"He funded your scar removal research and development, by the way. I don't think you knew that. I don't think anyone's ever told you." Pansy sips her black coffee, wincing at the temperature. "Anonymous donations."
Hermione's flabbergasted. No one ever has. She tries to think back, to early in her research. Kingsley had given her some financial leeway to get started with her lab. She'd ridden the openly public wave of being part of Voldemort's downfall, the Order of Merlin recipient, and taken Kingsley's offer for as long as he could provide it.
The scar removal had been a by-product of her experimentation. Something she'd tried had reduced the visibility of the scar, even though it hadn't had any effect on the internal damage. She'd been encouraged anyway and sent it to her various smaller teams of lab assistants and interns to continue testing.
Once it proved to work, a permanent scar removal of magical wounds, she'd patented it and sold it, which had funded the rest of her research up to this point. She'd always figured it was more of Kingsley's generosity that had supported the side project while it was still in development.
She'd never asked. She'd had too much else going on.
"…Why?"
"Well, it was he and Narcissa. They both felt responsible – partially responsible," Pansy clarifies, "for what happened in their Manor. I think calling attention to it made it feel disingenuous. I still wondered if word had gotten around at some point."
Hermione still can't believe it. "Why are you telling me now?"
Pansy shrugs. "I wanted you to know what kind of man he is. He's forbidden us from talking to you about him for years."
"Speaking of which," Hermione pauses to get back on track with what she'd intended to ask today, "I hope all bets are off on that account now."
Pansy shrugs again with a mischievous glint in her eye Hermione plans to take full advantage of.
"How many witches has he dated seriously? I'm not trying to be judgmental, since I've basically only got Ron in that column, but -"
Her friend tilts her head. "How to classify as 'serious'? Hmm. For Draco, probably more than a handful of dates. There have been loads of those – one-or-two-time dates, I mean. Beyond that, maybe four witches? After Hogwarts, of course."
"He knows his way around a snog," Hermione acknowledges fairly, and Pansy bursts out laughing.
"You have no idea."
Hermione lifts an eyebrow, curious, but Pansy waves her hand dismissively. "Never mind. I expect you'll find out."
"When was the last time you were with him, Pansy?"
The other witch stops to think. "Two years ago, maybe? We'd all been out drinking and ended up in bed. There were never any false pretences on my side; I've always known where he stands. So it's not like he's been celibate. He's just refused to give anyone a real chance. He's wanted no one but you."
"And Pansy, that's a lot. I meant it that I don't want to hurt him. I'm not looking for that level of relationship and he clearly is."
Pansy sets down her coffee mug a little too hard. "But why not? Was Ron so horrible? I know it didn't work out and after being together almost ten years, it's hard to swallow that people grow apart. It's lot of time and energy invested. And I know you never got the chance to have a lot of fun when we were all younger. But you could have both, now, if you let yourself be open to it."
Hermione fidgets with a stray curl and looks at over at her project wall, currently wiped clean. She decides to tell part of the truth. Not the big part, but still something that she feels.
"What hurt was that as I decided I wanted different things, it felt like Ron was… disappointed in me. Like I wasn't the person he knew, or expected, or something. Like I'd let him down by changing. And what if what Mal- Draco thinks he wants is really the girl from school fifteen years ago? That's not me anymore and there's nothing I can do about it."
Pansy looks unexpectedly encouraged by this admission and Hermione feels a wave of caution. "Well, after a few dates, he'll know, won't he? You're both adults now, so the 'you' that you are is pretty obvious, as long as you're being yourself. When are you seeing him again?"
"Tonight."
Pansy approves, clapping her hands together once. "Lovely. Now, you do like to get down to it, so there's something we should talk about. He's very direct – in bed."
Hermione shrugs. That's not a problem. So is she. Cuts out all the bumbling around. "If it's anything like how he snogs, that's perfectly fine. He can do whatever he likes."
"He likes lots of things."
"Also fine. You know this was part of the issue with Ron, towards the end. Is there anything he doesn't like that I should know about?" Having sex outdoors, potentially in public places, maybe playing around with some hot wax. Hermione had a bloke do that last month and rather liked it.
Pansy shook her head. "I doubt it. And trust me, if you like it, he'll try it."
This does not reassure Hermione in the way Pansy undoubtedly wants. More and more, she feels that no matter how good a snog he was, it's the wrong thing to lead him on – even if he knows she doesn't want anything serious. But he's an adult, too, after all, she tells herself. All she can do is continue to make her casual position plain.
"What are you wearing?" Pansy inquires innocently and Hermione matches her smirk.
"I don't know where he's taking me, which limits things a little, but -"
"It'll be nice. Start with that."
"Yes, thank you," Hermione replies dryly. "I thought I'd play it safe with that burgundy sheath dress and -"
"Ooh! The one with the small slit up the back but the enormous slit down the front?"
"Please stop interrupting. I know you're excited. And it's not an enormous slit down the front. I think that would classify it somewhat differently than a sheath dress, if I had to hold my tits in with Spellotape. It shows off a little cleavage, that's all."
Pansy looks positively devious. "That's not 'playing it safe,' either. He likes to spaff on tits. Mark that detail down."
Hermione chokes as Pansy doubles over laughing. "Excuse me? Well, noted, but presumably not in nice restaurants, at any rate. You know I'm not opposed to the practice, but I prefer to direct when it happens."
"I'm not sure that's always how it works," Pansy manages and wipes her eyes.
"Incorrect," Hermione supplies helpfully, unconcerned. Communication about spaffing is key. "Well, in the event he does do it in nice restaurants, he's probably banned from them. So is there anywhere he's been banned from? Not necessarily for spaffing on tits in public, but anything else particularly adventurous that I should know about?"
Pansy's still laughing. "Not that I know of but don't get discouraged by it. I'm sure you could convince him to do it if you'd like to be spaffed on in the loo."
Hermione's undeterred by the job of encouraging men in whatever direction she chooses. She waves this off and Pansy snorts again.
"Do tell me tomorrow whether he pays more attention to your bum or your tits. Spaffing on them aside, he's generally a 'bum' man. Wear those new shoes, the tall ones with the strap round the ankle. Your bum will look divine."
Healer Stotch has an unexpected conflict arise at St Mungo's and can't meet that afternoon. He's at a conference the next two days and they agree to reconvene with Kingsley on Thursday instead.
Hermione has mixed feelings about this. On one hand, she's increasingly certain there's nothing that can be done, nothing else that can be tried. Her crew of various mastery students, interns, and medical residents working on different components of different ideas has been whittled down over the past few weeks.
She's kept the ones whose mastery assignments and requirements align with what they're testing for her. They're still progressing, even if Hermione isn't. But she's been slowly reassigning those whose time she feels is being wasted in her private labs.
But maybe they can brainstorm something new. Who knows; maybe the conference Stotch is attending will provide a brainwave he can bring home with him.
They'd thought Dolohov's curse in the Department of Mysteries was miscast, but that wasn't the end of it. Healers at St Mungos are accustomed to seeing poorly-executed curses. The difficulty came in being unable to identify it as miscast in the first place. It didn't fit the usual expectations, even for extremely rare curses, and eventually they'd had to consider the probability that it was something new.
Dolohov was never known for his intelligence, as far as Hermione could gather. He seemed to have finagled up some sort of curse alchemy, bunging things together in a way that may or may not have even been intentional. No one had the slightest clue what he'd done or, more importantly, how to replicate it to study the effects and counteract it.
But all of that happened slowly over weeks and weeks after the battle. Madam Pomfrey had Hermione taking ten potions a day to counteract the effects and consequences, for ages. When Hermione felt well at last, the Healer shook her head and wouldn't let her discontinue the regiment yet.
"Dear, I just don't trust that it's gone. We've never seen anything like it."
It hadn't been gone, but they didn't know it at first. She'd continued with the complex potions treatment on the Healer's recommendation throughout their sixth year, hiding it from Harry and Ron. She felt weak admitting she needed something like this and Harry was of far greater concern.
Unbeknownst to her, Madam Pomfrey had Professor Slughorn work up a complicated alchemy to combine them into two single doses. It had been life-changing to reduce both the quantity and the frequency into something manageable. She was forever indebted to them both.
When they were on the run hunting Horcruxes, Hermione had been forced to stop the treatments. She'd crossed her fingers and hoped against hope that she'd been taking them long enough. That it wouldn't matter. And for a long time, things seemed alright. She'd nearly forgotten about the curse in light of the larger goings-on around them.
But one day shortly after the final battle – Madam Pomfrey's theory was that the culminating stress of that event had been the tipping point for her body's ability to sustain – she collapsed.
Hermione thanked her lucky stars that she'd been at Hogwarts when it happened. She was part of the crew trying to assess damage, envision repairs, and reopen the school. There had been damage to the hospital wing and Pomfrey had been there, too. Although the open story was that she'd fainted from a combination of exhaustion and the overwhelming emotions of the visit, the Healer had immediately suspected and re-started her treatments at once.
She's taken that two-potion combination every day since.
She keeps the bottles transfigured, hiding the magical nature of things. She's explained them to Ron and anyone else who's noticed that it's a Muggle thing, something her parents insisted upon for general good health, and Hermione continues to take it as a nostalgic sort of homage to them both. Like liquid vitamins, in her mind, even though the concept is foreign to the Wizarding world.
Most people don't notice, though. Ron and Harry did eventually, but she's never lived with anyone outside of Hogwarts. An odd person here and there, borrowing the loo when visiting at her flat, has commented. But most people gloss right by them.
Stotch thinks when the final collapse happens, it'll be just that – a collapse. Hermione hopes he's right, but that it happens in her sleep.
He admits it could be anytime, but that also means it could be two years from now. Five. Ten. He's particularly insistent that Hermione can't not live her life, just waiting for the hammer to fall.
The uncertainty of it reinforces her decision to keep it private. If people thought she might have died overnight, she'll have everybody hovering over her every day, every morning, every time she takes a bloody nap. Is she alive?
But she was sixteen in the Department of Mysteries. It's been ten years since the final battle. She's been living with this curse for a long, long time. How much more time will it give her?
Almost two years ago, after what felt like their hundredth failure in the lab and her ongoing financial resources beginning to dwindle, Hermione had begun to realise this could be it. She'd begun her internal campaign to make up for lost time, and Ron had been game for it (and its expanding parameters) until six or seven months ago.
She'd found her new explorations endlessly enjoyable. Ron, of course, hadn't. Well, maybe he did at first, but she progressed past his comfort zone. Still, while they were making it work, Hermione thought she was enjoying herself.
But wasn't that the key phrase? 'Making it work?' Forcing it into place, a job of a relationship. When it had ended, she'd felt immeasurable relief.
Then she thought she was enjoying herself with random strangers, new partners here and there, trying more new things. And no Gobstones about it, that had been fun. Loads of fun, ebbing and flowing with the partner.
Even so, she never saw them more than two or three times. She didn't want to lead any of them on and there was always another one to be found. She wasn't with them for the conversation, after all.
But now… now, after the past two weekends with Theo, Blaise, and then Malf- Draco, she's had to confront herself about a missing piece.
She is concerned by the intensity of Draco's feelings but she's aggravated anew that she even has to be.
In this regard she's frustrated by Stotch's delay, even though it's only a few days. Maybe they should bring Madam Pomfrey back into the mix; the Healer had said long ago they'd reached a level of speculation and knowledge outside her own competencies. But maybe they should be thinking outside those areas, anyway.
She's never been ready to give up. She just thought she'd been forced into a corner of having to accept it. Maybe she's not so ready to slump into that corner after all.
Even though they both work in the same vicinity – Hermione's never really sure whether to consider her place of work the Ministry or St Mungos, with her magically connecting corridor – she tells Draco to pick her up at her home instead.
The outfit she has planned is not lab-appropriate, even under a lab coat with a change of shoes. She was honest with Pansy; the dip in the neckline isn't severe, but it's more than Hermione feels comfortable with, bending over lab tables with mastery students walking in and out on a whim. Also, the slit up the side might not even be covered by her lab coat.
Also, after Pansy's talk and her initial impressions Saturday that she should have more fun with her outfit, Hermione intends to do just that.
The sheath dress is still a winner. But she's upping the ante with her heels, after Pansy mentioning that he has a particular fondness for bums. She'd been in flats Saturday and the extra boost will be helpful on the bum front. She has no idea how he feels about her hair, but to keep it out of the way of both her face and the view of her tits, she pins it back the way she did then. Out of her face, but loose down her back.
The more she thinks about it, the more Hermione's torn about including dinner in the plans at all. Her angle is 'casual,' is it not? Her sexual escapades are nearly always after pub nights with a few glasses of wine in her, sometimes a pint or two of local ale. The wining and dining feels distinctly not casual, but then again, doesn't her invitation to Thorpe Park feel the same?
No white tablecloths there, but it's the same idea. Get to know one another on purpose, outside of overturning side tables, potentially ruining sofa cushions, and giving her bed a permanent squeak when she sits on it now.
It's really quite annoying when she rolls over. She keeps reminding herself to fix it but only at two in the morning when it wakes her, and she inevitably forgets about it by the next day when she's competently awake.
So perhaps straight to bed, then. She doubts he'll notice the squeak.
With this in mind, Hermione surveys the rest of her flat. He was in it Saturday, of course, but he wasn't exactly looking around with a scrutinising eye.
Pansy's words come back to her.
('If you like it, he'll try it')
Hermione feels uncomfortable with this implication, that nothing she does could be wrong – in bed or out of it. That nothing about her could possibly be a problem in the face of his feelings. For years, she'd thought Ron viewed her that way. It had been unfair of her to take the comfort in it that she had, but it had still hurt when it had turned out to be untrue.
But she doesn't really care what Draco thinks of her, does she? She takes another assessing glance around, but she's never cared about bringing random men back to her flat. It's just that Draco comes from such wealth, his family manor, the finery.
No. She shakes her head firmly. She will not allow herself to feel lesser, here, like she's not good enough. It's ridiculous and completely against her primary aims anyway, of something casual and fun and primarily focused around spaffing – on or off her tits, she's not particular, so long as she's included in everything that leads up to it.
With this extremely confusing jumble of motivations rattling around in her brain, she hears his *crack* of Apparition outside her front door.
She answers the door and he gawps at her.
In a sudden flash, she recalls she only got one eye done of mascara before she'd gotten mentally side-tracked, but that can't be that obvious. Pansy might notice something like that, but either way, she should fix it.
"Sorry, but give me one more second, alright?" she throws over her shoulder as she rushes back towards her loo. "Come on in."
When she turns the corner, she notices from the corner of her eye that he's just now crossing the threshold into her flat, as if it took him several moments to master independent movement.
Well, now he'll have time to look around at anything he didn't notice Saturday morning. Hermione swipes the mascara on her left eye, caps it, and practically runs back to the living room. She feels a little flushed, as if caught on her back foot.
"Sorry, I'm not the kind of girl who usually makes men wait for her to finish getting ready, punctuality is a mark of respect, and -" and she still can't decide whether to just pull him right to bed.
Remembering the snog, it's more and more tempting.
Draco nearly solves this dilemma by crossing the living room in two strides and replicating it without a word.
Her knees feel weak and she finds herself partially supported by his hands around her face. His fingers tangle in her hair again, and she feels at least one of the pins harnessing it give up the ghost. His mouth opens hers confidently and her heart staggers.
His tongue swipes her lower lip and she threads her hands behind his neck in turn, letting her fingernails trace his skin absently. He gasps in some air at the sensation before diving back into her. She nips his lip and he makes that little noise, the one that – if she's being honest with herself – has replayed in her mind many times since Saturday lunch.
It's a noise of desperation, of longing, of absolute desire and she's never been on the receiving end of anything like it.
The heat rising in her continues its path, but he breaks it off, breathing hard. "And I'm not the kind who usually starts a date like that. I'm sorry. But as we'd already got that far once, and you look like this -" he scans her up and down and she feels hot all over again, "it couldn't be avoided."
Hermione likes this, too, the impression that he can't help himself. That she's that tempting.
"Well," she says, trying to catch her own breath, "I was going to suggest we skip dinner. If you're amenable."
Draco stares at her, mouth slightly agape. This sort of hesitation would remind her of their prior encounter except for the crystalline blue of his eyes and the confidence he'd just shown in snogging her.
"No," he says after a long moment of probable internal debate. "Absolutely not. I told you at lunch if I were going to do this, I'd have done it properly. I intend to, my recent lapse in decorum aside."
Hermione resigns herself to it easily enough. It's not as dinner is going to be a hardship and things already seem to be going much more easily than lunch had gone, when she was practically having to pry words from his mouth. She locates the first of her rogue hairpins and starts to wrangle it back into place.
"Alright, then. Where are you taking me?"
He's eyeing her hands oddly and says in a softer, almost tentative voice she associates more with Saturday, "You could leave it down."
Her eyes fly to his, hands mid-wrangle. He does like her hair. "Alright," she says again, "but I reserve the right to the hairpins if it starts getting in the way of the food."
"Is that likely?" Draco's eyes have a bit of sparkle to them.
"It does have a mind of its own. I'm never sure what it's going to get up to, if I'm being honest."
"Rather like its person, then, it would seem."
She enjoys the pink tinge to his cheeks when she meets his small joke. "You've no idea."
Where he takes her ends up being Fibonacci's.
At her look of surprise, he explains, "I fully intend to override each and every experience my bloody roommates did. When you think of Fibonacci's, I don't want it to be Theo Nott sitting across from you."
This sort of proprietary intent sends a little shiver down Hermione's spine and she feels that coil of heat start back up.
"And besides that, you specifically requested it at the time, which means if it isn't your favourite, it's quite close to top of the list."
Draco's been diligently keeping his eyes on her face, a welcome change from Saturday, but Hermione's a bit disappointed at his lack of open ogling. She did wear the dress for a reason. He's also been diligently keeping her in front of him, waving her through doors he holds and maintaining a general 'ladies first' sort of attitude and she has no idea whether he's been gaping at her bum from behind her.
She imagines that he has and allows herself a certain level of self-satisfaction. He did say – if not in so many words – that she was absolutely snoggable when he picked her up.
"Red or white?" he asks, referring to wine, and she goes with red. He orders a fine bottle. "What's your favourite dish here?"
While she enjoys everything on the menu, she does have a few that she gravitates towards. "Probably the tortellini. They make it with this delicious cardinale sauce with a smattering of ground Italian sausage."
He takes this under advisement and approves the bottle of wine the server presents. He motions for the server to give Hermione the small taste of it first, which she enjoys, and the server fills her glass properly.
"I didn't express it properly when I arrived, but you look lovely," Draco says as she picks up the glass. She tips it to him in thanks.
"I'm curious; I was curious before, but you've only heightened it now."
His eyebrows go up, his interest piqued.
"Do the comportment classes forced upon the adolescent Pureblood contingent only allow for certain phrases in specific situations?"
Draco looks confused. Hermione elucidates.
"You were the third in a row to tell me I look lovely at the start of a date. The consistency is hard to miss." This sequence means it was Blaise and Theo who also said it – well, no, it doesn't; she supposes she might have had several other dates between Blaise and Draco, but she didn't. Draco seems to have taken it the way she'd intended, though.
"Hopefully the first two didn't greet you like I did."
"No, that was a departure from the presumed comportment drilled into you all," Hermione agrees.
"I already admitted it was," Draco points out, scratching his chin.
"And I already admitted I didn't mind."
His eyes flash darker, but not the grey of his occlumency. "You're different than you were in school."
This is an important piece of things, and yet Hermione still feels defensive. "Well spotted."
"It's not like it's a recent observation," Draco comments mildly, but she interrupts him when he begins to go on. This conversational path makes her uncomfortable. It's enough that he knows she's not the same girl he developed a crush on in their middle teens. Her automatic flip is to put him on the spot instead.
"Why did you punch Blaise?"
As she'd hoped, this stops him short.
"He was… ah, being inappropriate."
"About me, clearly. Must have been after the official date and not the pub night, or I'd have seen it on him at dinner. But I must admit, I have a hard time picturing it."
"Which bit?" His eyes have a little of that sparkle again.
"Blaise being inappropriate."
Draco snorts. "I'll give you half credit. No, in public and around witches, Zabini is rarely lewd or vulgar. But in our own flat, I'm sure your imagination can fill in the blanks with three bachelor wizards running amok. I notice you could picture me punching him easily enough."
Hermione acknowledges the point. "More than I could envision what he said to earn it in the first place."
"It took less than you'd probably like to think," Draco mutters from behind his glass of wine.
This does nothing at all to quell her interest but he seems disinclined to provide more details. She presses her luck anyway.
"I'm a bit surprised it wasn't Theo."
"Theo who punched him, or Theo who I punched?"
She gives a light laugh. "Theo who you punched."
"Why, did he do something?" Draco's suddenly concerned.
"No, of course not. I said before, they were both perfect gentlemen. At least two of the three of you paid attention in your myriad etiquette classes. But I did wonder, because he asked me out to begin with, seeming to start the whole thing in the first place. And he did kiss me on his own, where Blaise required a bit of prompting."
Draco takes another, somewhat larger, swallow of wine, before responding.
"I didn't know what they were up to, obviously. And Theo and I did row that night. Looking back, it was clear he was trying to provoke me. He shouted that you were clearly single and if I was so determinedly refusing to do a bloody thing about it, why shouldn't he have a go? I nearly punched him but I didn't."
Hermione considers. "I figure he didn't mention that we had no chemistry whatsoever and were definitely not going out again."
Draco looks unexpectedly relieved by this and Hermione realises suddenly that he was concerned about that – that if Theo had asked her a second time, she'd have said yes.
Then Blaise technically had. Sort of. He'd made his intentions publicly clear at the pub. He'd Apparated Hermione home safely when she was drunk. No one knew what did or didn't happen there but the two of them, and then he'd taken her out the next night.
And he'd then proceeded to make a lewd – or lewdish, since even Draco admits that it hadn't been that bad – comment(s) about Hermione after the fact. So, the punch. Hermione's beginning to see more clearly.
"And Saturday morning?" she inquires. She'd asked about this before but she's putting more pieces of the puzzle together in her mind, now. She's always been insatiably curious for the whole story of things, any things. Everything.
Draco wipes a quick hand across his mouth as the server arrives with their meals. "By that time, they were both back to trying to convince me to make a move. So they both were open that they weren't taking you out again, and that I should. I was refusing. Obviously."
She gives him a minute, spearing some tortellini instead.
"I had felt bad about punching Zabini. I was saying if you wanted to go out with him again that he should take you, which was the opposite thing they wanted to hear, and we'd all devolved into another row. Pansy was there, too, but you know that. I don't know who stunned me, but it was quite a scene until then."
Hermione wishes she'd seen it. She wonders if she can convince Pansy to share the memory with her at work tomorrow. No; that was probably dishonest. She's been told enough things about Draco and his crush on her behind his back already. She regretfully dismisses the idea.
He's changing the subject, which she supposes she should grant him. It seems like they're just trading off the awkwardness, but she'd probably want a topic change in his place.
"So what are you working on lately, the great and formidable Hermione Granger?"
"You know I can't tell you," she teases lightly, but a stab of ice spikes through her stomach.
"Is it anything as world changing as the magical scar remover?"
Hermione wonders if she should tell him she knows he funded that and decides against it. He can tell her if he wants to.
"Nothing so important, unfortunately. At least not yet. I wasn't intending to create that in the first place, but that's a happy by-product of experimentation for you. Sometimes unexpected things happen."
"You weren't trying for it at all?" Draco raises his eyebrows.
"Not even a little," Hermione confirms. "But I saw the potential in something I hadn't anticipated, and it ended up being – well, what it is. And it funded my research for seven years."
His eyes narrow on her slightly. "Doesn't it still?"
She'd prefer to skim round this topic as neatly as possible. "Well, I think it's reached a point of market saturation."
"People still need it, though."
"Yes," she agrees, "but we're not at war. We're no longer recently at war. The propensity for magically-influenced scarring has dramatically reduced – which is a good thing."
He considers this for several long moments, both of them eating in silence. She can see his brain turning, though, and doesn't love it.
"So that's why you've been working less? You're short on funding?"
Bollocks.
"No," she insists, in a tone she hopes is convincing. "I've hit – a bit of a wall with my project. Projects. I'm taking some time to step back and consider next steps. There's still plenty to do without working sixty-five hours a week."
She returns the work question, something which is simultaneously appropriately polite and calculated to get the topic off her own.
Draco enjoys what he does, in Magical Sports and Games. It's both important and not at all important – in the manner of her own work, at any rate – allowing him a certain laissez-faire about the whole thing. He likes it but is not consumed by it, and Hermione has a pang of enviousness typically foreign to her.
The bottle of wine is nearly gone and he asks if she wants to split another. Hermione is torn. She'd flooded once more by her warring motivations.
She has to work tomorrow, but so does he. She's enjoying the night and wants to extend it, but why does she want to extend it? To dive into more conversation or shag him after? If it's shagging, couldn't they get right to it? One bottle is sufficient and dinner is nearly over. They do have to work tomorrow and if the shagging could get started earlier rather than later, it benefits everyone.
On the other hand, he clearly wants to stay longer and extend things, too, and that swings the dial of this general bundle of encounters back away from 'casual.'
In the end, she feels a headache coming on from the mental sorting this requires and agrees to one more glass for herself, but not a whole bottle to share. Draco orders an after-dinner scotch and it's settled.
Hermione runs to the loo as they clear the plates to refresh her lipstick – Pansy would be proud – and adjust her boobage. The deeper neckline of the dress requires a bit of management with a specific sort of bra and Hermione hoists her assets up to the forefront. She's had two glasses of wine over a heavy Italian dinner and hardly feels tipsy at all. A third over dessert won't be a problem.
Her looser hair is behaving itself, so far. She lifts onto her tiptoes and looks at her rear end in the mirror, assessing how her bum is holding up in the dress and heels. Admirable, she decides, wishing he'd be slightly less reserved. Or a lot less reserved; she remembers the snogging and feels a slither of anticipation.
Upon her return, Draco is considerably less composed than he was two hours before. He gapes at her again, somewhat slack-jawed, but does not snog her to within a centimetre of her life. Not that she expected him to, in the middle of Fibonacci's, but she's gratified to see that it appears to be a struggle. His eyes go grey for a moment, then back to blue. Grey again. Blue.
He blinks rapidly, staring at the wine glass closest to her – conveniently located directly in front of her chest – and finally strangles out, "Pudding?"
Hermione's fresh glass of wine is set before her, along with his scotch, and she figures they might as well. She's disappointed they ordered the extra drinks now, but what's done is done.
"Go on, then," she agrees casually, not minding his death stare on her wine goblet, which she's left chest-adjacent. She'd quite like to start drinking it, though, and her fingers absently trace the stem of the glass. His eyes follow them.
Draco moves to order them something for afters but the server brushes this off. They'll take good care of Miss Granger, he assures them, and Draco gives her a quizzical look. Hermione sighs internally.
"The owner's wife was quite grateful for the scar remover. I suppose they've noticed I'm here."
"Is that why you like this place so much?"
"Well, no," she clarifies. "I liked the food anyway. I was already coming here when they realised who I was. But she's as grateful for it now as she was seven years ago, apparently."
Hermione's favourite pudding, a seasonally-flavoured cheesecake, perfectly chilled, arrives with matching glasses of limoncello for the pair of them. She resigns herself, once again, to a slight extension to the dinner.
"They had better not comp the cheque," Draco grumbles. "This was supposed to be a proper sort of date, not the kind where everything you order is freely offered out of sheer adoration."
Hermione can't stifle a giggle. "Wouldn't that be a good thing?"
"No," he emphasises with no small amount of irritation, "the adoration is supposed to be coming from me."
"You'll get your chance," Hermione promises, sipping her limoncello with a bit of a wince. It's not her favourite, but she'd never say so to something given her as a token of appreciation by the chef's wife.
His eyes darken again at her words and she feels that thrill of anticipation again. She's somewhat indifferent to the meal. She'll take his adoration in bed. He's kept his hands wrapped thoroughly in her hair so far, during snogging, and Hermione wants to see what else he can do with them. She's decorated herself nicely for this on purpose, and every second spent here over pudding is drawing things out.
She barely notices the rest of their meal. A cheque does arrive – she's not sure how comprehensive an accounting it actually entails – but Draco pays it without further comment and they depart for her flat.
He Apparates them with an arm around her, this time, securely across her back to her far shoulder. His thumb strokes her bare skin and Hermione feels the heat in her stomach start to boil up once more.
They're barely up the stairs of her front stoop before he kisses her again. She doesn't even have to encourage him to push her up against the wall next to her door. She lets her hands roam as she likes, silently encouraging him to do the same, but he steadfastly tangles his up near her scalp. She feels his fingers light against her head, his thumbs near her ears, across her cheeks, over her lower lip.
He kisses that special, taking his time after his thumb leaves it, and sucks it between his teeth. Hermione sighs against him and leans into his body, feeling the hardness of his chest.
"Would you like to come in?" she finally manages when she gets enough air, feeling for the doorknob.
Draco kisses her in response and she starts to turn the knob, but he shakes his head against her mouth.
Too surprised to process, Hermione stammers, "To the couch, then?" as if that was the point of contention.
He shakes his head again and absurdly pulls the door back closed. "Not tonight. Not after one date."
What? She's stunned past response and goggles at him.
"Can I see you Wednesday, maybe? Or Thursday?" he's saying into her cheek, nuzzling her hair aside, and her knees feel a little weak again. She'll agree to anything. Won't he come inside?
"Wednesday, sure," she says at last and flings out a last attempt. "Do you want some tea?"
She feels his smile against her neck. "Yes. But no. Not tonight."
Now his hand closes over the doorknob and turns it, letting it open gradually enough that Hermione doesn't spill onto the floor of her own entryway in a boneless pile of underappreciated burgundy sheath dress.
"Goodnight, Hermione. I'll see you Wednesday."