Hermione had had a male best friend since she was twelve.
She had put up with his tempers, his tantrums, his pranks.
Let him copy from her homework when he'd fallen asleep the previous evening and was still missing three inches of words for his potions essay.
Had held his hand at his grandparents funeral.
Squeezed him tight when he showed her the engagement ring he planned to give his girlfriend.
Kept a straight poker face as the girlfriend in question had interrogated them all about his intentions.
The point was, Hermione was used to having Harry Potter, a male, as a best friend.
She had lots of other friends too - both male and female and as close as she was to Ginny it was nothing compared to her friendship with Harry.
And her friendship with Harry was nothing like her friendship with Draco.
She wasn't even sure when Draco had replaced Harry as her best friend.
It hadn't been an overnight process at the very least.
More like six years of ignoring each other as much as possible at school.
Two years of tolerance in the head dormitories and then occasional weekends when she supported her friends at pick up quidditch games.
Then three more years of spending every waking working minute together in the offices of the DMLE as they both fought tooth and nail to prove themselves.
It became second nature for him to be the person she gravitated to when they were at social events with their friends.
Then when they were alone, it was just easy to be with him.
She didn't have to dumb herself down, or refrain from speaking about magic. She could moan about her friends because he moaned about his and it was just easy.
So it probably shouldn't have been as much of a shock to her when one afternoon in the middle of the canteen at work that he looked up at her and she was struck by how handsome he was.
By how attractive he was.
And after that….
It was like she couldn't look at him anymore, not without blushing.
And suddenly it wasn't easy to be around him at all.
Because all she could think about was how much she wanted him to smirk at her the way he did at every leering girl that walked past the pair of them.
Wanted him to slide his fingers through the hand that she had always let hang casually beside her.
Wanted him to stand behind her and press kisses to her neck the way she watched other couples.
Wanted him.
Which is why when they ended up out with all their friends on a friday night, and they'd left the comfort of whoever's house they'd met up at, and drank more than their fair share of alcohol at whichever establishment they always ended up at, and she watched him flirting with the numerous bitches witches that approached their table and demanded his attention, that she ended up with a different wizard pressing her into the wall in a dark corner with his lips on hers and her hands on him.
Hermione had learned a long time ago that if she couldn't at least have what she wanted, she would take what she needed.
Later, she would wonder how she ever thought that it wouldn't all come tumbling down.
Hermione grinned up at Draco as she approached him. She could hear their friends making arrangements behind her as they spilled out into Diagon Alley.
But he wasn't smiling back at her, wasn't even looking at her she realised as she got closer.
"What's wrong with you?"
He jerked his head in the direction of the Leaky Cauldron.
"What was that?"
Her face screwed up in confusion.
"What was what?"
His eyes flared. "With Theo."
Embarrassment flushed through her and she flicked her gaze over his shoulder and shrugged.
"Nothing."
"He's my friend."
She could feel him looking down at her but she grit her teeth, the smile slipping from her face as she met his gaze once more.
"And?"
His eyes met hers. "And you should know better."
She gaped up at him.
" I should know better?"
Who the fuck did he think he was? She was his friend too. Why wasn't he having a go at Theo for crowding her in the corner of The Leaky Cauldron and slipping his tongue down her throat and his hands up her arse.
She turned, letting Pansy drag her away, determined to ignore what he said and remind him on Monday that she was a grown up and didn't need him giving her a lecture about snogging in the middle of the street when he spoke again.
"It's embarrassing."
She spun on him, fury thrumming through as she snapped her arm from Pansy's grip and roared at him.
"Why do you even care?"
She watched him glare down at her. Watched his nostrils flare as his eyes flicked over her face. Watched his jaw click as he obviously resisted the urge to answer.
He said nothing and that just made her angrier.
"Are you jealous?" She asked, incredulous at her own question.
She had never ever brought up this, this thing between them.
Never.
"You can't even admit it."
She wrapped her arms around herself, the December wind chilling her as throngs of people made their way out of the pub behind them. She could feel Pansy and Ginny standing behind her.
"I'm not having this conversation," he said quietly and Hermione felt tears prick at her eyes.
Bastard, he was a bastard and she was done.
Done caring.
Done pretending.
More people brushed past them and Hermione watched flabbergasted as he turned on his heel and began to stalk off.
She stepped forward.
"You're a coward," she hissed furiously and he stopped so suddenly multiple people bumped into his shoulder. "You're a coward," she said again, ignoring the people who were turning to stare at her now. Ignored the tears sliding down her cheeks, "and I am done."
She didn't watch him walk away again and instead turned towards her friends. She wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand and allowed them to huddle around her as they began the walk to the apparition point.
She didn't stop Daphne from slipping her hand into hers.
Didn't stop her friend from pressing a shot into her hand when they arrived back at Grimmauld place a few minutes later.
Didn't say goodbye when they all began stepping into Harry's fireplace and flooing home.
Didn't say anything.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
She didn't look up at Harry.
"There's nothing to talk about."
"Hermione."
"What?"
She flicked her eyes up from the book she was halfway through. She hadn't even bothered to ask Harry what he was doing in her flat at eleven am on a Saturday morning.
Hadn't moved when he'd lifted her legs and laid them over his lap as he'd dropped onto the sofa beside her.
"You know what?"
"What would you like me to say?" she asked, and she was so tired. She grit her teeth in an effort not to cry but Harry said nothing and Hermione couldn't help the snort that escaped her at the irony.
"You should go."
"I don't want to leave you all alone."
She glared at him over the rim of her book.
"I'm a grown up. I'm fine."
"Hermione."
She glanced at the top corner of her book noting the page number before she flipped the book over in her lap.
"What would you like me to say, Harry? Would you like me to break down and cry about how much of an areshole Malfoy is? Would you like me to throw something? Stomp my feet and cry about how unfair my life is? What is it? What do you want me to say?"
"I didn't say anything about Malfoy," he said quietly and Hermione shoved off the sofa and stood over him.
"Don't even!" she hissed down at him.
He looked up at her. "I didn't say anything."
"No. You didn't and aren't you all just so wonderful for never saying anything."
His mouth gaped open. "Why are you angry at me?"
"Because you're the reason he's in my life. Because you dragged him kicking and screaming into our lives with all your cross house communication amicable relationship bullshit," she said snidely.
"That's—that's—"
"You're engaged to his friend. Her friends are your friends, my friends, our friends. All friends, but just friends Harry, never anything else," she spat at him.
"You care about him."
She spun and pointed at him with a finger.
"I'm in love with him," she hissed then went stock still at her own words.
This, this was why she was so angry and upset and furious.
"Hermione."
She dropped down onto the sofa beside Harry and let him wrap his arms around her shoulder. She stared into the empty fireplace.
"You should tell him."
She snorted and shook her head.
"No thanks. I'm not a masochist. I am more than happy enough to sit here with my unrequited love."
She could see Harry opening and closing his mouth from the corner of her eye but he settled on saying nothing and simply let her calm down.
"You can go, you know," she said eventually. "I don't need a babysitter."
"What are you going to say to him?"
"I'm not going to say anything to him. I've had months of not saying anything to him about this. I'll be just fine."
"He deserves to know."
"Just because you would want to know doesn't mean Draco does. He's more than happy going on all his little dates with the women his mother arranges for him. More than happy to sneak off with the ones she doesn't know about on the weekends."
Hermione had overheard him talking more than enough to know what happened when she wasn't around.
"I'm sorry," Harry said instead.
"It's fine," she turned to look at him. "It's always been fine."
She'd called him a coward.
She'd been angry and hurt and right.
He was a coward.
He wrote his resignation, sent it to the ministry along with a house elf whose name he didn't know but whom he knew would return with all his belongings which he promptly dumped into a cupboard that had a habit of losing things and slammed it shut.
He wrote his mother that he was more than happy to meet Camille Laurent for Sunday tea the next day and that he would catch a private portkey later that evening, opening the Paris apartment a few weeks early for her.
He tossed a handful of notes through the floo to Pansy, Potter and even that wanker Theo, letting him know that he would be gone for a few weeks and that he'd see them when he saw them.
The final letter he wrote was for his father - just one word since the man had been harassing him for years with the same question.
Yes.
He sent that letter with his owl knowing his father would be livid to receive notification of his intentions through the floo then taking one look around his apartment, stepped into the floo and headed for the Ministry.
He didn't think about the only letter he'd written and hadn't sent.
Didn't think about the words he'd written down, acknowledged for the first time in the years he'd been feeling them.
Didn't let himself imagine the look on her face when she showed up to work on Monday morning with those two cups of coffee that she always brought on her way in and saw his empty desk.
Didn't let himself think about how he wouldn't ever again watch her pull at her bottom lip with her teeth as she read through a deposition.
Or about how she flung her tumultuous hair into a bun on the top of her head before lunchtime every day without fail.
Or how about how seeing her smile at him everyday was the reason he had—
He didn't let himself think anything.
There was someone hovering by her desk on Monday morning, a box of belongings including what looked to be a dying Asphodel plant.
She carefully set the two cups of coffee, one for her and one for Malfoy, on her desk and looked at the young girl,
"Can I help you?"
The girl started, startled by Hermione's appearance. "Yes." She said, "I'm trying to find my new desk. I'm the new intern, Ella."
"Nice to meet you. Can I see your assignment sheet?" Hermione held her hand out expectantly and scanned the document when Ella passed it to her.
Her heart fell into her throat and she glanced across the room to where there now sat an empty desk. Every personal effect had been removed from the area.
Three years of a life gone.
She walked towards it, barely aware of the girl following behind her. She swallowed. "It's this one."
"Thanks so much, sorry I never caught your name."
She didn't look at her, just turned on her heel, dumped the two cups of coffee into the bin beside her desk and stalked for the lift.
She knew Theo would know where he was.
She knew Harry would even know.
Narcissa definitely but she wasn't going to floo to Malfoy Manor and demand Narcissa present her wayward son.
Which is why she was currently sitting on Pansy's bed waiting for the witch to emerge from the shower.
"Granger," Pansy sighed and Hermione's hackles raised. She knew why she was there then.
"Where is he?"
Pansy sighed again and sat on the bed beside Hermione. Her black hair was slicked back from her face and she looked as pale as the pillows scattered over the bed.
"He's in france."
"France."
"Getting engaged."
Hermione snorted and shook her head as she stood from the bed.
"Engaged?"
Pansy shrugged. "He decided it was time."
She nodded. "Right. Time." She took a deep breath. "And his job?"
"He's taken over the legal department at Malfoy Industries."
A place he'd once told her he'd rather cut off his arm than work at.
"Of course."
"He told me to tell you —"
She stood. "Don't." She looked down at her friend who was looking up at her with pleading eyes. "I don't want to know."
"Hermione —" she didn't let her friend finish.
"Thanks Pansy. I'll see you later," she said instead and walking as quickly as she could without running, slipped down the hallway and into the fireplace.
One month later found him tucked into the corner booth of the leaky cauldron, Pansy, Theo, Daphne and Blaise surrounding him as they all drank their drinks.
They watched the other patrons mill around them, laughing and joking, gossiping about their day.
All without saying a word.
To each other yes, but not to him.
He huffed but said nothing either.
They were arseholes. He was friends with actual arseholes.
Pansy snorted and Draco realised he had said that last thought aloud.
"You are," he said, turning his gaze on each of them. "You're all aresholes."
Daphne smiled snidely at him and Draco swallowed roughly. That was not a good sign.
But it was Blase who said, "you don't want to talk about us being arseholes when you're the one who quit his job, moved to a different country and then shows up a month later expecting us to be at your beck and call."
"I don't expect you to be at my beck and call —"
"Not to mention," Pansy said, ignoring him, "the way you left."
"I'm not going to apologise —"
"Of course you aren't," Daphne said quietly, glaring at him. "That would imply you thought you had done something wrong."
Draco grit his teeth. "I'm a grown man."
Theo drained his glass and sat back in the seat. "That you are. So please, what did you want to see us all for?"
Draco flicked his gaze between them all before he stared down at his empty tumbler and shrugged.
"Nothing in particular."
"That's good." Pansy said, "because we have nothing in particular to say to you."
"I'm sorry if I hurt you all —"
Blaise laughed and Draco felt the blush high on his cheeks.
"You didn't hurt us."
He glared up at Daphne.
"I'm not talking about this."
Pansy snarled at him. "And why not?"
"Because I don't have to."
"No you don't, but we're not going to sit here and placate you while you lie to yourself," she said and then the four of them stood, grabbing their jackets and bags and shuffled out of the booth without another word.
He lingered in the booth for a few minutes before standing. He drained the remainder of his drink then turned and bumped into the one person who he'd been avoiding, even in his thoughts, for over a month.
"Draco."
She said his name so quietly that he was sure she hadn't meant to say it at all.
He clenched his fists then relaxed his grip and gave her a lazy smile.
"Granger."
He hated his friends. Arseholes. They'd probably done this on purpose so that he'd been forced to confront her.
She peered around him and he wondered who he was looking for.
"I thought you were in France."
He ignored the way his hands itched to reach out and touch her.
"Checking up on me?" he said, forcing himself to smirk.
Maybe he was the arsehole.
But she only glanced back up at him and gave him the same look she'd given him during the first few months they'd shared a head dormitory back at Hogwarts - like he was a stranger.
And she intended on keeping it that way.
She shook her head, as if she was shaking the exact same thought away and moved to step past him when he grabbed at her arm.
"Granger — Hermione, have a drink with me. I haven't seen you in a while. Let's catch up."
She stared at where his wrist was wrapped around her bare wrist then up at him. Draco dropped her arm at the look there.
He was the one that had told his friends to meet him here.
They hadn't forced him to confront anything.
He was the arsehole.
"No thanks," she said, clutching at the strap of her handbag with both hands. She lifted her head and met his eye. "I'm on a date." He knew his jaw was tense. Could feel it. "And you have a fiance."
Then she turned on her heel and walked away from him.
Draco was still standing there mouthing the word 'fiance' minutes later.
"You told her I was engaged!"
"Hello Draco, please come through. We weren't in the middle of a conversation."
He knew it had been Pansy.
She'd been forcing him to confront his shit since they were in nappies.
"Why did you do that?" he said ignoring her sarcastic remark.
Daphne sat back on the couch. Making herself comfortable. Both witches were smirking at him and Draco wanted to hit something.
"Why Pansy?"
"Why not," she said, standing and coming towards him. She poked him in the shoulder with one long pointed black fingernail. "Your mother has been presenting you with offers for months now. She wants you to settle down." She bared her teeth at him. "And I know you met with Camille Laurent." She poked him again. "Twice."
"That's none of your business."
"And Hermione is none of yours. So why do you even care?"
He couldn't stop the way his body flinched.
Those words.
The ones that Hermione had practically screamed at him weeks ago, thrown in his face again.
His fists clenched but his stomach flipped and his mouth was moving before he could stop it and —
"Because I'm in love with her!"
The sound of glass smashing on Pansy's marble tiles drowned the sound of his blood rushing to his head.
"What?"
Draco turned, slowly. But he already knew who was standing there.
She must have been dreaming.
Having a nightmare.
Because there was no way she had fled The Leaky Cauldron with Pansy and Daphne as soon as she'd spotted them in the bathroom after her run in with Draco.
No way she'd let them kidnap her from the date they had arranged and drag her back to Pansy's house.
No way she had emerged from the kitchen, a bottle of wine in hand to see Draco and Pansy glaring at each other and for Draco to shout that he was in love with her.
No way.
And it was definitely a nightmare because he didn't sound happy about it.
Not one bit.
She didn't even toss Pansy an apology for the bottle of broken red wine before she was tearing down the hallway and sprinting into the street, her arms shoving into her coat as she tried to forget what she'd heard.
It didn't matter she told herself.
He had left.
Vanished.
Without a word.
That wasn't — you didn't treat the people you loved like that.
A voice, suspiciously like Harry's, rang in her head. "You don't kiss the person you're in love with best mate either," but she shut him out.
It didn't matter.
They weren't — she didn't owe him anything.
She didn't remember getting home, but that was her key in the front door and that was her hand turning it and then she was over the threshold and kicking her shoes off as she marched into the kitchen and reached for the bottle of vodka Harry had left the week before.
She didn't notice the burn in her throat from the first the second or the third shot but when she walked into her living room, she did notice the man she loved standing in front of her fireplace, his face like thunder.
"Get out!"
He folded his arms across his chest and glared at her.
"No."
"I'm not doing this Draco."
"You just heard me say I love you and you've decided that you don't want to talk about it."
She grit her teeth and resisted the urge to look at him. To allow her eyes to scan every inch of him and make sure he was ok.
"You had your chance."
He scoffed. "You screaming at me in the middle of the street is not a chance."
"Why does it matter?" She pressed her hands against her eyes, dropped onto her couch and stared up at him. "You left."
"I know."
She shrugged up at him. "That's it?"
"I don't know what you want me to say?"
"I don't want you to say anything Draco. So what," she said, ignoring the way her heart was about to fall out of her mouth, "you love me. You're my best friend. I love you too. You don't see me moving to another country and getting engaged because of it."
"I am not engaged."
She waved a hand between them.
"Semantics."
"And I did not move to another country." She opened her mouth to tell him to leave, again but then he was moving, pacing in front of her fireplace. "And I don't love you," he said.
She tried not to flinch.
She really did.
But the words slapped her.
"You need to go," she gritted out, standing.
"You're not listening to me."
"My hearing is perfectly fine, Malfoy."
"I said I was in love with you, you idiot!"
He roared it at her and Hermione was going to need to see a chiropractor for her whiplash.
She stared up at him. They were both standing in front of the fireplace and —
"Did you just call me an idiot?"
His nostrils flared. "That," he grit out, "is the part you are focusing on?"
"It's insulting."
His eyes were molten silver as he glared at her.
"But it is true considering you never realised that I was in love with you."
"It's not like you noticed me being in love with you either," she snarled back. His eyes went wide and Hermione realised that not only was she an idiot but that he was one too.
Idiots in love.
With one another.
They were both so so so dumb.
"How long?"
She shrugged and flicked her gaze to the wall behind him.
"A while."
"And you knew."
She was not about to tell him she'd only realised a few weeks ago in this exact same spot.
Not right now anyway.
So she just jerked her head.
The silence was deafening until —
"So," he began slowly and Hermione looked at him just in time to see his throat bob as he swallowed. "You're in love with me."
Another jerk of her head.
"And I'm in love with you."
She met his eye and whispered, "Sounds like it."
She lost track of how long they just stood there, breathing in each other until she felt his fingers slide between the hand hanging at her side. Watched him step towards her.
"Granger."
She was at a loss for words. "I just." She blinked and when she opened her eyes and saw how wide his eyes were and how close he was —
She was an idiot.
But she wasn't stupid.
She glanced down at their hands, joined together. Glanced at the hand he had slid through her hair and was angling her head up at him. Glanced at his lips, at the way they were tilted up, not into a smirk but a smile and —
He moved before she could and pressed his mouth to hers and she couldn't stop the groan that escaped her as his tongue swept into her mouth and he dropped her hand but wrapped his around her waist instead.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning into him and tilted her head back so he could drag his mouth and his tongue and his teeth down her neck instead.
Her hands scrambled at his shirt.
"Off," she managed to gasp, in disbelief at her ability to form words when his mouth was making her fall apart . "Take this off."
They broke apart and he pulled the offending material over his head and then his hands were on her hips and her legs were wrapping around her waist and they were moving out of the living room and down the hall.
He dropped her onto the bed and she peeled her tights down and pulled her dress over her head as he shucked his jeans and then she was bare before him and he before her, the slip of lace between her legs the only scrap of clothing between the two of them.
She swallowed at the sight of him.
Broad shoulders and lean muscle and his cock. His cock was thick and heavy with desire and Hermione wanted it — him. All of him.
Now.
He was already diving for her, and one hand wrapped around her waist as his mouth immediately went to her chest. His tongue wrapped around her nipple and Hermione went limp in his grasp. She stroked her hands through his hair and tugged the strands at the nape of his neck.
"Draco."
"Look at you," he rasped, teeth nipping at her skin and Hermione shivered at the desire in his voice. His hands filled with her breasts, her nipples caught between his knuckles. She leaned forward, biting at his neck and reached between them,
"Look at you," she said, wrapping her hand around the thick length of him.
"Fuck."
"Yes please."
She was grinning. She couldn't remember the last time she had smiled so widely but then he was pushing her back against the bed, his mouth on her's once more and his hands —
His hands were tugging the soaked piece of lace down her legs and then he was between them and she could feel the tip of his cock catching on her clit, gliding between the lips of her cunt.
"Draco."
"I know sweetheart," he groaned and then he was dragging them up the bed, his cock still between them.
She hooked her leg over his and then they were turning and she smirked down at him as she sat on his lap.
He sat up, his hands, gripping her waist now as she flung a hand out and her wand flew into it.
She pointed it at her stomach and she felt Draco's cock throb beneath her just as she lifted and caught the head of him where she wanted.
"Go slow." His words were nothing but a grit between his teeth.
She closed her eyes and slid down the length of him.
He had died.
He had died and gone to heaven.
Porn heaven.
Because that's what the sight of Hermione, the woman he loved, sliding down his cock and taking him all at once was.
His breath was coming in pants as he watched her inch her way down his cock. His thumb pressed against her clit as he leaned forward and caught her neglected nipple in his mouth.
"Good girl," he hissed and she preened above him, her eyes fluttering open as she reached the widest part of his cock. "Such a good girl. Filled to the brim with my cock."
Her nails dug into his shoulders and Draco relished the pain.
Anything to keep him from spilling inside her thirty seconds in.
They sat there, both taking deep breaths as she settled on his lap and Draco groaned when she clenched around him.
"You are so fucking tight."
"Draco."
He looked up at her. "You have to move."
Her bottom lip was between her teeth and Draco's eyes rolled into the back of his head at the sight.
"Hermione."
"Please Draco."
His cock throbbed and he couldn't stop himself. His feet planted on the floor and his hands found her hips as he thrust up into her. Her head dropped back and her tits bounced as he fucked up into her.
"Fuck."
Her hands scrambled for purchase on his shoulder and he snapped.
He stood, still thrusting up into her. Her legs slid over his arms until her knees rested in the creases of his elbows and he slid her up and down his cock. Watched the thick shaft of it slide in and out of her wet cunt.
He dipped his head and bit at her tits, catching her nipple between his teeth and worrying it there but it was when he felt her hands sliding between them, and her fingers slipping over her clit, catching on his cock as he fucked her that he truly lost control.
"Such a good girl. Such a tight wet cunt. Fuck. Come here."
She lifted her head and he tugged her bottom lip between his teeth for himself.
"Going to fuck you all night," he rasped, all tongue and teeth. "Keep you filled with my cock all night."
"And come."
Merlin and all the gods he was going to die.
His cock throbbed in agreement and he couldn't stop fucking up into her.
"Hermione." Her head dropped to his shoulder. "Hermione, come now. Come now like a good—"
He felt her clench, gushing wet around his cock as her orgasm slammed into her.
He hitched her close in his arms, his hands tangling in the hair that hung down her back until it was wrapped in his fist. He tilted her head back and bit at her neck as his spilled inside her, his thrusts slowing as he filled her.
She was still settled on his cock, filled with him when he fell back onto the bed, her body draped over him.
The gasps filled the bedroom as they both caught their breath.
"That was—" Hermione broke off and stared up at him. "Draco that was—" she was speechless and Draco grinned down at her.
"I know." He knew he was leering at her as his hand grasped her arse and he flipped them once more. "And that was just the first time."
Her eyes were wide as he lifted her leg onto his shoulder and met her lips with his once more.
Later when they had finally sated their desire for each other, they were nothing but a tangle of limbs and sheets atop Hermione's bed.
"When do you think I can ask you to move in with me?" Draco said.
Hermione snorted and lifted her head from his chest to see him twisting and turning their hand in the dark.
"We haven't even been on a date."
He smirked down at her. "We've been on lot's of dates, Granger. We just didn't know that's what they were."
She shook her head, doing her best not to laugh but her grin was contagious because then they were both laughing and then his hands were tickling her sides and then he was above her once more and her breath hitched at the look in his eyes as he stared down at her.
"I love you, Granger."
Her heart fluttered in her chest.
"I love you too, Draco."