Bee's Knees: A Surprise Encounter

"Thank you Granger. Cheers." Draco smiled at her and her breath caught. She could hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears. She needed to maintain calm; but, she was sure that her hands were shaking. Was this really happening?

"But I have to know, why a time turner?"hHe asked with a twinkle in his eye, his hand hanging in the air like he wanted to touch her skin, but didn't dare.

Her laughter sounded too high pitched to her, a little too manic. Why couldn't she just act normal?

"It's a bit of a long story," she replied, sipping her champagne. Cool, calm and collected, she could do this. She just needed to pretend to be Pansy. She could be sophisticated. She would not drool over his exposed chest. She would take another sip and absolutely NOT tell him that she wanted to lick his sectumsempra scars.

"We have a bottle of champagne, a wonderful view and all night, Hermione." Draco downed the last of his first glass and then moved closer to her so that he could refill it.

She blushed at his use of her first name and his eyes missed nothing. She didn't think that he was still talking about the story behind her Time Turner tattoo.

His pupils were large when she met his eyes. "So we do."

She nervously licked her lips and it seemed as though Draco couldn't take it anymore, he grabbed her waist and pulled her to him. His mouth tasted of champagne somehow sweeter than the taste she'd gotten from her glass. She dropped her glass into the water, but she didn't care. Her arms came around his neck as she kissed him back with fervour trying to put all the passion of months of waiting into the kiss. Her body was against his, the water swirled around them, the lights of Nantes all around and they moaned into each other's mouths.

"I don't know what you want me to say," Hermione said nervously, certain that her face was the colour of a tomato. Theo and Pansy's faces looked at her expectantly as though she was hiding their Christmas gifts behind her back and she sighed. She wasn't getting

"Well, Hermione," Theo smirked. "We want every single detail you gave Circe here." He waved towards the portrait, who grinned widely clearly just as interested at hearing the retelling a second time.

"And then we want every single detail that you left out." Ginny quipped, returning to the room with drinks for everyone.

Hermione swallowed, she'd heard both of the witches and the wizard in front of her give her far too many details about their love lives, but this was the first time that they had ever asked her to reciprocate. She tried to ignore the fact that this was the first (and second and third) time that she'd been intimate with anyone since before her divorce.

"What are these?" Hermione asked, desperate to change the subject.

"Bee's Knees," Ginny supplied. "Pansy and I fell in love with them on our honeymoon. It's just gin, lemon juice and an artisanal honey syrup. Really refreshing. She's charmed a flask to have a connection to a cask of the stuff in our kitchens that's under stasis charm." She handed out the soft looking drink with the little lemon peel garnishes hanging on the lip of the glass.

Hermione had not even known that she had lemons in her kitchen. Was Ginny carrying around lemons in her purse now? Marrying Pansy had really wrought some pretty posh changes in the witch that had once been happy with dive bar butterbeer.

She took a sip and thought that the change might be for the best. This really was quite good.

She bit her lip trying to think what part of her story that she should start with. Her brain swarming with tangents and the memories of Draco's lips on hers, Hermione felt as though her life had taken a very unexpected turn. Except for the whole business with the assassination attempt, she really couldn't complain. Her impromptu French holiday with Draco and Scorpius had been the stuff of Muggle romantic comedies.

"Unfortunately the pretty little ice cubes I make at home with the flowers frozen inside of them don't hold up to status charms as well as everything else," Pansy complained, running a perfectly manicured nail along the rim of her glass. She flashed Hermione a knowing look. "But don't change the subject Granger. We need to know how it was that you had your wicked way with the Prince in the grotto of bubbling water under the starlight." Circe giggled as Pansy quoted her; they really were disturbingly similar. Did wixen believe in reincarnation, because if so…

Shaking herself internally, Hermione sighed. "So I rented a holiday flat in Nantes for Draco's birthday and it had a hot tub on the balcony. It was a really beautiful view."

"It's not the view we are interested in Hermione," Theo pointed out, taking a large sip of his cocktail and making a pleased noise. "Ginevra, this is really quite good."

"I know," Ginny mouthed back at him.

"Can you please be patient?" Hermione sighed in frustration and looked over to see Circe with a glass of wine in her frame, also impatiently waiting for Hermione to tell them all exactly what had happened in the hot tub. "Andromeda had taken Scorp with her and Teddy so it was just Draco and I alone in the flat. And I opened a bottle of champagne."

"The good stuff?" Pansy asked, as though that was a critical detail. Her wife rolled her eyes and even Theo looked frustrated with the interruption.

"It was Draco's birthday, of course it was the good stuff," Hermione scoffed. "Do you want to know what happened or do you want to keep asking about unimportant minutiae?"

"Pans," Ginny said, placing a finger on her wife's lips. "I love you, but I really need you to be quiet now." Turning to look at Hermione, the redhead smiled. "Please continue, Hermione."

"I was wearing a bikini, so he saw everything," Hermione gestured over her chest. "The scars and all, but the thing he was the most interested in was my tattoo."

Poor Theo looked like not making a comment was literally killing him, so Hermione took pity on him. "Yes Theo?"

"Tattoo?" he burst out.

She touched herself just below her sternum where the tattoo was inked into her skin. "I have a Time Turner right here."

Theo only nodded and leaned back, Pansy whispered something into his ear and then made a triangle shape with her hands, holding it up to her breasts, first one then the other. Theo's eyes widened.

"Yes, I was in a bikini and no it wasn't a conservative one. In fact Pansy's hands were a little too large." Hermione made a smaller triangle over her own breast to demonstrate.

"Sweet Circe's tits," Theo breathed, earning a laugh from the portrait, who murmured something about their sweetness to herself. It clearly took the married witches in the room a massive amount of self-control not to respond. McGonagall would probably kill her if she gave them Circe's portrait as a wedding gift.

"Were you trying to kill the poor man, Hermione? Leave his son an orphan?" Theo's hand was to his heart, his drink in the air, oozing pure melodrama and then he shook himself. "Oh excuse my interruption, carry on." He waved at her to continue and she wasn't sure if she wanted to scream or laugh.

Hermione rubbed at her face, probably smearing her eyeshadow and took a sip of the cocktail in her hand. She almost wished that she had a Pensieve, but that was maybe more than she needed to share even with her three closest friends.

Hermione's fingers tangled in Draco's pale damp hair which was just as soft as she had always imagined that it would be. His lips were even softer. She was melting into him and he was just as desperate to touch her as she had been him. She nipped his lip and he moaned again into her mouth.

His hand coasted over her jawline and cheek. His touch was so delicate that it felt positively worshipful. She had closed her eyes as they kissed, but now opened them to find him staring at her in undisguised adoration. She'd never seen a man look at her like that, not even her ex-husband. She pushed all thoughts of Ron away, refusing to let him sour what was turning out to be a wonderful night.

"Draco," she breathed his name when he pulled back from their kiss to get a breath of air. "I've been wanting you to do that for a long time."

"Have you?" Draco ran his thumb over her lower lip. "If I'm being honest, I've wanted to do that since the day you took Scorp and I to look at schools in Muggle London, or maybe even the day that you lent me milk."

"So much lost time to make up for," she muttered and then she kissed him again, allowing her body to fully sink onto him despite her buoyancy in the water. Hermione hissed in surprise when she felt the ridge of his hardness beneath her. "Fuck, Draco."

"Hermione Granger, fucking you is the last thing I want to do," he whispered, before kissing her neck and working his way up to the shell of her ear with his tongue. "I want to end my birthday buried so deeply inside you that you can't do anything but accept the fact that you are my witch from now on."

"Possessive are we, Malfoy?" she asked flirtatiously.

"You have no idea," he practically growled as he kissed her, his tongue delving into her mouth as his hands pulled all kinds of moans from Hermione's lips.

"It's been a long time for me," she whispered against his lips.

"I haven't since I found out we were expecting Scorpius." Draco stroked her back and hair. "I might embarrass myself horribly. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I don't think that I have ever wanted anyone more than I want you right now," Hermione breathlessly confessed.

"Oh, thank the stars," he declared as his lips lingered just a breath about hers for far too long.

So this time Hermione closed the distance and kissed him.

"Technically he started it, but Theo was right that I was teasing him a bit. I wanted him to lose some of his cool and show me what was going on underneath all that aristocratic hauteur he wears all the time. I honestly wasn't sure whether he really liked me until we were actually kissing."

"You weren't sure if he liked you?" Pansy spluttered. "Granger, he spent most of my wedding ceremony staring at you! How could you even doubt it?"

"My brother gave her low self-esteem because he is an unmitigated arsehole," Ginny threw in, draining her glass.

Hermione gave her a stern look, but Ginny was unswayed. "What! It's true! He was constantly putting you down and now you think somewhere inside yourself that he was right. Well, he wasn't. I think you are hot and so does Pansy. We'd date you if you liked witches."

Pansy rolled her eyes, but nodded at Hermione trying to convey her agreement with a sultry expression that included a very powerful set of "come fuck me" eyes.

"I'm pretty sure that I'm gay, but I definitely used to fantasise about you in Potions class," Theo shrugged.

"Thank you for that Theo," Pansy snorted. "I'm sure being the subject of your adolescent wanking is exactly what Granger's self-esteem needed."

"Well it actually is pretty flattering that a gay man finds me attractive, unless you are saying that because you think I'm masculine." Hermione frowned. Ron had actually accused her of that on more than one occasion.

"No, not masculine at all. You are quite feminine enough, but also I happen to know that Draco isn't into blokes, not even a little alas, so I wouldn't worry about that." Theo smiled. "But I think Draco has definitely been pining after you for a bit."

Draco?

Pining?

After her?

They had to be wrong.

Didn't they?