"Are you making any progress?" my mother asks politely after we're all seated, and Granger and I exchange a conspiratorial look.

By accident.

Granger fields the question. "Not yet, except - except I guess we are eliminating a fair number of possibilities."

My mother nods seriously. "Draco eliminated what must have been countless possibilities, working hard perfecting the current version of the lotion."

In an impossibly bizarre way coming from my mother, even this sounds dirty. Maybe I'm tired; maybe stress; maybe too long without a shag. I don't know. I close my eyes in the most basic form of defence, trying to avoid thinking of countless experimental… testing to find the best lotion. For testing. Lotion that ended up looking distinctly like bodily fluid.

But I hear Granger muffle a snort and my eyes fly open. She heard it too, then.

My mother is, of course, still giving me a hostile look for being shirtless at the lunch table. I can't help trying to deflect while Granger gets command of whatever it is she's readying to contribute to this.

"It takes a lot of testing, Mother; knowing what works and what doesn't." I know she can see Granger's arm, covered in the same blue ink my entire torso is. "We're being… thorough."

Her lips tighten into white lines. "You could wear a shirt during meals, I'm sure."

"I didn't want to turn any shirts I have blue," I protest innocently. "And I don't want to risk smudging my notes."

"Why must you write all over yourselves, anyway?" Narcissa sniffs.

Granger takes this one, politely explaining, "In case there's a delayed reaction to one of the options we test. Maybe one just has to set for a while before it starts to work."

"Or maybe one is going to slowly eat away our skin altogether; best to know which one it was, after all," I add helpfully.

My mother is immediately concerned. "Has anything like that happened, darling?" She starts inspecting my chest much more closely and Granger suppresses another laugh.

"Mother, please lean back. You're awfully close. This is the lunch table, after all."

She levels me with another nasty look but sits up straight in her chair again, flipping her napkin back over her knee in a dignified manner.

"Nothing like that has happened, yet, I promise. Your precious popkins is still perfect," I assure her and Granger inhales her water, coughing into her hand violently.

"Properly prudent," she gasps when she's able. "Preparing perfunctory possibilities -"

But she can't go on, dissolving into laughter and I'm doubled over. My mother looks somewhat put out at this unexpectedly raucous lunch pairing she's curated, caught between baffled and annoyed.

"Post-pubescent -" I supply with a fresh cackle and Granger's crying at lunch for the second day in a row.

"What on earth could that have to do with anything?" Narcissa snaps, bewildered.

Granger's laboriously getting herself under control. "So- sorry, Narcissa," she manages, wiping her eyes. "Very inappropriate."

"Speak for yourself. I'm the picture of propriety."

This earns me a fresh snort from Granger and a severe look from both of them, shockingly matched. I raise my hands in mock defeat. "Alright, alright. But don't listen to Granger, Mother. She's part of this pair of pathetic perpetrators."

Granger nails me in the shin with a perfectly placed punt. My knee jerks up, smacking the underside of the table for a second injustice, rattling everything on top from plates to glassware.

Eyes watering, I grit my teeth in pain as Granger flushes bright red, closing her eyes in mortification. "Sorry, Narcissa."

"What about me?" I whinge, rubbing my leg under the table.

"Yes, you should apologise, too," my mother says haughtily, offended at this juvenile disruption of her lunch. "I know you have better manners than to behave this way in front of a guest."

"He's painfully persistent, I'm afraid," Granger says, quickly taking a sip of her water to hide her smile but meeting my eyes over her glass. Hers are sparkling with mischief and I'm completely in love.

My mother follows this thin segway onto normal conversational footing, trying hard to salvage her lunch plan. "His father's doing," she notes. "I never had to be."

Well, I can't let that one pass. "Now, Mother, you're perfectly persistent yourself when it comes to certain topics I can think of."

Granger becomes very occupied with her salad as my mother eyes me in defiance, knowing what I'm referring to. She opens her mouth to speak and then glances at Granger so quickly I could have missed it. "I think I've been somewhat more understanding recently, Draco, wouldn't you say?"

Interesting. This expounding of a topic that leaves out a member of the table is unmannerly; very atypical Narcissa Malfoy.

"I do appreciate your reticence," I say smoothly. "But you were also quite persistent with making Granger feel welcome here, and I appreciate that as well."

Granger glances up with a quick smile, chewing some salad that she does not talk around.

"It's been my pleasure," my mother responds and I can hear the sincerity in her voice. I smile. "Hermione, dear, would you like to take tea with me again tomorrow?"

Granger swallows first, I notice, before saying, "Yes, please. What time would suit you, Narcissa?"

They make arrangements and my mind wanders a bit. My father is still away; I wonder where he is and what he's doing, who he's doing it with and for what purpose.

My attention is brought back harshly to reality as the two witches at this small table are teaming up against me. It takes me a moment to catch up: something about unfulfilled potential and I'm insulted at once.

"Have I not made one of the most ground-breaking discoveries in recent wizarding history here?"

My mother rolls her eyes. "And think what you could have accomplished at school, if you'd tried harder. Your NEWTs, even."

I'm sputtering in my own defence, quite glad my own mouth isn't full. "I couldn't have come top in anything with this one around!" I gesture at Granger, who's trying to hide a smile behind her napkin. "You're setting me up to fail, you are."

Not to mention that NEWT time was… hostile, in the Wizarding world. The final battle of the war had just occurred. I took them as a matter of course early in the summer, because my father demanded it. I was not the only one with bigger things on my mind, and of course, Granger never even took hers. I spare a darting check her way to see if this topic is bothering her, but she seems alright.

"I think I intimidated you early," she contributes kindly, "and you stopped trying as hard as you might have done."

Unbelievable. My jaw drops. My mother is nodding in sage agreement and all I can think is how I want to be ganged up on exactly like this for the rest of my life.

In the lab once again, we're still making no progress.

Well; that's not quite accurate. We're still finding only failures in testing, though, which isn't surprising. It took me over two solid weeks to successfully craft the alba pellis, testing possibilities almost around the clock. Even though I do have a brilliant co-potioneer this time around, expecting to figure it out quickly would have been naive.

Granger's moved onto testing full petals while I try to finish the ground petals. After this, though, there's nothing else we can try until the order I placed this morning for more Campanula rapunculus arrives from Morocco, or the Mandrake leaves arrive. Even with the peregrine falcon delivery system, the Mandrakes will be coming locally and should arrive first.

No, the lack of progress is most noticeable in me.

I keep catching myself glancing up to look at Granger working, studious and intense, lip trapped between her teeth. Wooden spoon holding her hair in a knot with flyaway curls framing her head, arm covered in blue. Her handwriting is so tiny that even with the much smaller scar to test on, she's got quite as many variations written on her arm as I have across half of my torso.

She catches me looking from time to time, and it's happened often enough I've stopped looking away. I just give her a small smile and watch her turn vaguely pink as she goes back to her work.

Well past dinnertime, I'm finally finished with my set, ready to try the final possibility at last.

My arm and wrist are so tired from two solid days of grinding petals into paste, I can hardly write the notes on my chest. I tried to switch hands for the mortar-and-pestle work on occasion, but my dominant hand was so much faster at the job and of course that's how I write as well.

Granger is eyeing me with a squint as I try to find another available scar corner remaining unmarked.

"Try just here," she says, coming over and pointing to a spot near the middle of my ribs on the lower edge of the scar. "Gods, how can you read any of this? I told you your handwriting was chicken scratch."

"Well, it's all upside down for you. And I've gone a bit cross-eyed trying to write on my own chest. It's at a funny angle, you know."

"Clearly. Gives you a bit of a double chin, too."

"Mind your own chin, Granger. Also, I don't really need to read it as long as it keeps doing nothing at all, good or bad. What's gone where only matters if something happens." I sigh. The lack of results isn't unexpected, but it does get discouraging after a while.

She's still scrutinising my scar and suddenly dips closer to it. Startled, I stay put with effort, my heart rate increasing again. I wonder if she does need eyeglasses but no, she backs up again. "Nevermind. I thought -"

She grabs the quill and asks, "What was this one again?"

"Er, crushed, seven minutes, forty degrees of brew."

Granger starts to write it on my skin and I stop breathing. "Hold still."

"I am." Agonisingly still. I hope nothing else twitches. Not to mention she could see my heart beating under my skin if she looked for it.

She isn't, though. She has to brace her hand on my ribs to write evenly and her miniscule handwriting gives me shivers, but that would probably have happened no matter the size of her script.

"Well, now that one is upside down for me."

"Oh, it won't be there long anyway." She brushes this off. "Once we know if it's going to do anything, you can wash them all off."

Granger washed her own arm clean to start fresh with the full petals, but I never want to wash this one off.

If it were closer to mid-day still, I'd pop over to the Diagon Alley apothecary myself to look for Mandrake leaves. As it is, we may as well wait for tomorrow.

"There's a good chance those arrive while I'm at work," I tell Granger. "What are you planning to work on tomorrow?"

"Snape's potion, whatever that is," she responds, waving a hand in its direction. "I'll wait for you for the Mandrakes."

"You don't have to wait, because it'll be a little later. Get started if you like. I'm going to stop by the park after work, ask Severus about having Butterworth come back by to see you and see if he got Potter out the way he hoped."

Granger looks hopeful at each of these things and I fervently wish I'll have good things to tell her on both.

In the meantime, I fervently wish to avoid a repeat of last night's final act. I'm hoping to head off any remote possibility at the pass, a desire in active warring conflict with wanting to spend every possible minute in her presence.

I can make flimsy excuses to go to bed at eight at night like a child, or I can snog her to within an inch of her life in between telling her I'm madly in love with her and wanting her by my side forever.

I can do neither.

This sort of indecision typically drives me batty, forcing a snap decision to just have it made. Being completely unable right now, it's giving me indigestion instead.

I make another quick trip to the loo, hoping Granger won't need to use it anytime soon.

"You alright?" Her innocently inquisitive tone betrays nothing, but I see a small smirk on the corner of her mouth.

"Must have been the fish and chips from dinner."

"I don't know, I feel fine," she deflects with a casual shrug. Sassy witch.

"You're undoubtedly more accustomed to fried food, Granger. Your preferred diet wouldn't be out of place at a Quidditch stadium, full rubbish."

"If anything," Granger snips, "you could do with a bit more of it. Rubbish food is one of the true joys of life, you know."

"You could ask for it more often, if you like. Suz is very happy to make anything you request." I raise my eyebrows with this checkmate. I know she'll never ask Suz, or any other house elf, for anything. "Did you eat like this at school, too?"

Hogwarts had always had a wide variety of foodstuffs.

Granger flushes. "I suppose I did. Although, in the Gryffindor common room, we always had a large supply of candies and sweets. Mrs Weasley sent piles of homemade goodies all the time. And Fred and George were always sneaking down to the kitchens to nick snacks and treats from there as well. I can't say they returned with many salads - or foie gras, for that matter."

"The lowest common denominator," I nod wisely. "Sounds about right."

"Well, how was it in the Slytherin commons room, then? Your mummies always sent you all the caviar on crostinis they could buy?"

"Quite. We'd eat while playing poker for hours by the fire, betting absurd piles of galleons on the outcome while house elves shined our shoes."

She gives me an evil look. "Do you know, I have no idea which parts of that are a joke - if any."

"Mm, everything but the poker. We did play that, but the most frequently-gambled item was homework completion rather than galleons or sickles."

"Gods forbid you bet knuts," Granger grumbles.

"Well, there has to be some stakes to the game, Granger. Knuts don't even register as money."

"So did you win or lose most often?" She raises her eyebrows, not taking the bait. "Were you doing others' homework, or having yours done for you?"

I grin, knowing that would offend her sense of academic integrity. "Neither. No one would do as good a job as I can do; I couldn't actually hand in something inferior. That would defeat the whole purpose of winning the game in the first place. Not much of a success in the end, a lower mark on a paper."

"I'm amazed you can fit your head through the lab door."

"You're one to talk, with that hair."

"Only if you're the one drying it," she smirks at me. Fair play. "I could cut it, you know."

I can't hide my look of complete horror and stammer something about how the weight of it probably helps keep it calm. Granger looks impressed with this analysis despite herself. I was taking a panicked guess, but maybe there's some special wild hair logic to it somewhere after all.

"So if you weren't winning, you were losing, then," she declares, reverting back off the topic of hair, re: cutting of.

"I never said I didn't win; I just didn't collect on my winnings. And as already stated, it wasn't any sort of charitable impulse."

"No, mustn't have that," Granger snarks and I perform one right now by not explaining how many charitable acts I have, in fact, been performing for months or the monetary value of such acts.

I may be the thickest student in our little class of two here, but I have learned that bragging about one's charity somewhat negates the charitable-ness of it all.

"Is that what you were playing when you took Blaise to the strip club the other night? Poker?"

"It wasn't a strip club - at the time, anyway, and yes. Poker was Blaise's game of choice, and I played with him until he devastated my stack - very mature, Granger - of chips and then I moved to blackjack, which I happen to like more."

She visibly perks at this.

"...You like blackjack?"

Flushing a little pink in the cheeks, she explains, "My dad was a maths aficionado. They met in dental school, but my mum always had a greater affinity for philosophy and religion than my dad, who enjoyed the maths and science bit of things. They'd debate for hours about all sorts. Muggles often put religion and science at odds with one another, but my parents always enjoyed the back-and-forth."

Sounds familiar. I check to make sure this topic isn't upsetting to her, but she seems perfectly alright for the time being. I've no idea what any of this has to do with cards, though.

"My dad - well, he taught me how to play."

This tracks in a certain way. If she'd told me she learned in the Gryffindor common room, I don't think I'd have believed her. Gobstones and Exploding Snap would have been the games of choice over there, I'm quite sure.

"Blackjack is a game about maths, really," Granger confesses. "There are ways -"

Of course I know all about the odds and likelihood of certain hands turning into a win or a loss, on the fly. But Granger's cheeks are turning closer to red now, and she's looking down at her hands. Something is going on here.

"Would you like to play, then?"

"Two-person blackjack is… not generally the way of things." She declines reluctantly. "Better with more people."

"No, but we could cobble together a dealer of sorts, if we just don't peek before seeing if he hits twenty-one. Just flip the cards as they come."

Granger shrugs. "Alright. Go on, then."

I bring out a deck of cards and she gives me a scornful look. "One deck?"

Blinking a couple of times, I go back into my room and locate a second one. After eyeballing the loo on the way back, I decide I'm good for the time being and set to shuffling the cards.

"What are we playing for? Potions homework, prep for the next tests? I'll gamble on you doing more of the petal grinding next time."

"Truths," Granger says succinctly and I feel another bout of indigestion flare up. At this point I'll answer anything and everything about the war, the park, the lot of it; I just don't want her to ask anything related to my being wildly in love with her.

One other thing, too, though. "Granger, you don't have to win for me to tell you the truth if you ask me something. I won't lie to you again."

Her eyes flash too quickly for me to identify whether it was mischief or annoyance in them. "Can we just play? Do you have an aversion to 'fun?'"

Well, no; I certainly do not. Fine. Let it never be said that I am not 'fun,' although, come to think of it, I doubt anybody would describe me that way in years. I don't think 'Draco' and 'fun' appear together very often.

Huh.

Well, Lovegood might have, with our tournament-style games of Exploding Snap, but maybe this is good in more than one way.

"Favourite subject in school?"

"Potions, clearly," I look around and admonish her. "Don't waste your questions. Next."

"It's not a waste if I'm not certain." Granger deals the next hand out and flips the 'dealer's' card. I stay; she takes another. The 'dealer' took one and busted. Neither of us get a question. She deals again.

"Naughtiest thing you ever did at school."

Granger takes an inordinately long amount of time contemplating this one. I'm intrigued. She starts talking but I clarify, "- that I don't know about already."

She looks vexed and exhales sharply. "I suppose the time-turner I used in third year to get to all my lessons. I don't personally consider that naughty, but it was extremely illegal."

Interesting distinction. I file that away. I start to ask a follow up but she cuts me off, this time. "One question per hand." She deals again.

"Most bizarre scene from the Slytherin common room."

Oh. Hmm. That one takes me a while. "Astoria losing a bet to Daphne and having to do a handstand in her knickers."

Granger is horrified. "In public?"

"Ah, ah," I wiggle my finger. "One question per hand."

She wrinkles her nose and deals. I win.

"Same question to you - most bizarre scene from the Gryffindors."

I wonder how many bizarre things could possibly have happened there, in a house full of insufferable swots. Not as bad as the Ravenclaws, but even so.

"A whole row of unconscious first-years after Fred and George were testing Fainting Fancies on them. Had no idea what I'd walked in on."

"I imagine that could have gone any number of ways," I say honestly.

Granger deals. She stays. I hit and bust. And sigh.

"First snog."

"A neighbour girl," I say, and Granger very obviously looks around her from side to side.

"What neighbours?"

I smirk at her. "One question per hand."

"I'm getting tired of that. New rule: the question must be answered in full."

I motion for her to deal again and she stares at me, waiting me out. I sigh again. "Neighbour girl from - yes - a long way away, but still a neighbour. Sadie Patton. We were eleven. I thought I was hot shite."

I win the next hand and return the question.

"Viktor, fourth year. In the library. In the Restricted Section; it almost guaranteed privacy."

Indeed it did, having spent many private sessions of snogging there myself, and I'm impressed she had the opportunity to notice. We keep going and it's slowly becoming obvious that I'm winning fewer and fewer hands.

"Why did you break up with Pansy?"

"I didn't; she broke up with me in the middle of sixth year. I became less… fun, I guess you could say."

Granger tries to hide a smile and fails, dealing again. She wins again.

Before she can ask her question, I protest. "I think it's my turn to deal for a change. Something hinky is going on here."

"Ah, ah," she imitates me infuriatingly. "I want the full story of Astoria doing her handstand."

"I wasn't around for the bet that she lost. Rumour had it that it was over getting a date for a Hogsmeade weekend; Daphne got one first, or something like that. Anyway, Astoria had to do a handstand in her knickers and Blaise and I walked in."

Granger lifts an eyebrow, and I keep going only half-reluctantly, "Blaise took her to Hogsmeade, if I remember correctly. That was the start of their short relationship, him seeing her upside down in a bra and knickers in the centre of the common room, all hacked off at Daphne and red in the face."

"Were you supposed to walk in?" Granger asks innocently. "I only ask because it's a bit of an odd place to hold the bet, on Daphne's account, if no one was going to interrupt."

I lift an eyebrow this time, letting her ponder the point. No more details for her.

She sighs. "Girls are mean, I suppose. Or maybe Daphne was trying to do her sister a favour in a horrible way. It did get her a date, according to you."

She deals. She wins.

But I can tell she's becoming a little more choosy with her questions, maybe correctly figuring I'm likely to return any that she asks me. It raises the stakes a bit.

Of course, to do that I'd have to win a hand, and those are coming fewer and further between. Her confidence grows.

"First shag."

"Pansy, fourth year."

"The year I had my first snog," Granger snorts automatically, then covers her mouth. I laugh in delight.

"I didn't even have to win a hand for that; lucky for you I'd already asked it." She wins the next one too, and I'm no longer surprised. Then she changes tactics without warning.

"Why did you hate Harry so much?"

I think a moment. "I was raised to believe I could have anything I wanted, anytime, from anybody. Potter could actually have had it and didn't seem to give a shite. I think it offended my tender, young sensibilities. Then, after a while, I guess it became an ingrained habit, the natural order of things. Then, it became a byproduct of the brewing war."

Granger deals again and I win one, landing a twenty-one. She looks put out. It's becoming clear to me that I need to maximise my opportunities in this game; winning is becoming increasingly rare and I'm increasingly certain Granger has something to do with it, even if I can't tell what.

"When did you start fancying me?"

She freezes before meeting my eyes. I hold her stare, relishing the uncomfortable blush that rises up her neck. She's rigged this game somehow; I don't understand it, but I have to take advantage of my own chances when I can.

"I don't know that I knew it at first. I liked - I liked your hair," she swallows hard, as if that's anything to be embarrassed about. Sonnets have been written about this hair. "And I couldn't help but notice you were always right on my heels in exam scores. I paid attention. Then, in sixth year I think it became obvious to me. Harry was so certain you were up to something bad -"

Well, I had been.

"- and his fixation just seemed… so over-the-top. Malicious, almost. I couldn't understand it. You seemed more like a regular person to me that year, for some reason. Harry was determined to see the worst, but you seemed… humanised, somehow, to me."

Then he and I duelled in the bathroom and she apparently visited me in the hospital wing. She's giving me more credit than I deserve, again, but I suppose I was more humanised that year. I was finally faced with something I was damn near sure to fail, and my mother's life was directly on the line.

But that certainly qualifies as 'answering the question in full,' so I motion for her to deal again. Looking relieved, she complies.

She wins and her expression is triumphant. She's back on safe footing.

"Why did you hate me so much?"

"Similar to Potter, I think, in some ways. I expected everything handed to me easily and you kept interfering. It was sexist and classist. You were a girl, considered low-born - sorry -"

Granger shrugs this off.

"- and beating me in every lesson. My father was quite angry about it, and disappointing him was the most upsetting thing in my world for years and years. It was all your fault, naturally. But after a while, as Zabini pointed out to me, my preoccupation with you became something quite different. I was paying attention for different reasons and I hadn't even realised it."

We've reached the end of the deck and Granger stands up abruptly. "I think that's good enough for now."

I'm surprised. "All done? Don't want to play again?"

She looks shifty and suddenly, something clicks together. "You knew what was going to come up next, didn't you? Somehow, you knew. And starting fresh with a fresh-shuffled deck means the playing field would be evened up again, doesn't it?"

Granger looks annoyed. A grin slowly spreads across my face. "How did you do it?"

Huffing, she sits back down with her arms crossed over her chest. "I told you blackjack is a game of maths. With two decks, there are thirty-two cards worth 'ten' and eight aces. If you pay attention, you can narrow down the possibilities of what's left still to play."

This takes me a minute. "Granger, that's not 'maths,' that's - insanity. Or genius."

She looks extremely dignified as she replies, "It's both."

"Show me."

She starts to shuffle again, then stops. "Maybe we should start with just one deck."

"Don't dumb it down. Just deal." I'm insulted.

She starts dealing mock hands, just like we were. Two players and a 'dealer.' As she flips cards, she tells me to keep rough track of what's coming out.

I have to tell her to slow down, and she says, "Don't worry about anything but the cards worth 'ten' and the aces, for now. There's a way to track the lower cards, too, but -"

The thought of that is giving me a headache. She flips a few more hands, then prompts, "How many 'ten' cards are left?"

I struggle. I should have let her take it down to one deck. "I've seen two Kings and one Queen. Oh, and a Jack. So -"

"Don't overcomplicate it," she instructs bossily. "That's four cards worth 'ten.' It doesn't matter what they are. This isn't poker. So how many are left in the deck?"

"Twenty-eight."

"How many aces left?"

"Six." I think. "Good gods, Granger. You do this at speed?"

She flushes, a little self-conscious. "No, not really. I'm quite rusty, too. My dad, though, he was good at it. He could pair the lower cards in his mind too, adding up what was there and what was left, how likely it was that a low card would come up next, the chances of a hand busting. He was - amazing."

She's amazing. "Is this legal?"

Looking shifty again, Granger hedges. I remember her declaration that the time-turner mischief was illegal but not naughty in her mind and wonder where this particular skill falls.

"There's a fair bit of grey area, really. I'm not marking the cards or using any kind of device to cheat. They can't say I can't use my brain to consider possibilities and probabilities - I'm sure you do the same thing when you play, calculating odds for the hand on the table."

"Well, of course; but -"

"I'm doing the same thing with all the hands I've seen played. It's the same sort of thing, only at scale."

"'Grey area,' indeed," I grin, revelling in what a Slytherin she is. "That's rationalising if I've ever heard it."

Giving me a droll look, Granger stands again, tapping the cards into an orderly pile on the table. I decide she'd probably classify this behaviour as 'technically legal but somewhat naughty,' and stifle a laugh.

"I wish I could take you to that casino," I tell her and mean it.

She brushes this off, though, shaking her head. "Any good casino uses far more than two decks of cards, just to thwart people like my dad. It gets exponentially harder. It's not illegal but they don't like it, and they will throw you out if they suspect you of it."

"Well, Granger, either you'd be so good at it as to be suspected and thrown out, or you'd be just rusty enough at it that we could have a good time for a while. I'd roll the dice if I could."

This pun earns me another annoyed scoff, but I can tell she's trying to hide a smile. "I'm wasted on you, I think," I tell her wistfully. "C'est la vie."

"Well, maybe one day," she retorts in a breezy voice. I know it's an offhand remark, but I also know I'm going to hold onto it. Cherish it. What I wouldn't give to have that day.

It's quite late and Granger must have had the same thought I did, about calling an end to the evening before risking the same sort of encounter we ended last night on.

She lingers by the door for a moment before finally saying, "Goodnight, Draco," and leaving me behind.

And so I go to bed after the best weekend of my entire life.