34.

Despite it being a work day Hermione decided on a glass of Daisyroot Draught, and Malfoy eyed her over the top of his menu, no doubt noting her choice. She needed the courage she thought to herself, as she ordered a salad and the fish of the day. And then they were left sitting alone tucked away in a private corner in front of a window, as the waiter scurried off to fetch their drinks. Silence fell. The wind howled mutedly outside, battering against the window. Hermione tugged on her sleeve cuffs and fussed with the cutlery, and then Malfoy spoke, breaking the small circle of silence at their table.

"Should I start my grovelling now, or wait 'til the drinks arrive?" He was apologetic but too glib for Hermione's liking, and she jerked her head up and glared at him.

"Don't be so flippant!" she snipped sharply. His expression shifted; genuine apology clear, and an awkward discomfort besides. Hermione realised with a small shock that Malfoy didn't actually know how to handle this situation. He was feeling his way in the dark as much as she was.

"All right," he accepted, "I shan't. Let me try again?" She nodded and waved for him to go on, and he took a breath and started over, expression grave. "I'm sorry, Granger. Truly. Last night was a disaster. I realise now that I should have refused to go to the Halloween party at all. If I hadn't gone, Tori wouldn't have been able to turn up and torment –"

"But you did go," Hermione cut in briskly, not wanting to hear Malfoy describe what Astoria had done to her. She suddenly wanted to hide how badly her interactions with them both had wounded her. A wild animal disguising her pain. "Which is fine. These things happen, Malfoy. I was shocked at first, yes, and I didn't enjoy having your wife turn up and make me feel like a home wrecker, but otherwise –"

"You're a bad liar," Malfoy interrupted, grey eyes steady on hers.

"I'm not lying!" Hermione said, exasperated. She was, of course, lying through her teeth. She rather wanted to cry, and sniffed and bit her tongue for a second, inhaling deeply and straightening her shoulders. "I really couldn't expect anything else, if I'd taken five minutes to think about it. You're a married man. Why wouldn't you bring your wife?"

"Because she's busy sleeping her way through half the Spanish wizarding community?" Malfoy suggested wryly, tight lines around his eyes suggesting perhaps he wasn't as comfortable with that fact as he'd previously professed. "Because she hardly ever comes back to Britain, anymore? She didn't turn up when her only living child tried to kill himself –" his voice shook slightly and Hermione reached out on instinct, their hands twining together atop the white tablecloth. His grip was warm and firm, his thumb drifting idly over her skin. "So why would she come to a silly Ministry party? You had no reason to suspect. And honestly, neither did I. Or I would've told you."

"You need a mobile phone," Hermione said, firmly, the idea only just occurring to her. Malfoy had been taken by hers ever since she called Harry with it from his house, but she'd never actually thought about him buying one. "You could've told me straight away, then, and I would have avoided the party altogether."

"Well, that would've been useful, yes," Malfoy allowed, "but I wouldn't have wanted you to avoid it because of me, Granger."

"Better than having your wife politely denigrate and humiliate me," Hermione retorted and then realised they were still holding hands, quickly detaching hers. She rubbed her thumb over where Malfoy had been absently stroking the back of her other hand, remembering the humiliation of Astoria's faux compliments and sympathies with an acuteness that stung. If she'd been able to avoid that, she would have missed the Ministry party happily. They were never that exciting, and she and Ron usually just socialised with Harry and Ginny, and Kingsley, and a few other old friends from Hogwarts days. It was nothing special, usually. She'd only been excited because of Malfoy.

"I really am so sorry, Granger." Malfoy leaned forward, features earnest, hair still slightly dishevelled from the wind despite his attempts to smooth it. "I wanted to throttle her." His hand flexed on the table, like he could feel his wife's pale, elegant neck under his fingers.

"I could tell," Hermione said, remembering his expression. Too controlled, a wretched fury in his eyes. "So did I," she admitted. "It was horrible, Malfoy. I never want a repeat of that. Ever. I'd rather have Tuttle grope me."

Malfoy winced. "I tried to stop her, but save literally dragging her away, she was determined to –"

"Mark her territory? Yes, I know," Hermione said tartly. "She couldn't have been more clear than if she'd cocked her leg and pissed all over you," she said, crudeness all wrapped up in polite, precise enunciation, and Malfoy's lips twitched and he made a stifled sound, a startled amusement bright in his eyes.

"Salazar's sake – such language, Granger. And at the lunch table, too."

"Oh shut up, Malfoy." She smiled despite herself, though it faded quickly. "My point is that I understand that you couldn't exactly stop her. It was a lose-lose situation, I know."

There was a brief pause as their drinks arrived, and Malfoy thanked the waiter. The Daisyroot Draught was floral and earthy at once and more alcoholic than Hermione expected, igniting a slight burn at the back of her throat as she sipped. Malfoy went on when the waiter was out of earshot. "I know I should have come to find you earlier than I did, but she was clinging to me like a limpet while she flirted with some young Hit Wizard –" Malfoy grimaced, and then looked shamefaced as he said the next part "– and I ended up drinking rather more than I should have."

"You were somewhat drunk, yes," Hermione agreed with a note of acidity, fiddling with the stem of her delicate wine glass and giving him nothing. If she and Malfoy were to have a relationship beyond whatever this was, she wasn't going to make excuses for him when things went sideways. It was all too easy to be blinded by infatuation, and she didn't want that to happen to her. She would go in with eyes wide open. But Malfoy was owning his behaviour and more besides, grey eyes clear and expression remorseful.

"I'm sorry. I ambushed you in your office and picked an argument –"

"No," Hermione interrupted. He was going too far now, and she never would've thought that Malfoy would be self-flagellating, but there it was. "You came up to apologise. You tried to apologise. I was the one who behaved badly, there. I was hurt, and angry, and insecure, and I lashed out instead of accepting your apology."

"And you didn't even have the excuse of being drunk," he said somehow self-deprecatingly, and Hermione hid her smile behind her wine glass, an inexplicable warm feeling glowing in her stomach that wasn't from the alcohol. "No. You had every right to be ungracious, Granger, given the situation. Besides, after that I was a complete bastard, bringing up Weasley..." He trailed off, expression eloquent with apology.

"Mm, you tried to press the wrong button there, Malfoy," Hermione said, childishly pleased that she could point that out. "I don't particularly care what or who Ron does now, so long as he keeps it out of the papers."

"I did upset you, though," Malfoy said, regret heavy in his tone as he slid his tumbler of firewhiskey and ice back and forth between his hands.

"Yes, because I knew you were trying to hurt me. Not because of what you said." Hermione shot him a sly look. "You're losing your touch, Malfoy."

He smiled uncertainly, and shrugged. "Perhaps when it comes to you, Granger."

"And then you broke the rules," she said petulantly, and there was a brief silence as they both remembered the kiss. A thrill of want curled low in Hermione's core and her breath caught as she remembered the feel of his hot mouth greedy on hers, and his hand in her hair. The needy, urgent insistence of him. The way he'd buried his face against her shoulder afterwards, breath unsteady as he'd murmured filthy things in a ragged voice. Oh Merlin. The silence grew heavy, an electric tension in the air that felt like the moment before a thunderstorm broke.

"I'd apologise for that, but I find myself distinctly un-sorry," Malfoy said low and dangerous, every word precise and meant, a predatory glint in his eye. He caught his full bottom lip between his teeth for a second before he spoke again, and Hermione watched his teeth dent the soft, plush pink of his lip, mesmerised. "In fact, I think I want to break them again."

"Oh God, Malfoy. You can't say that kind of thing." She sounded embarrassingly strangled, no breath in her lungs. Her eyes were glued to his mouth for a beat too long.

"Why not?" His eyes flashed.

"Because you're distracting me." She huffed an indignant breath and jabbed a finger on the table. "We need to talk. Seriously. Last night made that much very clear to me."

Malfoy sighed and nodded, expression cooling and leaving him looking weary in the shaft of pale sunlight that seeped in the window. "I really am sorry, Granger."

"So you've said. But we still have to talk. Like why, if you've been living separate lives for years, Astoria just turned up acting like it's all happy families. I understand why you haven't divorced yet, being pureblood," she said, with a dismissive wave of a hand, "but that was...something else."

"Like you said, she was just being territorial, Granger. Nothing she said was true, you know that, right? She's just – she may not want me, but she doesn't want anyone else to have me either." Malfoy shifted in his seat, gulping down a mouthful of firewhiskey; for once he was discomforted. Off balance.

Hermione eyed him flatly, horrible images going through her mind like a nightmarish slide-show. Astoria sleeping in Malfoy's bed. The bed they'd made love in. Astoria having sex with Malfoy in that bed. She was his wife, after all. Hermione felt faintly ill. "Did she have sex with you last night?"

Malfoy choked on his firewhiskey, wheezing for a moment, tears springing to his eyes. "What the fuck, Granger? No!" It was emphatic and shocked, and seemed genuine as far as Hermione could tell. "She didn't even come home last night. I think she left the Ministry with one of the Hit Wizards she was flirting with. Aster's son. All of about twenty," he said, disgusted.

"Jealous, Malfoy?" Hermione couldn't help but jab.

"No," he answered with a simple honesty that made Hermione feel ashamed of her barb. "Embarrassed. Humiliated. Cuckolded. Yes. Because unfortunately we're still married, and the unspoken agreement we had, if you must know, Granger, was discretion. And last night Tori was the furthest thing from discreet. She may as well have been down on her knees in front of half the Ministry."

It was stark, and crass, and made Hermione cringe on his behalf.

"But jealous? No," he finished and exhaled shortly, jaw tightening for a moment before he took another swig of his firewhiskey.

"Merlin. I'm sorry, Malfoy."

"It's not your fault, Granger."

"It kind of might be, a little," Hermione ventured apologetically. "If she was doing it to get back at you, because of me."

He huffed a laugh. "True. But that's just Tori."

Hermione hated the way he said her name. Despised it. And there was something that still nagged at her. "When did you last sleep with her?" she asked without thinking, an unreasonable jealousy burning under her skin. Malfoy jerked back slightly in his seat, mouth twisting with distaste and brows drawing downwards. Angry. Offended. Shit, Hermione thought, already regretting the impulsive question.

"When did you last fuck Weasley?" he asked crudely, and it was Hermione's turn to flinch. Well, she'd asked for it, she thought ruefully. She swallowed and stiffened her spine.

"About a week after the beginning of term," she said, remembering the sex. The impersonal nature of it. The resigned feeling of acquiescence Hermione had felt when she'd realised Ron only wanted to get his end away and not make her come too. He'd usually been generous in bed throughout their marriage – enthusiastic and considerate of her pleasure – but not that night. Instead he hadn't even tried to get her off and had lasted too long himself, and she hadn't been wet enough despite the lube, so she'd gone to sleep sore and unsatisfied. "The second Monday after, in fact. I remember the next day you ran into me at work and scared the daylights out of me. I dropped my files everywhere."

Malfoy's expression was complicated, as if he didn't know how to feel about the fact that she'd slept with Ron the night before their first encounter at work. Unhappy and uncomfortable and unsurprised all at once. "Oh." The one word contained a multitude and Hermione waited, but he said nothing else for a long moment.

"So you and Astoria?" she asked at last, carefully.

Malfoy took another mouthful of firewhiskey before he answered. "June," he said shortly. "My birthday. She turned up drunk and – well, I didn't say no." Shame saturated his voice and Hermione got the feeling there was a lot more to the story, but she read the naked hurt in his smoke grey eyes and resolved not to pry. "Before that it had been, oh, nearly two years? Another drunken mistake. That time on my part; I was lonely and miserable and Scorpius was just beginning to have real trouble at Hogwarts. I flooed to Spain after drinking the better part of two bottles of wine in as many hours, to beg her to give our family a second chance."

Hermione stared at him with a frozen sort of embarrassed sympathy, feeling utterly terrible for opening this can of worms, and not understanding why he was just telling her. It was too raw and vulnerable a thing to be discussed over the lunch table, and yet here they were. His voice was hoarse and he cleared his throat. "I assume you're asking because you want to make sure I'm not claiming to be separated when we're really still enmeshed. And we aren't. Our marriage has been dead for a long time. We just occasionally drag it out of its grave to have regrettable, drunk sex," he said with forced attempt at casualness that was clearly brittle beneath. "But like I said. Not since June."

It was Hermione's turn to say, "Oh," rather blankly. Her head was spinning. She felt slightly ill. All this blunt honesty was going to make her sick. "Do you love me?" she asked abruptly, forging onward instead of retreating. He gave her a look, arching a brow.

"Yes, Granger. I do. You know that," he said patiently.

"And you want to be with me? I mean, when Ron and I officially separate, do you want to..." Hermione searched for words. Do you want to be my boyfriend sounded almost childish. Be in a relationship sounded rather too cool and formal an arrangement. She ended up repeating just, "...do you want to be with me?" rather uncertainly, following it up with a gulp of Daisyroot Draught, feeling unreasonably nervous.

Malfoy smiled faintly. "Yes, Granger," he said, still patient, spinning his firewhiskey glass slowly on the table, eyes mercurial. "Do you?"

"Yes," she said too-fast and too eager, and then flushed and took a deep, cleansing breath. Hermione met Malfoy's eyes, and then just said it – what she'd been building courage to say this entire time. Her ultimatum. "But I can't unless you get divorced."

He just looked at her for a moment, and then swore softly and downed the remainder of his drink, empty glass thudding on the table. Hermione bit the inside of her cheek. "I won't be your mistress, Malfoy. I'm not...that. Last night made that excruciatingly clear to me. I don't care if purebloods don't divorce, or if it'll break a thousand years of tradition, or if your parents will disown you – I can't be with you if you're married to someone else." She took a breath. "As much as I might want to, I won't," she finished, the last coming out in a small, ashamed voice.

Malfoy looked out the window at the sea for a handful of seconds, washed in the pale winter sunlight, eyes narrowed and brows furrowed, his profile highlighted. Altogether far too attractive with his hair shining white-blond and his nose a straight line, his jaw sharp. Hermione began to wonder not-quite-seriously if perhaps being his mistress would be worth it, for moments like this. This tarnished kind of perfection, with him. Then Malfoy sighed and met her gaze again.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "I pretty much expected that, Granger." Hermione held her breath. What did that mean? "And I figured, I've already ruined the Malfoy name according to my parents – or my father, at least – with my views on society. And my son is a disappointment to them because he won't carry the name on by doing his duty and marrying a woman he's incapable of being attracted to," he said with distaste. "So I thought I may as well hit the trifecta and get divorced." He grinned weakly. "Christmas isn't going to be fun this year."

"Is it ever?" Hermione asked without thinking, a wild kind of happiness beating in her chest where her heart should be, threatening to burst out entirely.

He laughed. "Not, not really." A smirk tugged at his lips. "But you owe me, Granger. I'm breaking a thousand years of tradition for you, after all." There was both teasing and a ravenous want in his eyes, and Hermione felt her skin prickle beneath his heavy-lidded gaze.

"You can collect after Christmas," she said primly. And then, without artifice, a blunt kind of need in her voice – "I really want to kiss you right now, Malfoy. Really, very badly."

He cut her a lightning fast, wicked kind of smile. "You made the rules, Granger. You can't be a hypocrite and break them. Again."

But after lunch they stood on the balcony, a slightly more sheltered spot around the corner from the entrance out of sight of any curious eyes, and he held her. Just held her. Wrapped in Malfoy's arms in her wool coat, with her hands clutched tightly to his back and his lips pressed against the top of her head, Hermione felt small, and warm, and very loved. They stood there for a very long time; sheltering each other from the wind, keeping each other warm, and Hermione felt an inexpressible sort of gratitude to the universe at large. It had brought her Malfoy right when she'd needed him, and despite everything, he was somehow – bizarrely – exactly what she needed.

He kissed her cheek when they finally disentangled from each other, his hand cupping the other side of her face, his gaze filled with things that made Hermione's chest ache. "Will I see you this weekend?"

"No," she said miserably, "not if Ron comes through. He's supposed to be taking Rose to Hogsmeade this weekend."

"Shit. I'd say I hope he falls through, but that'd be unfair on your daughter."

"Mm. It would. But I'd understand," she said, smiling slightly. "You hoping won't cause it, after all." And besides, a small, selfish part of her hoped for it too, although she wouldn't say so aloud. "But I imagine I won't see you until Monday."

"Shit," Malfoy said again. "Salazar's sake, I've never wished for Christmas so badly. I guess I'll meet you in the lift on Monday, 9am sharp?" he asked, clearly mostly a joke, but although Hermione huffed a laugh, she nodded and knew she'd make sure she was on the lift then.

"It's a date."