32.

Hermione felt like an idiot. She'd gone to the toilets on level five – they were always the cleanest – and taken a moment to freshen up and pull herself together, and then instead of heading back down to the Atrium, she'd found herself punching the button for her office floor. And now she was sitting in her office, elbows on the desk and head in her hands, utterly miserable. Angry, hurt, and humiliated, and unable to face the party. Hiding like a coward. It was pathetic really, the way she'd let Astoria run her off, but there it was. She had.

The witch's presence had slapped her in the face with the fact that while she and Ron might be going their separate ways as cleanly as possible – if not exactly amicably – Malfoy was still firmly tied to Astoria. Clearly she ran riot in Spain, doing who and what she liked, but in wizarding Britain they were still firmly husband and wife. Not just legally, but in the eyes of society. Astoria had driven that point home thoroughly.

"Stupid," Hermione muttered scathingly to herself. Her mascara had run slightly and required dabbing away, her lipstick had worn off, her hair beginning to escape the confines of the loose up-do it was in, and Hermione didn't see the point in trying to put herself back together. Instead she just sat there playing with her necklace, chewing on her lower lip and running over and over the conversation in her mind. As usual, sitting alone with the moment long gone, Hermione could think of a dozen witty, biting retorts for Astoria. If only she'd been able to think of them in the moment.

Eventually she started doing work, which while more than a little pathetic, calmed her down enough that – looking at the time – Hermione thought she may as well go home. She'd sat hiding up in her office for nearly two hours, and there was no point in staying; she wasn't going back to the party. Hermione dabbed at her eyes in case she bumped into someone, smoothed out her unfortunate dress's skirt, and then stood and crossed her office – and just as she opened her door to the outer office, she saw Malfoy walk in from the corridor. He looked right at her, and as their eyes met her breath caught in and her heart thudded, feeling suddenly rather ill.

Oh Merlin. Oh God. What terrible bloody timing.

Hermione took a hurried step back and shut her office door. As if that would stop him. Indeed, just a few heartbeats later her door swung open and he was staring at her, bemused in addition to the complex, visceral emotions shifting over his face. He wasn't hiding his feelings, right now. His eyes were molten silver and dark at the same time, his jaw tight and his mouth twisted slightly, tension in the set of his shoulders and the clench of his fingers at his sides. He looked at her, head tilted, as though he wanted to ask why she'd thought shutting her door would help, but dismissed the question.

"Granger, please," he said rough and low, mouth opening to speak again but Hermione – all her hurt transmuted into anger – beat him to it.

"Oh, so it's Granger now is it?" she asked, dripping acid venom in her tone as she backed up against the edge of her desk. "Not Ms Granger-Weasley?"

Malfoy's jaw bunched and released, and instead of answering right away he turned and shut her office door. Flipped the lock. Hermione gulped. She should have thought of that. "What the hell are you doing up here, Malfoy?" she barrelled on, slightly breathless despite herself, a frisson in the air and her heart racing quicker. "Shouldn't you be downstairs with your lovely wife?" The last two words came out nasty and Malfoy's expression did something complicated, shifting through an array of emotions before settling on a wretched, defensive hurt.

"Salazar's sake, Granger, I'm so fucking sorry about what happened down there, but –"

"It was humiliating," Hermione got out, and to her mortification began to cry, tears leaking from her eyes.

Malfoy took an uncertain half-step forward, reaching out toward her slightly. "I'm so sorry. Tori was a complete and utter bitch, I know. I wish I could've –"

"Could've warned me that you were going to arrive with your wife on your arm?" Hermione cut him off, turning to grab up her handbag and rummage through for her travel pack of tissues. She found them in the depths slightly worse for wear and yanked a tissue out, wiping her eyes and cheeks, cursing her emotions. Malfoy gritted his teeth.

"I had no idea – I didn't know she was going to come –" he started, voice a little thick and messy, and there was annoyance in his tone; an angry edge. Hermione steam-rolled over him.

"Do you have any idea how it made me feel?" The memory of the mortification blazed through Hermione, her cheeks flushing hot. "God, I wish I'd never come tonight." She hugged herself, hiding the scars. "I feel so stupid."

"Why?"

"Because – because I turned up so eager to see you. Pathetically," she spat and he looked oddly wounded. "Like some stupid little naïf. I got my hair and make-up done, and my nails, and I bought this stupid bloody dress –" she grabbed the skirt and flapped it roughly "– and I thought – I thought I was going to look fantastic," Hermione admitted, feeling like an absolute idiot. "And then you walked in with Astoria –" Malfoy winced "– and I just wanted to sink into the floor."

"Granger, honestly, I am so, so sorry. And you do look fantastic. You look –"

"Oh come off it, Malfoy. I pale in comparison to Astoria, I know that," she said bitterly. Astoria with her shining, silky platinum hair, utterly flawless skin, and perfect figure, dripping in crystals and beading, the deep 'v' of her dress robes looking elegant and model-esque thanks to her smaller, perter bosom. Hermione felt unspeakably catty and bitchy. She wanted to tear the other woman to shreds, except there wasn't a damn thing she could criticise. It was awful.

Malfoy snorted and shook his head, a faint smirk creeping onto his lips, eyes gleaming darkly. "Don't be so fucking stupid, Granger," he said without anger, a slight slur in the consonants. "You looked stunning. All lush and warm, your skin glowing under the lights, your mouth so plump and kissable, and – if you'll excuse my crudeness – your tits look fucking delicious. Amazing."

Maybe it should've made Hermione feel good, but it just made her feel worse as she did her best to quash the crying jag that kept trying to escape her. She didn't believe him – she couldn't right now, too hurt and angry. "Stop it! All the false flattery. I'm not blind!"

"It's not false," he retorted, low and angry, his expression turning stony cold.

"You didn't say anything in the Atrium!" she shot back, wiping her cheeks with the tissue.

"I couldn't say that in front of her," he said angrily. "I know Tori. And you saw her down there. She would've turned anything I said that wasn't as bland and neutral as fucking possible, into a weapon."

Hermione shook her head, hiccupping a little sob into her bedraggled clump of tissues. "Fine. Whatever. Either way, you could've just told me," she got out between teary gasps for breath, circling back to her original point. "If I'd known, I would've been prepared, at least. Why wouldn't you just –"

"As I was trying to tell you, Granger, before you interrupted me – I didn't know she was going to come until the last minute, or I would have," he half-snarled, a vein pulsing at his temple, a muscle twitching at the hinge of his jaw. Hermione scowled, arms crossed beneath her breasts as she narrowed her eyes at him.

"How in Merlin's name did you not know, Malfoy?"

"I don't have a leash on her, or a bell around her neck. I can't control her, Granger. Tori turns up when she wants, and does what she wants. I can't fucking help that she's not considerate enough to give me forewarning," he snapped sharply, shoving his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders, defensive as he scowled back at her. Hermione was still too caught in her own feelings to stop and really look at him; she didn't notice how miserable he looked, how frustrated, or if she did she attributed it to anger.

"You're a bastard, Malfoy. You should've told her that she couldn't come. I would never have turned up with Ron unexpectedly."

"Because Weasley's busy fucking another witch," Malfoy said and then paled, as if he wished he could take the words back. Hermione recoiled, the words like a slap – although in all honesty they didn't hurt as much as they could've. Malfoy had meant them to though, and that was what really hurt.

"How dare you. You absolute fucking prick," Hermione spat crudely, rage making her tremble. "At least Ron and I both know where we stand. I'm not going to go and lord it over Chastity –" the name came out with distaste "– and he wouldn't dream of coming to an event of mine, even though Ginny and Harry are here. But I have to worry that your wife is going to turn up and make a fool of me? How is that fair, Malfoy?" The words wrenched out of her, furious and teary as she stared him down.

"It's not," he said roughly, looking down. "It's not fucking fair. But then nothing is, so that's par for the course, isn't it?" There was pain in the words, and when he looked back up at Hermione his eyes were wretched. Burning. "It's not fair that you looked stunning tonight and I couldn't have you on my arm. That you weren't with me. That I had to stand there and listen to Tori hurt you. It drove me fucking crazy." There was a dangerous rasp to Malfoy's voice. He drove a hand through his hair, the short strands disarrayed, nearly white in the light as he took a step toward Hermione.

"I have no control over my life, Granger. None. That's not fair. Scorpius tried to – he nearly –" he dragged in a breath, anguish on his face "– he could've died and I can't help him. I don't know what to do, or how to help, and I can't fix it for him. I just have to stand by and watch, and hope." He gasped in another unsteady breath and his eyes were wet. "While he's in the damned hospital bed, and he nearly bled out in the fucking dungeons, and I can't make him tell me why!" His words slurred faintly, a stark, bleak devastation on his features as the words poured out of him in a torrent.

"And I can't make my parents accept Scorpius for who he is, instead of the way they're always unspokenly disapproving and disappointed in him. As though he's letting them down personally just by being gay, for Merlin's sake. Not that I'd ever force him to get married to a pureblood and have children even if he wasn't –" his expression darkened with anger "– unlike my parents. But I won't repeat their mistakes." He shook his head, as if trying to clear it, trying to get his thoughts back on track. "And I can't make Tori be a decent fucking mother for once, and at least pretend to give a shit –" his breath was coming hard and fast and he took another step closer to Hermione "– and I can't make her leave me the hell alone."

Malfoy was close enough now that Hermione had to tip her head back to look up at him, and Hermione didn't think she'd ever seen him so nakedly raw and exposed. She could feel the heat radiating off him as he pushed close. His hands came up to cradle her jaw, thumbs sweeping along her cheeks, and she could smell the sweet scent of champagne on his breath. His eyes sparked quicksilver, his voice rough, the faintest quiver to it. "And I can't take you home with me and fuck you until you can't walk," he murmured and Hermione's stomach flipped and twisted with delicious arousal despite herself. "And it's not fair."

And then Malfoy dipped his mouth to slant across hers. Demanding and greedy, his tongue teasing over the seam of her lips, and instinctively Hermione parted them on a moan, her face upturned to his and her blood hot in her veins. He licked into her mouth and electricity shot to her core, another whimper escaping her as she swayed into him. Her hands found his shoulders, and then his neck, one hand sliding up into his hair. She felt nearly intoxicated off him; Malfoy tasted of a champagne cloud and Hermione realised suddenly why his composure had deserted him so completely. He was drunk. She came back down to earth with a bump. No. No, she wasn't supposed to be doing this.

Hermione pulled away, turning her head to the side and down and bringing her fingers up to her kiss-swollen lips, her breath coming in ragged pants. "Malfoy – Malfoy, we can't."

He groaned, and buried his face against the side of her neck, his lips resting at the crux of shoulder and throat, his breath hot gusts that matched hers in unevenness. His hands palmed down her body, holding her hips through her dress and seizing handfuls of her skirt, muttering filthy things against her skin. "Fuck. Fuck. Granger, you have no idea how much I want to just slide this dress up your gorgeous thighs and fuck you right here. On your desk so that every time you're working you can't help but think about how you came hard and screaming on my cock."

Hermione's legs nearly went out from under her at the imagery of that, and she bit her lip hard, trying not to moan. It took every ounce of willpower she had to put her hands on his shoulders and gently push him back. "Malfoy, you know we can't." He let go of her hips – hands going to brace himself on the desk, bent over her so that his forehead was resting against her collarbone. She could feel his breath wisping under the top of her dress.

"I know," he groaned. He didn't move.

"And I'm still angry with you." Hermione swallowed hard, her voice a little shaky and her fingers carding through Malfoy's hair. It was slightly stiff in places with whatever hair product he used. She wanted to melt into him. She wanted to let him do exactly what he wanted to do. But as awful as she felt for Malfoy after what he'd just messily spilled to her – which she imagined he'd regret when he sobered up – everything that had happened tonight had still happened. She was still angry and upset.

Of course Hermione was happy to support him however she could when it came to Scorpius, but Astoria was his problem to fix. And it was becoming very clear she was a problem that Hermione couldn't afford to ignore any longer. They were going to have to have a serious talk, Hermione thought with a lurch, worry slicking through her. And as for Malfoy not being able to take Hermione home and screw her – well, he'd just have to be fucking patient.

"That's a little unfair," he mumbled, and Hermione huffed an involuntary laugh, her fingernails scratching light over the nape of his neck.

"So you say. I say you've had too much to drink, and you need to floo home."

"Fine," he sighed, straightening and swaying back a few steps with an elegance Hermione envied. Even drunk – or tipsy at least – he moved with a fluid kind of grace she could only imagine possessing. He unlocked the office door and paused with a hand on the handle. "I love you," he said, and Hermione shot him a look. He couldn't just say that. Not when things were the way they were. Not when she was angry at him. She exhaled sharply.

"Make sure you floo, Malfoy," she said, crossing the small room and nudging his hand out of the way, opening the door. "If you try to apparate you'll splinch yourself," she said, and then went up on tiptoes and kissed his cheek, faintly prickly under her lips. "I love you," she murmured against his skin and then pushed him out the doorway, saying louder: "Good night, Malfoy."

Housekeeping Notes: Currently, I have 50 chapters and 184,000 words of Fascination pre-written, and am still about three-quarters done, haha. I now anticipate it should wrap up at around 220,000 words? I have it plotted scene by scene, but extra scenes keep sneaking in...

I've ended up splitting my time between Aftermath and Fascination with a focus on Aftermath, and now have 105,000 words and 23 chapters pre-written, and am about three-quarters done storywise.

Thank you again to everyone reading, favouriting, following, commenting, and sharing!