather, a statement that may have caused whispers in a courtroom. But it still lacked the pain or anger or guilt—any feeling at all—that she wanted, no needed, to see.

Her patience snapped. Hermione closed the last inch of space between them and pressed a finger to his heart, continuing to blow on charcoal and wishing for ignition.

"Why did you take the dark mark?"

"I wanted to."

The air turned rancid.

"You expect me to believe that?"

Her words finally caused a spark in his eyes, a brief flash. A brief victory. Instinct asked her to remove her finger from his chest, but when she tried, his hand wrapped around her wrist, locking her into place and introducing a new ingredient to her already overflowing brew of anger and confusion: longing.

His tone turned low and steely, and she felt the words in his chest as he spoke. "Are you entitled to more?"

Each fiber of her muscles rattled beneath her skin, and if she could have launched forward and grabbed his neck, she might have. But her chest already nearly touched his, and her wolf— awake and shouting commands in her ears—warned, you're threatening an alpha.

"If you could simply be honest with me about your past. Help me understand."

Hermione continued to stare. As though if she just looked at the patch of skin under his jaw long enough, or perhaps figured out the precise degree to which his eyelashes curled, she'd crack the code, break through. Find life beneath marble.

Brought to her edge by his tight-lipped silence, she finally asked the question she hated to admit bothered her most: "What's in this for you?"

Her question shocked him; she could see it in the way his pupils enlarged, and his breathing quickened. Apparently, he hadn't anticipated this either.

"Excuse me?"

Hermione simply lifted a brow, as if to say, you heard me.

He straightened his shoulders, and her finger fell from his chest. "This case is very important to the pack-"

Bitterness infiltrated the air.

"If this were just about the bloody case, you would have sent me maps and legal documents and met with me once a week and been done with it, like all my other clients. You've known me less than a week and yet you're already obsessively focused on helping me." She waited for a response that didn't come. "Well?"

He remained silent.

Angrier now, she demanded, "What's in this for you?"

Her words were met with more silence. Not even a twitch of his lip nor eyes.

The room blurred in her rage.

"Right." She ripped off the cloak he'd gifted her and threw it on the couch. "I've had enough of this."

Storming over to the fireplace, she eyed the bowl of floo powder. How hard could it be? The magic in her veins burned against the underside of her skin, fueled by a rage she hadn't allowed herself to feel in years. She grabbed a fistful of powder, just as she'd seen Draco do numerous times. See? She wasn't afraid of everything.

"Wait—" he said, long legs carrying him forward, arms outstretched as though to catch a falling glass.

"Hermione Granger's house!" She yelled, and she threw down the powder using every ounce of confusion and hurt and untamed magic that longed for release.

A green light surged around her, the familiar stretch of her body winding through soot-filled space, and maybe even time, before tossing her into her living room.

A moment later, her fireplace whirred, and Draco, looking newly disheveled, his hair tousled, and robes astray, took a hard step toward her, old floorboards creaking under his weight.

"Are you mad? You could have hurt yourself."

A bitter, exasperated noise caught in Hermione's tightening airways. "Why do you care?"

Before she could find his eyes, his face contorted and he looked down at the worn throw rug. "You're my responsibility—"

"Responsibility?" For however soft her voice sounded, it could have broken ceramic. She feared that if she yelled, she'd finally lose control of her beast. "You think I'm your responsibility? I don't know anything about what your intentions are for me, or why you've decided to help me when my blood may well be as impure as those you wished dead. And you think I'm your responsibility?"

Draco took another step toward her, but the move looked more like a reflex he immediately regretted making.

"Without my assistance you would have continued to live in fear—"

"The only thing I'm afraid of right now is you!"

The room drained of air. He opened his mouth, words balancing on his tongue, half-formed and nearly visible. The skin around his eyes creased— a wince?—but he chose to keep his lips pressed into a thin line.

"You have nothing to say for yourself?"

So soft that she wondered if the words had even been meant for her at all, Draco said, "I can't answer in the way you want me to."

"No, you can answer. You just won't. You're hiding—"

"Fine. I won't. What difference does it make?"

Everything, Hermione almost screamed. Her bones shook. Her house, which normally provided comfort, felt stifling; the stagnant air pinched her skin, and the walls felt too small to contain both her and Draco. The roof may well have touched her hair, and the floorboards pressed upwards against her legs.

"Get out of my house."

"Hermione, please—"

"Leave. Now."

The greys of his eyes were swallowed by the black expanse of rapidly growing pupils, magma breaking ice. And finally, he chose anger. Inches from his face, she could see the beast in his eyes, untamed and hungry.

She felt his hot breath enter her own lungs as he said, "You can't order me to do anything."

"Only one of us can release our wolf." Hermione rolled her shoulders, and a bone in her neck cracked. "I'm not in your pack. I'm certainly not your responsibility. And I'm ordering you to leave."

For a moment, it looked like he would refuse her request. Neither moved. His eyes, finally freed and alight with craving, roved her body, dared her to embrace the dangerous current lingering in their air around them. He looked torn, suspended between beast and man. She continued allowing her blood to boil, remaining mere moments from transformation, her beast pressed against the underside of her skin, bones ready to break free.

There was, however, no need. Draco reached for a sack of floo powder in his pocket and, without turning his back, eyes always hunting, took two steps toward the fireplace.

When he left, the heat drained from the room and the walls seemed to grow, towering over her once more. She heard nothing but the wild thrumming of her heartbeat and the uncomfortable sensation of her blood on the precipice of transformation.

Unable to ignore the voice in her head screaming for release, Hermione ran toward the door, unbuttoning her blouse and tugging off pant legs as the forest entered her vision. Bones cracked. Teeth elongated. Fur burst through flesh.

Whether trying to escape her overwhelming anger or forget her confusion, it didn't matter; without her permission, her human emotions followed her deep into the woods.

Over the next two days, several owl's arrived, each carrying a letter (or two, or four) addressed to her.

When the first owl rapt at her window, she'd been intrigued, having never before been so close to the beautiful creatures. It's feathers were jet black, eyes perfect circles, reminiscent of a full moon. The owl carried a rolled up parchment in its talons, her first indication that it was not a simple woodland creature.

She cracked the window, and the bird swooped in, landing on her coffee table. She took the parchment, fingers lightly tracing the exaggerated cursive scrawl, and unsealed the emerald green wax with shaking hands.

Dear Hermione,

I'd like to discuss our disagreement at greater length if you'd please allow me

another chance...She groaned, and the owl edged away from her, large eyes distrusting of the strangled noise that escaped her throat.

She looked at the unblinking creature, its body inert. Waiting. How did one reasonably send an owl away? Was she supposed to direct it somewhere?

"Er-go home," she motioned her hand toward the window, "shoo."

The owl flew into her kitchen.

Her bare feet smacked against the cold wooden floors as she followed. "Am I required to feed you, or something?"

When the owl didn't respond, unblinking moon eyes still passing judgment of her, she laughed to herself. Talking to an owl. Her life had spiraled into an unmanageable disaster.

She opened her refrigerator and pulled out a leftover piece of roast. The owl chirped, taking the meat, then looked back at her expectantly.

"I'm not responding to him, if that's what you're waiting for." She crossed her arms, as if to show the creature her resolve. Draco had his chance to speak, and he'd chosen instead to turn into a statue - albeit a beautiful one, reminiscent of those in museums - but glacial nonetheless.

Whether the owl understood her or not, she'd never know, because it chose that moment to extend its wings and exit her home. She shut the window behind it in swift victory.

Her interactions with the second, third, and tenth owls did not prove nearly as charming.

They knocked at her windows, waking her during the early hours of morning. They tapped in incessant rhythmic clicks against the glass. They dropped Draco's letters—each sealed with emerald green wax, and written upon in lovely, looping script—at her doorways and down her chimney.

The correspondence stopped sounding cordial after the first two letters. The next few started: "DO NOT USE YOUR WAND. It's dangerous without training..."

Another simply said: "I'll send Potter over to retrieve your wand if you do not..."

And her personal favorite: "I'm looking for a new lawyer to represent me. Effective immediately."

The sixth owl found her at work, tapping on the conference room window during a meeting.

"Would you look at that, a real owl!" Her client—a middle aged man divorcing his wife and refusing to pay alimony—interrupted her.

"Yes, would you look at that." She tried to act shocked but ended up sounding angrier than anything else. The glances she'd gotten when she far too violently closed the curtains made the rest of her meeting awkward.

Work, outside of frequent owl interruptions, wasn't going any better. Each time she opened the files on Malfoy's case, she became too furious to concentrate. She'd hardly been able to look at a map or deed before her brain descended toward madness.

How dare he be so arrogant.

He's an alpha, her wolf chastised, as if that were a good enough reason to warrant such behavior.

How dare he not explain his beliefs before entangling her in his world.

Did you give him a fair chance to explain? Her wolf scorned, much to Hermione's irritation, and she very much hoped that the temperature of her boiling blood gave her wolf a heat stroke.

How dare he hide his emotions from her, after she'd practically begged for them.

There are healthier ways you two could have released your anger, her wolf admonished and then started the mental onslaught: flashes of pale skin under her hands, warm breath against her neck. Images that made her wolf grin. Images that prompted Hermione to shut Malfoy's case file, burying it under stacks of books, not to be touched for the remainder of the day. Or week. Or perhaps year, if Draco was really searching for a new lawyer.

The night that the twelfth—or maybe it was the thirteenth?—owl rapt at her living room window, awaking her at a time meant only for the most nocturnal of creatures, she couldn't drag herself back to bed. When she finally managed to usher the owl out, only after parting with her last piece of an exquisitely aged Comté, she lay on the couch. Thoroughly exhausted, she ran her hands over the envelope, debating whether she should even bother opening it.

The loneliness in her chest wanted to read his words, to see them carefully spelled out against parchment meant for her eyes only. To hear him beg her for another chance.

Her anger wanted to watch the paper dissolve into flame, to forget the last week and return to a time of relative normalcy. To before Draco Malfoy hunted her. To before she'd let her curiosity get the best of her. To before she'd betrayed her biological mother's one-sided oath; stay hidden, and safe.

Her eyes cast toward her wand, where it still rested on her coffee table, untouched in the days after her fight. And while she longed for befores, and debated on whether to read the letter or burn it, her eyelids, heavy after two restless nights, closed without her consent.

Her dreams transported her to Draco's office; this time the lights remained dimmed, and his scent—that strong, undeniable, delicious pine infused musk— coated the air. She followed it, wanting to be nearer to the source, to feel it against her skin. Her blood sang in rhythmic lullabies, warmth pooling at the junction of her thighs as her bare feet padded toward the pull of Draco's alluring tenor: Come. Closer.

The room blurred at the edges of her vision, a haziness overtaking the room; The furniture shimmered, taking on an ethereal quality that threatened to dissolve at any moment. She floated toward the sounds coming from his hidden library. Toward him. She stepped through the archway. A growl. A gasp of breath. A slap of skin.

A woman's moan.

Anger replaced the swelling heat in Hermione's core. She raised her wand, eyes focused on the smooth back of the woman straddling Draco, his arms wrapped around her waist, her black bob bouncing, the leather couch bowing under their weight. Sparks flew.

A loud crash pulled Hermione from her dream. Sweat plastered curls to her forehead, and she sat straight, breath catching as her surroundings crystalized. Back in her cabin. Alone. Electricity sparked up her arm; her eyes followed the feeling past her elbow, down to her wrist.

Her wand twitched in her fingers. Its tip pointed at the carpet, where her coffee table once stood. Now, there lay nothing more than a broken ceramic mug, its contents spilled on an old throw rug. A wooden miniature of her table sat in its place. She rolled forward and kneeled, placing the comically small piece of furniture in her palm.

Lovely.

Bloody lovely.

She placed the shrunken coffee table back on the rug, in hopes that whatever nonsense she'd caused would reverse itself by morning.

It didn't.

And so, by the third day since her fight with Draco, a particularly long and terrible day that culminated in her crying on the commute home, a day where she grasped at the fraying ends of her rope, there came a knock at her door while she prepared dinner. Not the typical click of talons or beaks, but a hard, sturdy fist against solid wood.

She turned off the stove and placed her knife on the chopping board.

Another knock, this one followed by a deep voice that penetrated the door.

"Hermione, we need to talk."

She walked to the door, arm outstretched, pressing her fingers against the wood with a sigh. An odd, weightless sensation replaced the tightness in her chest, nearly making her feel sick.

"I already gave you an opportunity to defend yourself," she breathed against the oak, hoping the sound carried enough so he could hear.

"You did. And I feel I wasted my opportunity."

"For once, we're in agreement."

A pause, followed by a thump on the upper part of the door. His forehead, perhaps?

"Please, I ask only for one more chance to explain myself." A pause. "I know you're curious."

Her curiosity. A weapon he'd wielded against her before. She turned and pressed her back against the thin barrier separating them. Barring him out, or keeping herself in, she didn't know. She squeezed her eyes shut.

Let him in.

"Go away, Draco."

She heard his weight shift, the creaking porch revealing his movement toward the stairs. Toward the drive. Away, just as she'd commanded.

She heard him take the first two stairs, the wood groaning in rickety gasps under his muscular frame. Then, his voice, carrying an uncharacteristic tumble of strangled words, called out, "Do you really think I'd hurt you?"

He sounded raw, freshly gutted, belly slashed and contents spilled on her drive. The weightless sensation in her stomach plummeted, landing below her gut with heavy absolution. Guilt dictated she open the door and correct the man who'd delivered such broken words to her front porch.

She pulled the door open, leaning against the frame, fingers clutching the wood like a shield. "I never said that."

He swallowed. "I believe you explicitly said you were afraid of me. That you believe my intentions are to hurt you was heavily implied."

Hermione could read Draco's nervous energy from where she stood, his face unmasked but weary. It shocked her to see that he did not wear the stark dress clothes he presented to the rest of the world. Instead, he wore a forest green knit sweater and dark slacks. The hair on his jaw had grown, its light shadow smoothing the sharp angles of his face.

The look was decidedly less polished. Her wolf approved, and loath as she felt to admit it, so did she.

"Only because you won't tell me what your intentions actually are."

"Do I need a reason to want to help?"

"No. But you have one."

His eyes darkened. Heart quickened. Confirmation.

Hermione continued, "And I assume since you're groveling at my doorstep, you've conceded to share it with me?"

Draco leapt onto the porch, his long legs easily clearing both stairs, his brows lifted and face a touch more hopeful. "I have a proposition—if you'll allow me."

When she whispered, "You have five minutes," she blamed her curiosity, her own scapegoat in the name of bad decisions, the trait Draco already learned to wield against her.

"Redecorating?" Draco arched a brow, tilting his head toward the floor where her miniature table all but disappeared against the patterned rug.

Hermione opened and closed her mouth, cheeks flushing with heat, a far too common occurrence in his presence. "An accident," she said, determined not to let her gaze flit toward the wand on her bookshelf.

His lips quirked downward. "You could have been hurt."

"So you've said."

With all the charm Draco possessed, she struggled to discern between the pining of her animal side and his natural magnetism. Was that genuine worry in his eyes, or practiced entrapment? Even more concerning, with the last rays of sun trickling into the cabin, the picture of Draco—wearing casual clothes, arm resting along the back of her worn leather couch—felt somehow intimate.

"I'm not good at this," Draco finally said.

"I'm not looking for good," she answered. "Just honest."

"But you deserve good." He rubbed a hand down his face. "It's been a long time since I've had to explain myself to anyone. First and foremost, I cannot change my past. And I haven't quite squared away that part of my life as is, so I don't expect there is much I can say to prove my feelings of guilt," he held up a hand when he saw her lips parting. "Guilt that I've very much earned." As he stared at her, weariness tugged the corners of his lips, pulling lines across his forehead, aging him with the weight of his admission. "It's hard for me to talk with others. But I think you understand that. Having to figure out who you are at our age, it feels lonely."

Hermione ingested his words, feeling their truth resonate in the marrow of her bones. She nodded for him to continue.

"When Potter told you, about me, about my past, before I had the chance to for myself I"–he seemed to struggle with choosing the precise word –"panicked."

"You became inhuman. You lied," Hermione corrected. He winced, his arm falling off the back of the sofa and into his lap.

"I'm not looking for sympathy, though regrettably, I still haven't figured out a way to answer you—"

"Why not?"

Draco shifted his eyes toward the tiny coffee table. "It's too soon."

Somewhere in her house, a clock chimed; six bell tolls. "Your proposition, Draco? Your five minutes are nearly up."

"What if"—he cringed, and restarted, turning his body so his knees faced hers—"Could you go on just a bit longer without knowing what my exact intentions are...if I promise there's an answer coming soon?"

His eyes passed over her deepening frown, and he quickly added, "I'll answer anything else you want, about my past or otherwise."

"How long do I have to wait?"

He shook his head and repeated, "It's too soon. There are other things I want you to learn, to see, before you can understand."

"And in the meantime, I have no reason to fear you?"

"Of course not."

The air, a heavy mixture of his pine scent and her vanilla lotion, turned vinegary and acidic.

Draco flinched. "It's not what you think. I... I've had a tendency to hurt things. People. The words will smell of lies, even when I mean them not to."

And without him explaining, she understood. As a symptom of their condition, Draco could never promise goodness. Neither could she; daily she caused harm by way of omitting truth, by concealing the danger that lived beneath her skin. Her breath hitched, and Draco's heartbeat, normally a steady rhythmic lullaby that faded into the background, sputtered in wait for her response.

"What I can promise"— Draco hurried over the words— "is to never intentionally cause you harm."

Hermione sunk into the weathered cushions, staring at the ceiling and waiting for the sour scent to dissipate. Weighing his words, weighing her options. One moment turned into several before she broke the strained silence. "So, I take it you haven't actually been looking for a new lawyer?"

Draco's shoulders relaxed, releasing a tension in his spine that she hadn't been aware of; his arm lifted to rest once more on the back of the couch, his ears tinged a soft pink, and the motion felt so entirely human, she smiled.

"Funny enough, I'm having trouble finding a muggle lawyer who will agree to work with a werewolf." His tone was dry, but his eyes beamed. "Besides, any lawyer who can get a confession from me, isn't easily replaced."

"I haven't gotten one out of you yet," she corrected.

"You're so very close, though."

"Your five minutes are up."

He stood, straightening his sweater—out of vain habit, she was sure—and he took a step toward the fireplace. "I'll be here tomorrow morning to retrieve you."

"Retrieve me?"

"To practice your magic. We've lost three whole days."

Draco tilted his head, and his smirk–the one that sent her dreams into overdrive, slowly, beguilingly, methodically–unfurled on his face. He shook out floo powder into his palm.

"Wait, Draco," Hermione said, just before he'd thrown the powder against her hearth. "Could you, um—" she motioned her hand toward the tiny coffee table.

His brow lifted, and she could see playful tension around his eyes. "Looks like you need to learn the engorgement charm. Such a pity it's a bit advanced—we won't be there in our lessons for at least a few weeks."

"But—"

Draco disappeared in a puff of green smoke, leaving Hermione to stare in abject resentment at her tiny coffee table. She was left to face the overwhelming prospect that she would never again return to the normalcy of life before Draco Malfoy.