CW: References to Prior Violence
CW: Lewd Language

Hermione stared at the overnight bag on her bed. What was she meant to pack? It was only three days, how many wardrobe changes did she truly need? Friday night at the manor. Saturday night at the manor. Sunday night at the manor.

Nights.

At the manor.

The last time she spent the night was one of the worst days of her life. Not nearly as bad as getting blown up or divorced, but certainly in the top five. The time before that, she felt so humiliated she could barely look at Draco for weeks. That feeling of inadequacy had diminished, but it hadn't disappeared.

Hermione had laid out her usual pyjamas, rolled them up on the bed, but stopped short of placing them in the bag. What if Draco wanted to take their relationship further? What if Hermione let him? She glanced toward the drawer with her spicier undergarments inside and placed her hands on her hips. Hermione told Draco they needed time to be a maybe, to exist in these happier days of joy and anticipation instead of jumping right into a relationship neither of them seemed entirely prepared for. But …

Three nights at the manor.

Draco Malfoy was entirely too great a temptation to resist three nights in a row. Hermione pulled out her phone and tapped Harry's name before she could think twice about it. He picked up halfway through the third ring and answered with,

"Hermione?"

"Harry."

"You phoned?"

"I need a man's opinion and I can't go to Ron."

Harry deadpanned, "Always happy to be a second choice."

"It's about sex."

"Oh." His voice shifted a bit as he conceded, "Quite glad I'm not your first choice, then. What d'you need?"

"Draco and I—"

"Oh, no, so sorry …" It sounded as though Harry was holding the phone away from his face when he shouted, "What's that, Gin? The house is on fire? Guess I should take care of that!"

Hermione groaned, "Harry. She's in another country."

His grainy sigh was loud as he brought the phone back up to his face.

"Alright, tell me about the sex I hope you're not having."

"I told Draco that I believed we should wait to be a proper couple until after I have the plate removed from my shoulder. That way I can start fresh without those memories being such a literal part of me, and begin to make new ones with him."

"Okay."

"As we're all going to dinner tonight, I've agreed to stay the weekend at Malfoy Manor so Draco and I can spend time together."

Harry repeated, "Okay."

"I'm meant to be packing, but I can't decide whether I need to bring my normal pyjamas so he can avoid that temptation on my part, or if I should take my sexier things in case he also wants to completely forget what we agreed to and … Well, have sex with me."

"Mhmm."

"That is all you have to say?"

"You're asking me because I'm a man, yeah?"

"Yes."

"Mhmm."

"Harry."

"Look, Hermione, you're a thirty-four-year-old beautiful, accomplished woman. Men, whether it's Draco Malfoy or Viktor Krum or whomever, it doesn't matter what you say you want. If you offer sex, they will take it. Even if it's not the best idea. If Malfoy hasn't quite gotten over his wife, the way I suspect he hasn't, he might not be ready to take that step. But it's up to him to recognize that, not you. I can't believe I need to explain this, but it doesn't matter whether you're in trackies or lingerie. Malfoy will probably fuck you if you make the offer."

"Then," Hermione guessed, "I should look good either way?"

"No," replied Harry, "You have to dress for yourself, Hermione. It's bed. It's going to sleep. Wear what you would normally wear."

"But what if he—"

"You're overthinking. There's no logic to sex, it's just sex. Fuck him or don't, I don't really care as long as you make the right decision for you."

Hermione admitted, "I'm not sure what the proper decision is."

"Man's opinion?"

"Please."

"You can just fuck. It doesn't have to matter to your relationship. Sometimes sex is just sex."

"Oh." Hermione frowned. "I hadn't considered that."

"I figured. Do you want the one sentence summary?"

"Sure."

"Get a bigger bag and pack it all."

"That," replied Hermione, "is why you were the first call." She paused before asking, "How are you feeling?"

"How am I feeling?" asked Harry. "About what?"

"Generally."

"Stoked for this dinner party. It's an opportunity to get out of the house without really going anywhere. It's just leaving my house for someone else's much larger house. Am I still thinking about … Well. I think about what happened every hour of the day. I can still feel the bullet inside of me. I know it's not there anymore, but I can feel it. Probably will 'til the day I die. Dr. Goshawk is so insistent that I try to live my life, that I find these ways to put the incident out of my mind …"

Hermione could almost see Harry shrug.

"It is what it is, Hermione. I can't take this shit out of my brain, it's there, but I'm still here for my kids, and my wife is kicking ass at the World Cup so I'm fucking dealing with it."

"Have you put it out of mind?"

"Erm …" Harry's sigh was heavy. "Not a bit. I feel like it's still here, but … I dunno, 'mione. Somehow it's a little lighter. I look at Gin when we wake up in the morning, watch James score a goal on the football team, or listen to Al's horrible piano playing … I guess I'm trying to replace the weight of what I saw with the lightness of what I see now."

Hermione nodded to herself.

"I think that's quite wise."

"It's helped me start to feel safer. For months I'd have these reactions I couldn't control. Physical ones, emotional ones … There were weeks when I locked myself in my and Gin's room just to make sure I wouldn't hurt anyone. Going to lunch with you, Ron, and Dean was a huge step for me. I feel safe for my kids now."

"Have you met Draco's son?" asked Hermione.

"Ugh," Harry groaned, "of course I've met the little Malfoy. Al won't shut up about him. He's got five other friends but it's Scorpius this and Malfoy that. He looks just like his father with that blond hair and his pointy little face. He's a proper little angel, too, which is beyond frustrating. When I met him, he offered his hand and said, 'It's an honour to meet you.' He's five."

"Scorpius is like that all the time."

"It's irritating. If James ever said, 'It's an honour to meet you,' I'd assume he hit his head on something. But no, Malfoy's got to go and raise the most lovely child on the planet. How does that happen?"

"I don't know."

"Right, I'll see you this evening?"

"Of course."

"Hermione?"

"Harry?"

"Does Malfoy make you happy?"

"Sometimes." Hermione admitted, "He makes me feel the sort of confidence I'd lost in myself after the incident, and post-divorce. Sometimes it is a bit painful for me to experience because it means I have to admit I was wrong to doubt myself the past several years. Viktor makes me feel sort of sappy, that childlike innocence we always had—"

"There was nothing innocent about the things you two did together," replied Harry.

Hermione shot back, "As if you weren't begging for details."

"And I remember them vividly."

Hermione laughed.

"You're disgusting."

"It's Viktor Krum."

"To your question, yes, I think Draco makes me happy."

"Okay. I won't be an asshole to him, then."

"Thanks."

"Bye, 'mione."

"Bye."

Hermione ended the call and immediately went searching for a bigger bag. She vaguely recalled Draco's holdall from Aspinal of London. Perhaps she should get one as well, if she was meant to be hopping to and from the manor on the weekends. Instead, she found her large black case and dragged it into the bedroom. She sighed and pulled all the undergarments out of the drawer and onto her bed. It was a far larger pile than she had any use for. Yet …

"Which of you will Draco like best?"

Hermione mumbled to herself as she sorted through them. Atop the pile was a cupless black bra with strappy bits of fabric across the chest that was far too provocative for a first time. Parvati had bought it for Hermione shortly after the divorce with the rationale of, "You'd make an incredible dominatrix with those scars." Hermione tossed it onto a pillow and proceeded to the next.

She picked up a pale pink short trimmed in black lace. They were relatively new compared to the rest of her things. There was a moment the prior year when Hermione considered putting herself back on the dating market. A brief moment of excitement when Cedric mentioned Roger Davies, the primary football analyst at ITV, considered asking her out. Davies was (is) incredibly handsome. Hermione took pride in her dating history: a handful of successful, wonderful, attractive men. Ron was good-looking and had a nice, stable job to balance her unpredictable career. Viktor Krum was one of the most celebrated athletes of the past decade, not to mention gorgeous as hell. Draco Malfoy was a billionaire who had graced the covers of Men's Health UK, British GQ, Men's Running, and even been on the front page of Vogue Paris according to her trip through Google. Roger Davies would have fit nicely in the centre of that list.

Hermione glanced down at her arm and sighed. How hypocritical for someone whose confidence was irreparably damaged by her physical appearance to be so vain about her partners. She turned the shorts around and lined them up with her waist. They hit very high on her thigh. Too high. She could visualize the scarring on her left thigh beneath her jeans. Hermione angrily threw the shorts up toward the top of her bed where they landed on the same pillow as the bra she'd deemed too sexy. What would Draco say when he saw—

Five-star pair of tits.

But what of her thighs? What about this part of her which Draco hadn't seen? Not her tits, not her bum, her thighs. Viktor hadn't minded, but Viktor was a single night. One night every decade with thighs strong enough to support Hermione as he pressed the lower half of his face into the space between them. Draco Malfoy did not feel like a single night. Draco Malfoy felt like years. Draco Malfoy felt like the love of a lifetime, but who the hell wanted to spend a lifetime with a partner whose skin looked as though it had met the wrong end of a blender? Knowing it would never get better. Hermione's skin would age, lose elasticity, look less and less desirable with each passing year. This was the best her thighs would ever look, and they looked awful.

Wait.

Draco had seen her thighs, hadn't he? That morning at the manor when his former father-in-law tweaked Hermione's shoulder, she'd answered the door in nothing but a thong on her lower half. Draco had seemed rather preoccupied with her bum, but he'd had a clear view of her thighs and hadn't seemed perturbed in the slightest. Hermione used her thighs as a table while eating the blueberry pancakes, so he was certain to have seen them.

Hermione took a deep breath then walked around the bed to grab the shorts and toss them into her open case on the floor. She rustled through the pile of undergarments at the end of the bed and found the matching camisole. Was she really going to wear this? Was she ready to expose this much of herself to someone as beautiful and experienced as Draco Malfoy?

Hermione tossed it in.

.oOo.

Colin picked Hermione up at two o'clock for the drive to Wiltshire. Once she was nestled and safely buckled in the back, she opened the advance copy of Gilderoy Lockhart's book, Sojourning in Singapore. The title made little sense, as half the book was purported to take place in Malaysia. As she began to read through, she was delighted to find tales of familiar cities in Malaysia, and Singapore sites she recalled from her university days. She hadn't been back since graduating, but reading the brief mentions in the opening chapters rekindled her love for it. Hermione could almost taste the kuih pie tee from her favourite restaurant when Lockhart mentioned Orchard Road.

The words, however, felt a bit too familiar. Something pulled at the back of Hermione's mind, as though she'd heard this story before. As if the whole chapter was being fed onto the page from her own hazy memories. Perhaps a half hour into the drive, Hermione asked Colin,

"Can I read something to you?"

"Of course," he replied. "Dunno if I'll be of much help, but read on, boss."

"It reads, 'I turned to look back out the left window to ensure no one was approaching as I moved into the other lane to pass the car in front. I tore my eyes away from the beautiful palm trees and impossibly blue sky as I overtook the car and moved back into the proper lane.' What does that sound like to you?"

Colin shrugged.

"Seems rather simple. He was driving and passed the car in front of him."

"Except he cannot have been looking over his left shoulder to pass."

"Why not?"

"Because Malaysians drive on the left side of the road."

"Perhaps he was already in the right lane, an idiot swerved in front of him and began to drive slow, so he went 'round the other way."

"It's illegal to overtake another car on the left side in Malaysia."

"Maybe he didn't know."

Hermione frowned and asked, "You believe the most famous cultural anthropologist and documentary filmmaker in the country is thick-headed enough to not learn the basic rules of the road? The same ones I learned at eighteen?"

"Look, that Lockhart man seems like a proper ponce to me. I had to read one of his books for school. Didn't quite like the way he talks about 'the homosexuals.' Like he's making some sort of nature documentary about a little group of rainbow animals instead of treating them like humans, you know? I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but it always rubs me the wrong way when documentarians talk about poor people like they're a separate species, too. Lockhart's words make my skin crawl, is all I can say."

"I agree …" Hermione shook her head as the words on the pages in front of her began to blur. "Something is not quite right here."

.oOo.

"Nearly there, boss."

Hermione looked up from the book and noted the familiar trees on the road leading to Malfoy Manor. The guard station came quickly into view. Colin rolled down his window, prepared to hand his information to security, but Hermione said,

"No need. Pull me up to the keypad, please."

Colin glanced quickly up at Hermione in the mirror but didn't press. Hermione leaned out the window and typed in the numbers 1-2-0-4-1-9. Colin hummed softly to himself as the gates opened, he nodded to the security guard in the guard station, but again said nothing. As the X5 rumbled down the drive, heading toward the circle at the front door, Hermione's heart beat the slightest bit faster.

Three nights at the manor.

"I'll be back to pick you up on Monday morning."

Hermione nodded and said, "Thank you, Colin."

"If you need me back any earlier, I can be here in three hours. You call me any time."

"He's not going to murder me."

"No, but it's easy to feel trapped in places like this. Especially if you're afraid you'll disappoint someone if you leave early. You do what's best for you, and I am simply saying that if you want to leave I'll be here in three hours. I don't give a damn if it's midnight and I pick you up at three in the morning. You call me."

Hermione confirmed, "I will call you."

"Good." Colin nodded to the front of the manor as it came into view. "Looks like your boyfriend is waiting for you."

"I'm not sure 'boyfriend' is the proper term just yet."

"As a man, Hermione, I can say without a doubt he thinks he's your boyfriend. Men don't wait on the steps out front for a side bit."

Seeing Draco on the front steps of Malfoy Manor brought out a few different emotions for Hermione. Excitement, knowing Draco was excited enough to wait for her arrival out front. Trepidation, wondering whether she'd end up using any of the slightly more risqué bits of clothing she brought along. And a lingering uncomfortable feeling knowing what had happened to Draco on those very steps two decades earlier. He was wearing what Hermione presumed to be his usual Friday work attire: the half-unbuttoned silk shirt and perfectly tailored trousers. Draco had his hair back in that familiar messy bun, and Hermione envied the effortlessness of it all.

The X5 came to a stop in the circular drive so the passenger door was parallel to the front of the manor. Hermione unfastened her seatbelt, opened the door, and stepped out. She walked around the boot and to the other side, where Draco was already waiting.

"Can I—"

"Yes."

Hermione barely finished the word before Draco had backed her up against the BMW and bent low for a hard, desperate kiss. He lingered as if to say, I missed you every day. I thought of doing this every day. Hermione closed her eyes and let Draco lead as she placed her hands on his hips. He had one hand at the base of Hermione's neck, fingers in her hair, pulling her close. It had been weeks since she'd seen him and been snogged like this. Every bit of Draco's lower half was pressed against her, and all she could manage to think was, Thank God I brought something sexy. The way Draco was holding her, Hermione didn't feel any of the hesitation he seemed to have before. Her own insecurities seemed to float away.

He pulled back for the briefest possible moment to breathe, then kissed Hermione again with the same fevered need. Hermione could feel her cheeks warming up as she'd never been kissed quite like this in front of anyone else. Draco pulled back and Hermione gasped in a quick breath like she'd just finished a marathon, chest heaving rapidly up and down. She gathered herself enough to say,

"Draco?"

His voice was soft when he replied, "Yeah," like he was a little drunk. His eyes were half-hooded and he had a sappy smile on his face that made Hermione's heart melt. She did that. She did that.

"You don't have to ask anymore."

"Okay." Draco glanced toward the front window and said, "Hi, Colin."

"Afternoon, Mr. Malfoy."

"Alright, then?"

"Alright. Your house gives me the creeps."

"It does most people."

One of the butlers determined it was finally appropriate to retrieve Hermione's case from the boot of the car. Colin leaned out the window to say,

"You two have got to stop jumping on top of each other when I'm around."

"What can I say?" Draco looked down at Hermione, his eyes brighter than she had ever seen. "She's irresistible."

"Yeah, yeah, alright." Colin waved them away. "Get off my car, please."

Hermione allowed Draco to gently pull her off the car and into his side, wrapping one arm around her shoulders. Hermione waved to Colin as he drove off. Her phone buzzed with a text just as the X5 faded from view. From Colin, it simply read: BOYFRIEND. Hermione smiled down at her phone then placed it back in her pocket. She leaned into Draco who pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head and said,

"Welcome back, Golden Girl."

"I think you should have a nickname, as well. For parity."

"Oh?" Draco nodded toward the gardens and said, "Let's consider it, then, while I show you where we will have dinner. I am quite excited; it has been ages since I've been to a proper party."

Since before my wife died didn't need to be said aloud. The truth hung heavy between them for a moment. They walked in comfortable silence for a minute as Draco led Hermione to the gardens. She'd worn flats for the journey, figuring she would have time to change before seeing Draco and unaware he'd be waiting outside his home for her to arrive. As they passed through the outer border of trees, Hermione asked,

"Where is your son?"

"Inside watching Octonauts with Romilda." Draco admitted, "I'll tell him you're here soon, but I wanted you to myself for a moment."

Hermione smiled and said, "I missed you, too."

"Here we are."

Draco gestured to the party setup in front of them. This was part of the gardens Hermione hadn't been to before. It was a sunken bit of land with four steps down to a large area surrounding a raised water feature. There were beautiful budding trees, each ringed by a large shrub hiding a small light pointing up toward the leaves. Tables had been set up on either side of the water feature in the centre, akin to a tiny raised pond, and a small band was setting up in the far corner. Hermione spun around in a full circle before saying,

"This is incredible."

"Thank you!" Draco grinned. "My mother usually plans these herself, but as I will be head of household at some point she believes it is time I begin learning to plan a proper Malfoy party. The band was my idea, as I quite like dancing and it's always nice to have background music for a conversation. I've also got the giant telly queued up in the ballroom as England is playing tonight. Figured if Ginny is substituted in, the party may need to relocate."

Hermione took his hand in her own and twined their fingers together. She said,

"Your gardens are so beautiful, and quite expansive. How much land do you own?"

"Technically two thousand acres. All of this here," Draco gestured to the gardens then back toward the manor. "This is the primary five hundred. There is security around the entirety of this perimeter. The manor is on the most Eastward part of the property so the front door and windows face the sunrise, then you can watch the sunset from the gardens here at the back of the house. The northern quarter of the property are our public gardens, operated by the county. We host well over a hundred weddings a year there, but the county pays for the upkeep."

"A hundred!"

"It's beautiful." Draco gestured again to the gardens surrounding them and said, "This is the perfect place to get married."

Hermione's curiosity got the better of her.

"Did you get married here?"

Draco frowned.

"Bloody hell, you really know how to put a dagger in the heart of a point, Hermione."

"So no, then?"

"No, Astoria and I got married at a villa in Luberon."

Hermione wondered if Draco intended to get married again. Then again, she would hardly know the answer to that question if it was asked of her.

"Think of it, years on, would you see yourself marrying me?" asked Draco.

Hermione nodded and conceded, "I think I am open to any way that would make Scorpius feel I am part of his family, and to make me part of yours."

"So … Yes?"

"Yes. Would you marry me, then?"

"I would." Draco's eyebrows knitted together a bit. "It's strange, admitting that aloud. I truly thought Astoria and I would be together sixty or seventy years. Content in our own little world as she became the star we both believed she was destined to be. Every bit of my life came crashing down when she died, and it left me as this pile of sharp edges. I don't quite recall how to do the softness of life, and you are helping me to feel I can again. You fit into my family so well, it feels as though you've been here for years."

"I have."

"Right. Of course." Draco added, "And you would stay Hermione Granger, if we got married."

Hermione frowned and crossed her arms in front of her chest. That seemed rather presumptuous of him.

"Why would you not so much as give me the option of taking your name? I took Ron's, perhaps I would want to take yours, too."

Draco turned to face Hermione and shrugged. He said,

"Astoria is the only person who will have my name. It feels wrong to give it to someone else."

Hermione looked away. Her initial reaction came from deep, deep inside her. Being seconded like that … Was she not good enough to be part of his family in that way? The Malfoys didn't consider her worthy of their precious bloodline? Ron had cared so deeply about his name that he wanted Hermione to keep it even after they separated. Yet, Draco wouldn't even give Hermione the opportunity? He seemed to sense he touched a nerve and insisted,

"It does not mean I will love you less—"

"Shh," Hermione held up one hand and said, "I need to consider this quietly."

Draco frowned. He nodded and stuffed his hands into his pockets as Hermione gave the issue more thought, particularly from the viewpoint of Draco's grief. The name meant something to him. It was part of a destiny he needed to live up to, and Astoria had helped him do so. She gave him his son. In the British GQ article, Draco said that he was proud of the life he'd built by the time his father was released from prison. Hermione hadn't started that family, and perhaps the name belonged to the woman who continued the line the way it was meant to be continued. The woman who gave Draco reason to take pride in his name.

If Hermione was honest with herself, she had no interest in Malfoy family traditions. Perhaps it mattered more that Draco was so sure in this decision, clearly enough to have thought about it and decided. Which meant, at some point, Draco had considered marrying Hermione. This early on in a relationship? She could hardly be upset at him not offering his name when he was quite literally offering up his son.

After what must have been two full minutes of uncomfortable silence, broken only by the anxious voices of the band setting up on the opposite end of the alcove, Hermione gave Draco her answer.

"I am okay with this choice."

Draco appeared rather surprised by that.

"I expected a bit of a disagreement on this. Not to complain, but I would like to understand exactly how you came to the same decision I did."

"It's rather simple," replied Hermione. "Your name is something you shared with your wife, and that is important to you. It is not important to me. The way I see it, your wife cared far more about your family's traditions than I ever will. Mostly, the name Malfoy is something your son shares with his mother and not with me. I don't want to ruin that connection. If I took your name, I feel as though I would truly be taking something away from Astoria. I believe that is a sacred bond for the two of you. I can come in and be who I am with my own name. She gets to keep this one part of you I don't have. That is why I believe you are making the right decision."

Draco kicked at the ground with the toe of his shoe. Hermione watched a half-dozen expressions cross his face, almost as if he was remembering how he believed this conversation would go. Then attempting to reconcile that with the viewpoint Hermione expressed. It took him an inordinate amount of time to square the two, and his only response was a half-exasperated,

"You are incredible."

"Obviously," teased Hermione.

Draco, however, did not seem to take that lightly. He insisted,

"I have to continuously justify, to myself and to everyone else, how I can love whom I had before and love whom I have now. You just spat it out like it's the easiest conclusion in the world to come to."

"It's logical."

"No, no it isn't. This is from the heart, Hermione. You seem to understand my heart better than anyone ever has. Most people would try to compete with Astoria. They would frame this as a competition or as if I was still viewing her as somehow superior to you."

"I know you aren't."

"But—"

"You gave me the time to consider it. Even if we decided to get married, I would stay who I am, just as you will preserve the sanctity of what you lost."

"I do not want you to feel as though there are three people in this relationship."

"This is a three-person relationship." Hermione quickly added, "You, me, and your son. I would never even have considered a relationship with you if I didn't want to be in your son's life. I like what I hear about Astoria, and I believe you would not be a man I would consider marrying in the future if she had not been in your life first. She earned your name and she can keep it."

Draco tossed his hands in the air and asked,

"Why the bloody hell are you so great about this? Why can't you make this difficult? Why—"

"Do you want me to make it difficult?"

"Yes!" he shouted back. "Yes, I do! I feel like rubbish because you're so good at this!"

Hermione's heart sank at that entirely too familiar refrain. You're too good. You're too loud. You're too bitchy. It sounded so foreign coming from him. She asked,

"You want me to be less good at what?"

"I don't know. I've spent so many years worried I would forget about Astoria, and you've done everything so perfectly to make sure that doesn't happen. You are impossibly good at balancing my past with our future. I keep thinking if I'd gone to Bastien's elopement the way I was meant to, I would have met you three years ago. I lost so much time with my wife, Hermione, and I fear I was so caught up in that grief that I've lost years with you, too. When you asked me to wait, to take time to be a maybe, it is more and more time I won't be with you the way I want to be. I know how quickly life can change, how quickly the people you love can disappear."

Hermione could not find the throughline in any of that. What was he saying? They were talking about his name, and now …

"I'm confused."

Draco huffed, "I don't want to wait anymore, Hermione. I want to introduce you as my girlfriend tonight and I do not wish to spend the entire weekend in separate bedrooms. This relationship is important and I keep thinking that if something happens to you when the plate is removed, or any other time for that matter, I will never have known what it is like to have been loved by you. Losing Astoria took so much out of me, and losing you without having truly loved you? That would destroy me. I could not go on."

"Oh."

Hermione tilted her head up as far as she could, but still didn't quite make eye contact with him. In lieu of that, she wrapped her arms around his waist and conceded,

"Let's not wait, then."

Draco placed one hand between her shoulder blades and pulled her close. Hermione pressed her forehead into the centre of his chest and sighed. She admitted,

"I feel like I'm doing this all wrong. I make a decision only to find it's the wrong choice and I need to choose something else."

"Sometimes," replied Draco, "you have to live through a decision to figure out it is the wrong one."

Hermione nodded. She teased,

"We still need to think of an alternate name for you."

"Bastien calls me 'Blondie,' but I don't believe that fits for you."

"You're right; it doesn't. I suppose if Scorpius is baby blond, that would make you daddy blond."

Hermione felt Draco tense immediately. Every muscle in his body seemed to freeze. She felt more than saw him tilt his head back so he was facing the sky.

"Hermione, I am asking very politely that you never call me 'daddy' unless you are ready for me to fuck you against the nearest wall."

She felt her cheeks heat up again, rather quickly this time.

"Oh?"

"God, you don't even know. I'm going to have to wank after this just thinking about you saying it." He shook his head and repeated, "Daddy." He groaned low in his throat and finally managed to look at Hermione. "That's never been much of a thing for me, but coming from you … That's doing something to me."

Hermione admitted, "I didn't realize how that must sound—"

Draco pulled Hermione into another fierce kiss and she was shocked by the immediacy of her own response. She placed her left hand into the back pocket of his trousers and gently squeezed his right cheek. Draco moaned into her mouth and stepped away. He wiped the corners of his lips and nodded toward a large shrub.

"I know I said a wall, but I can fuck you into the bushes."

"Our first time together is not going to be in a shrub." Hermione added, "And certainly not in front of your hired musicians."

"Hermione," Draco groaned. "I think, um, I think I need to go. Now. Right now. Immediately."

Hermione watched as he turned toward the steps out of the alcove. She shouted after him.

"I'll find the way back on my own, shall I, daddy blond?"

He said over his shoulder, "I swear if you say that one more time I will come in my trousers."

Hermione couldn't stop laughing.

"Another name is in order, then?"

"Please!"

"How about 'boyfriend?'"

"That will do for now!"

Hermione heard the smile in his voice. Just before he vanished from sight, he shouted back,

"Arrivals begin at six. I'll be wanking 'til then, thanks to you!"