A/N: Just remember, large paragraphs in italics = flashbacks

In the week that past since Draco and Hermione's kiss outside the Ministry, he had come to learn a lot about her. He learnt that the desk in her office was the most untidy desk he'd ever seen in his life, strewn with parchment, books and a mixture of stationary, but the rest of her office was immaculate. He learnt that when she found something especially funny, her cheeks would turn red and her eyes would tear up. Apart from these small little quirks, Draco discovered that she'd had three previous relationships, and that while she loved her job, she longed for more than two days of time off at a time, and had even admitted that sometimes she worried her work would be the catalyst for her being even more unable to keep the bonds of her friendships strong. He'd assured her that no matter how many hours she worked, it was clear to anyone with sight that her friends were too sappy to leave her. Throughout everything they'd learnt about each other through their conversations during coffee and lunch breaks and the odd meeting about the project they would have, one thing he didn't enjoy about Hermione still stood constant…

"Malfoy, I really don't understand why you can be so worked up about the amount of sugar I put in my coffee," Hermione said primly and put down the third empty sugar tube packet she'd just used and stirred her coffee.

"Because it's not bloody normal," Draco said and took a drink of his own.

"And what is 'bloody normal'?" She questioned.

"That would be no sugar at all."

"And that's normal because it's what you take — or don't take, at that?" She raised an eyebrow. When he nodded, she couldn't hold back her smile or contain her laugh which made him smile too even though he hid it behind his mug of coffee as he took a sip.

Today marked their first proper date together. He hadn't worked up the courage (though he'd never admit that was why) to ask her face-to-face, so when he responded to one of her notes that they frequently sent each other via owl, he added in that he would like to catch up with her outside of work and not under work circumstances. Not once did he mention the word date, nor did Hermione bring it up in her response, but said that she would love to catch up and that Saturday morning would be the perfect time to do it. So on Friday night, instead of drinking glasses of firewhiskey to celebrate the end of the week, Draco turned in for bed at a reasonable time so he could wake up on Saturday morning and mentally prepare himself for the day ahead.

After spending ten minutes deliberating over what he was meant to wear, Draco settled on a dark grey jumper and dark jeans. Half an hour later, after spending a considerable amount of time perfecting his 'messy but classy' hair style, he took the floo network to Hermione's home and arrived in her empty living room. Only when he looked at his watch did he realise how eager he'd been by arriving fifteen minutes early to when she had told him to arrive. He didn't want to take the floo home because that would show him as a fool if she had heard him arrive in the first place, but her house was so silent that he wondered if she was even home.

Three minutes passed and he stood with his hands in his pockets in the middle of her living room when he heard a thumping noise. Shrugging it off, he thought it must be her cat doing something ridiculous, and resumed staring blankly at the wall. The thumping returned and he furrowed his brows and stepped towards the archway but when he reached it, heard a hastily muttered "Shit!". He smirked and went to call out her name to announce his presence but to his surprise, in his direct line of vision was her open bedroom door, just down the hall of where the archway he was standing in was. His mouth opened to alert her that he was there but he snapped his jaw shut when he saw her walk past the door without seeing him. She was bent over trying to zip up one of her ankle boots and he realised that was probably the thumping noise he'd heard before, but looking at her boots was the last thing on his mind as he trailed his eyes up her jean-clad legs and to her torso.

Hermione was wearing nothing but a nude coloured bra and stood up straight when she accomplished zipping up her boot. Luckily for Draco (he didn't want to seem like a complete pervert on the first date), she turned away from the door and it was when he saw the bare skin of her stomach that he backtracked to standing in front of the fireplace. His eyes had widened over the discovery and he knew he'd done the right thing of moving away after only a few seconds of looking at her bare back. Deciding that now was as good a time as any, he called out her name to say that he had arrived and received back a call of, "I'll just be a minute!"

Twenty minutes later into their date, Draco started new conversation once they'd received the scones that she had ordered for them. "So, tell me. What does the average Saturday normally entail for Hermione Granger?" Draco asked as he leaned back in his chair.

"Why do you assume that I only have average Saturdays, hm?" She raised an eyebrow. "Do I not strike you to have a completely exciting life outside of work?"

Draco smirked. "Do you really want me to answer that, Granger?" He joked and received a kick to his shin under the table. He laughed and felt her feet settle, one between his foot and her other on his other side but he didn't say anything about it.

"Saturday is my day to exit my work life and re-enter the real world," she laughed softly. "I clean, organise, cook, food shop, do my laundry," she listed. "Very exciting, didn't I tell you?" She joked.

"I'd love to see how wild you get on a Sunday then," he teased.

"Ah yes, I'm a babysitter on Sundays. Incredibly wild," she rolled her eyes.

"For the Potter's kids?"

Hermione nodded. "Just James at the moment and only for a few hours in the morning. Ginny and Harry have lunch dates on Sundays but still take Albus because he has to breastfeed—"

"So they dump their kid with you?" Draco raised an eyebrow.

"They hardly dump him, Malfoy," Hermione said. "I love spending time with James and I offer to look after him. We have great fun together."

"Remind me to stay away from your house on Sundays then," he drawled and was only half-joking.

"Mm, I forgot how Draco Malfoy was scared of such terrifying things as babies," Hermione teased him right back and received a look of him narrowing his eyes at her. "Oh loosen up," she said lightly with a smile and took a scone from the plate on the middle of the table and started to spread a layer of strawberry jam on it. "What do you normally do on the weekend?" She asked once she'd added a layer of freshly whipped cream atop the jam.

It took Draco a few seconds longer to answer as his brain became muddled when he watched her move her thumb to her mouth to lick off some cream she'd gotten on it. He knew she hadn't meant to look alluring to him as she'd simply just cleaned off her finger, nor did she even realise his pause. Seeing her do that action had made Draco think about their parting kiss — more of a peck — that had occurred on the last time they'd seen each other two days previous. They had kissed behind the closed door of his office just before she'd had to leave, but after she had left it had sunk into him that what they shared together wasn't simply mutual attraction and the occasional meet-up to share coffee together. "I catch up on a lot of work," he answered her question. "A lot of things are easy to back up so the weekend is a good time for me to get everything sorted before the week starts again."

"You just do work?" She asked and he glanced up at her briefly and noticed the expression on her face. Subtle disbelief.

"Some people don't need to be surrounded by their friends to get by, Granger," Draco said and took a scone from the plate and started to spread cream and jam on it.

"I wasn't saying that—"

"But you were wondering," he said. "I sometimes visit my mother on the odd weekend," he added. "I don't spend my complete life in solitude." She didn't say anything in response and he knew that he had answered her unspoken questions. He'd known as her expression had been reminiscent of his mother whenever he said that he hadn't seen his friends in weeks or that he was spending another weekend doing work, although where Hermione kept her questions to herself, Narcissa did not and would easily express her concern, and sometimes annoyance, that he spent more time by himself than with others.

There was silence between them as they both ate their scone. He wasn't angry at her and when he stole a glance at her, she didn't look angry either. Quite the opposite really when she looked up to him and smiled when he was doing the same thing. "They're nice scones, aren't they?"

"They certainly are," he said and gave her a small smile.

The door to the cafe opened and Hermione turned and saw the person that walked in and then turned back to the table and took a bite of her scone. "You know how you told me that Harry harassed you about the two of us on New Years?" She mentioned and he nodded. "I got the same conversation."

He laughed at that and spread a bit more cream on his remaining scone. "I bet that was a fun conversation. What did he say?"

"Oh, was it ever," Hermione laughed. "He asked me if you and I were seeing each other."

Draco raised an eyebrow and ran his finger around the rim of his coffee cup, "And what did you answer?" He asked after a lengthy pause. He still didn't meet her eyes but changed his line of sight to look at the person behind the cafe counter make a coffee.

"I said that we've been seeing each other more often," Hermione said and underneath the table, he felt her move her feet from where they were pressed against his and it made him look up at her. She gave a nervous smile and brushed her fringe to the side but to no avail as it fell right back where it had been and it made his lips curve up.

"You didn't say that we're seeing each other?" He asked. "In that way," he added.

"Uh…I thought it would be imprudent of me to say yes if I didn't know the answer for sure."

Draco cursed in his head, knowing that now was as good a time as any to speak up about what he had been thinking. Over the weeks that they had been meeting up, it was clear they had both formed an attraction to each other. Although kisses had been shared between them, Draco didn't know if that was enough to classify them as being in a relationship just yet. They didn't know enough about each other yet for that to happen. "I…" He started and knew he'd have to choose his words wisely. "I don't think that we should put labels on it just yet," he said and looked at her when he heard a sigh.

Instead of it being a disappointed sigh like he thought he would end up causing, it was a sigh of relief. "I'm glad you think that too," she said and smiled. "We'll take things one step at a time. Right?"

"Right…"

—

Morning tea had easily transferred over to lunch which led into afternoon tea. Draco and Hermione were completely oblivious to the time, and for the first time in a long time, he didn't regularly look at his watch to see when he could leave. They had talked and laughed over the hours, with him even managing to say something funny enough that Hermione clutched at her stomach and then had to wipe the tears from her eyes. He couldn't remember the last time he'd smiled so genuinely as when he did looking at her.

It was when they ended up being the only patrons in the cafe that Hermione looked around. "Draco, maybe we should leave," she said. "They might want to close up." He agreed and the both of them went to the front counter and after a brief argument over who would pay, they decided to split it equally. With their wallet and purse considerably lighter after paying for the amount of food they'd eaten over the period of almost six hours, they left the cafe and he followed as she turned to the left. They fell into step together and Hermione's arm brushed his as they walked and his hand occasionally touched the side of hers every few steps. "Who would have known…" He heard her sigh and he looked at her to see the small smile on her face.

"Known what?" He questioned her.

"You know…" She said and then looked at him too. "That we'd be doing this. That we'd have sat for so long talking like we did."

He nodded and put his hands in his pockets. After they'd walked a few steps, he spoke. "You said yourself it's better not to expect things like this."

"I know, I don't mean it in a bad way," Hermione said and stopped walked and he did too. "Would you maybe like to come back to my place?" She asked. "We can maybe talk about…it." He looked at her and then down to her hands as she held them clasped together tightly and he knew that she was nervous. He didn't speak but only nodded and she gave him a small smile and walked a little further down the street until there was a side-alley they could enter without looking suspicious. She put her hand on his arm and a few seconds later, they arrived in her living room. "Please," she said and gestured to her sofa, "Sit. Would you like some tea or coffee?"

"Granger, half the liquid in my body is made out of tea and coffee after today," Draco chuckled since they had drank an awful lot of the stuff. Hermione laughed softly and sat down on her sofa after he did, and angled her body towards him with one leg bent up onto the couch.

"What I said before…" She began.

"I didn't take it as something bad," Draco said and he truly hadn't. "I would never have expected this," he gestured his hand between them, "To happen."

"That's what I was trying to say," Hermione agreed. "I didn't want it to sound like I hadn't expected it due to who we are, that's not the case at all," she said and Draco didn't respond but wanted to hear what she had to say. "Eleven or so years ago, I would never have expected us to be like this but for completely different reasons. Because of what we were to each other back then. I would have been under the impression that you only would have thought of me as another Muggleborn and like how people thought of me in school."

"A bookworm?" He said with a smirk. "Still do, Granger," he joked, wanting her to know that he wasn't taking offence from what she was saying.

She rolled her eyes and seemed a little less tense. "Back then I only based my tolerance of you, shall we say, from my knowledge of what you had been involved in," she said, choosing her words wisely. He nodded and knew it was true and found no reason to be defensive. He knew he didn't have to apologise again for what he had done years ago. "But that was eleven years ago," she said. "Now I just didn't expect it for other reasons."

"Like…?" He pushed.

"Oh I don't know. Not knowing if we would have the same interests, not knowing if we'd be able to be in the same room without having an argument—"

"We're getting better at not doing that," he chuckled.

"We are," Hermione smiled. "Before we started working together, I didn't know if you were in a relationship and you wouldn't have known if I was either. The reasons I didn't expect us to be together were just reasons that had nothing to do with how we used to see each other."

"The past is in the past."

"It is," Hermione nodded. "And while I don't like to forget certain things of the past, I know that it is something that we learn from, intentionally or not." She surprised him by letting her hand rest down on top of his that was on the couch. "You and I both know that what you did as a teenager is forgiven. When I look at you, I don't even think about who you once were. I think of you now as who you are."

He stiffened slightly at the unwanted thoughts that flickered through his mind and he almost withdrew his hand, but he persevered. Although he had looked away, he forced himself to lock eyes with her again. He knew she didn't mean it badly and he wasn't taking it badly. He knew that it was impossible for anyone to forget his past, but he was grateful that she truly had forgiven him. Their world was free of what once ran rampant during the Second Wizarding War. Neither of them had any more to fear of than the next average person on the streets, and even though thoughts of his past often plagued his mind, he had to remind himself that it was over ten years ago. Everyone had learned and moved on, especially him. As Hermione said, he had learnt from his mistakes and he was a different man because of it. While his thoughts raged on in his head, Hermione sat patient with him and only when she squeezed his fingers did he realise that he couldn't let such thoughts consume him. He gave her a small smile. "What am I now, to you?" He asked.

"I don't want to inflate your ego," Hermione joked and made him chuckle. He watched a slight blush rise on her cheeks and he realised why that was so when she shifted closer to him on the couch and leaned close to him. He twisted his body slightly to her, meaning their faces were closer together and watched her tongue slightly wet her lips. "To me, you're Draco Malfoy," she said and pressed her lips gently on his before pulling back a tad. "You're the man who used to be just another sort-of-co-worker, but you're now a friend." He closed the small gap between them and took her bottom lip between his and then kissed her firmer for a few seconds. When he pulled back he could hear her breathing and he looked her in the eyes. "Now you're the person I'm forever grateful to for helping me achieve one of my dreams," she spoke in almost a whisper. She was talking of the project, he knew, and he kissed her for another second before drawing back.

"I thought we shouldn't have labels?" He questioned softly but was beginning to think otherwise. Although they'd only had one official date didn't make Draco question his changed feelings towards her. He believed that they were genuinely friends before any of this other complicated 'feelings-business' came into the works.

Hermione's hand came up to his cheek and her thumb moved against his barely-there stubble and she leaned forward to gently press her lips to the corner of his mouth. "There's no harm in trying, right?" She asked and her lips brushed his with every syllable.

"You've never been more correct," Draco said and let his eyes close as he severed the distance between them and kissed her harder than before. Her hands rest on his shoulders, fingers curling into his shirt and he snaked his tongue out to touch her lips. She let out a breath and allowed him access and like every kiss they'd had before, he brought his hand to her cheek to pull her closer. The soft noises she made was like music to his ears and they got lost in the kiss, for how long, he didn't know.

Hermione's grip tightened on his shoulders and she pushed him gently until their lips parted. Their heavy breathing was the only sound in the room until she brushed her thumb on the corner of his lips. He knew he hadn't done anything wrong for her to draw back, because she looked just as eager as he knew he probably did, to continue. "I uh…" She began and tried to push her fringe back to no avail. "I want to keep those…things slow," she finished and her cheeks grew red in embarrassment.

"That's fine," he nodded. "I understand," he said truthfully and then gave her a soft smile which she returned.

He watched her stand up from the couch and ran her hands through her hair in attempt to tame it. "Right. Water? You'd want some water? I'll go get it," she blabbered on and then left the living room to go to her kitchen. Draco chuckled and leaned back on the sofa and relived that kiss fondly.

A/N: I'll be trying something a bit new in the next chapter with Hermione's POV (not first person). It'll just be a tester to see how you guys like it and it might stay or go. Hope you all enjoyed! Please review; it means the world to me!