68.

He was still angry when they got home, landing in their light, airy sitting room after she did, all leaping green flames and more soot than usual, his hair and shoulders dusted with it. He was tangled up in anger and tight with tension as he ran his hands through his hair, and brushed off the shoulders of his suit coat with sharp, jerky motions. His jaw was clenched, his eyes darkened. Bristling like the hounds he and his father had both put her in mind of earlier, although he'd been cuttingly polite with his parents when they'd said their goodbyes.

Narcissa had kissed Hermione's cheek and given her an uncertain smile, and then glared primly at Lucius until he'd done the same, his lips just millimetres from her skin, his breath smelling like wine in her nostrils. She'd resisted the urge to recoil and scrub at her cheek with the cuff of her sleeve.

But now they were back home again and had the entire afternoon off, and the lunch was done. Malfoy's parents had been informed, and Hermione wouldn't have to see them again until after the baby was born, if then. What Lucius had said about Scorpius today might finally have put paid to any relationship Malfoy might have with his parents. The nail in the coffin. He was toeing his shoes off and stripping off his suit coat as Hermione stepped out of her low heels and crossed the hearth rug to stand in front of him. His hands were a little shaky.

"Are you still tipsy, or did the anger burn it out of you?" she asked mildly as she began to unbutton his waistcoat for him. His hands fell away.

"You know it doesn't work that way," he said, and he sounded caught in amusement, weariness, and that lingering anger. "But no, I was never tipsy, Granger."

"Mmhm," she said tolerantly. "But you are angry?" He leaned forward, bending and resting his lips on the top of her head. His breath was hot.

"Furious," he murmured as she undid the last few buttons of his waistcoat, and slid her hands beneath it, parting it. His abdomen was flat and warm through his shirt, and she could feel his breaths pulling in and out. His hands came up, one hand resting at the small of her back, the other sliding up, his fingers combing through the wind-tangled waves of her hair. He was gentle. Tender. Hermione began playing idly with his shirt buttons.

"Too angry for sex?" she asked lightly, just testing the waters as she enjoyed the feel of him against her, her mind still circling back around to him standing off against his father, his hackles up and eyes dark.

He huffed a laugh. "Maybe just the right amount of angry," he said, the words floating in the air, filled with a dark kind of suggestion, and Hermione's skin prickled. "Depending on what you're feeling up to, Granger." He kissed her forehead and shivers ran through her. His touch was gentle, as was his tone, but his intent and his words promised something darker.

"Oh?" Encouraged, she began undoing his shirt, her own fingers fumbling slightly now as her breath caught. This was promising. She loved it when their desire for something a little different independently synced – both wanting the same thing without even having to vocalise it. It didn't happen often; usually they were happy to just fall into bed and make each other feel good, however it happened. But she could see the caged tension thrumming in him – the desire to unleash it – and she thought that might fit nicely with her idle thoughts of being put on all fours and fucked like an animal.

She bit her lip at that thought, flushing, fingers stuttering over the last couple of buttons. But then his shirt was undone and his torso exposed. Pale, his chest lightly sprinkled with dark blonde hairs the same colour as his beard, and the hair lower down. Her fingers slid down inside the front of his trousers, the backs of them brushing over coarse, short hair, the fronts of them finding his determined erection pinned inside his shorts.

"Mm." The hummed sound was honey-dark, and when she looked up his eyes were fire-lit steel, his fingertips tracing down her spine feather light. "Perhaps I could exorcise some of that anger through the medium of sex," he said very seriously as his fingers went to the front of her dress, and Hermione grinned, her stomach flipping. "Maybe I could fuck it into your pretty flesh." Oh God, that shouldn't make her whole nether regions spasm the way it did, her vulva alight with anticipation, and her cunt twitching with the same.

"I was thinking," she began, losing her train of thought as he opened her dress enough to slide his fingers inside her bra cup and pinch her nipple lightly, rolling it between his fingers. Sensation shot through her like a bullet, ripping straight through to her core. "Nggh. Careful." Merlin, she was so sensitive. He pulled down her unpadded bra cup and petted his fingers over her skin.

"Yes..? You were thinking?"

"When we were at your parents, and your father –"

"I don't like where this is going, Granger," he said with a twist of amusement and of his fingers, and pleasure-pain burst through her nipple – she gasped and whimpered – before he let go and began unbuttoning again, swiftly now. "What about my father?" Her dress began to fall open, quickly unbuttoned to her waist.

Hermione laughed breathily. "You were facing him down. And the pair of you looked like a couple of dogs, all posturing –" he shoved the dress off her shoulders, dragging it down her arms.

"Posturing dogs? That doesn't sound very flattering." His nimble fingers unhooked her bra, and her breasts sank free – heavy, her areolae large and dark, the skin almost translucent and traced with pale blue veins thanks to pregnancy. Malfoy made a sound low in his throat and bit his lip. "Fuck you're so delicious," he added in an aside, and bent down, lowering his head and kissing the slopes of her breasts, as she shoved her fingers through his hair.

"I suppose it doesn't sound flattering," she managed to say in a wobbly voice as he cupped her breasts and lifted them, and wetly sealed his mouth over first her left nipple, sucking gently, and then her right. She moaned, feeling wetness seep from her cunt. "But I meant it that way."

"Not about my father, I hope." There was teasing in his voice.

"Merlin, no. Definitely not."

"That's a relief." He straightened from his stoop and smiled wryly. "I was worried there for a minute."

"Git," she protested with a huff, pushing at his shoulder and finding him immovable. "My point was, I looked at you there, all possessive and protective –"

"Like a dog," he filled in, yanking her dress down off her hips to puddle at her feet.

"Mm, but in a good way." She dragged at his shirt and he obeyed her unspoken command, removing his cuff-links and placing them on the mantel, and then shucking his shirt and sliding off his belt.

"A good dog?" he clarified, shirtless and beltless, and utterly beautiful, his wand still in his arm holster. She slid her arms up around his neck, her belly squashed firmly between them, and he lifted a corner of his mouth and palmed a hand over the side of it. "This does get in the way rather, doesn't it?"

"Just a little." She tipped forward into him and craned her neck up, kissing his chin. "And a very sexy dog."

"And so the thought of me as a…sexy dog, arouses you?" He gave her a half bemused, half teasing look, his hands trailing up and down her sides ticklishly.

Hermione blushed. This was suddenly oddly embarrassing. She forged on despite it, looping her arms up around his neck. "Well, the idea of you taking me on all fours like a dog didoccur to me," she admitted, and he grinned, wicked and bright, his teeth flashing white and his eyes molten silver.

"Oh really?"

"Mmhm." She forced herself to hold his gaze for a second longer – his eyes filled with a dark, delighted contemplation, as he likely pictured exactly what she was picturing. Her cheeks felt so hot. And then she balanced her hands on his shoulders and pushed up on tiptoes, putting her mouth to his ear. "Fucking me like a bitch in heat." He inhaled sharply, and his fingers tightened on her sides.

"Bedroom," he said, low and commanding. "Now." And then he let her go and shooed her in that direction. Hermione made haste, her dress left behind in the sitting room, in nothing but her practical nude cotton knickers – she would've called it scampering, but honestly it was more of a power-walking-almost-waddle. Even a second trimester bump made scampering a pipe dream for her, with the way her back ached and her belly thrust out, her breasts intolerant of any bouncing whatsoever. Malfoy caught hold of her at the bedroom door, his hands on her hips.

"Put your hands against the door frame," he said, and she did immediately, her fingers curling over the wooden door jamb to either side, her elbows bent but chest exposed, making her feel oddly vulnerable. Open. And then he must have drawn his wand, because he conjured a mirror in the air in front of them, and Hermione saw herself in all her pregnant glory. She wasn't particularly taken by how she looked, but she could see him looking at her, and his expression was predatory with desire. He slid her knickers down her legs, and she stepped out of them and nudged them aside.

"Oh fuck," he murmured, as she kept hold of the door frame, resisting the urge to cover her breasts with her hands, her stretch marks livid stripes at her sides. He chewed on his lower lip for a second, just looking at her. And then: "Put your feet shoulder width apart. And arch your back, just a little." He tugged the ends of her hair to encourage her, leaning in and kissing the ball of her shoulder. "Tip your hips out and lean back on me." She did as instructed, her heart racing and her breath coming short, feeling utterly on display with her belly and breasts out-thrust, her dark pubic hair cropped short by an easy charm, her vulva just visible, flushed with blood and slightly swollen.

His right hand came around and cupped her right breast as he watched in the mirror, his pupils blown wide, and his breath heavier. His left hand gripped her left hip as his right hand began a journey down over the swell of her bump, to the mound of her pubis. His fingertips scraped over short hair, and then brushed ever-so-lightly over her clit.

"Hnngh…" She couldn't help the noise that escaped her as her eyes slid shut. The mere glancing brush of his finger pads had been like molten electricity. Lightning flaring through her clitoris and lighting her nerves up from her core right out to her toes. She felt like the dial of her sensitivity had been twisted up way past maximum. A band of tightness seized her bump as her body reacted to the touch and her cunt clenched, setting off everything else. "Oh God."

"Fuck, Granger, you look obscene," Malfoy said filled with wonder and lust, as his fingers teased her, driving her crazy. "Open your eyes," he told her low in her ear as his fingers continued down, parting her inner labia. It felt like delicious tongues of licking flame as he slid over slick, wet flesh, lubricated by her own arousal. She was panting now, as he circled the entrance to her cunt. "Watch yourself in the mirror while I touch you. I want you to see how wet you are."

She made a whimpering sound but opened her eyes. Her vulva was glistening as he drew his parted fingers up, still spreading her labia wide. She could see a glitter of viscous wetness strung between his fingers for a moment like a strand of cobweb in dew, before it broke. She was wet.

"So fucking wet. Like you love being put on display. Love looking at yourself. Or love looking at me, touching your sweet cunt," Malfoy murmured distractedly, before kissing the side of her neck, soft and nibbling, and she canted her head to the left, giving him better access. He hummed as his left hand came up and began playing with her breast, his right making lubricated little circles over her clit. Again, and again, and then sliding down – tugging at her labia, brushing over her cunt, teasing and collecting more juices, before gliding back to her clit and rubbing.

She whimpered again, whining, wiggling – panting now with how much she wanted him, as her building arousal unexpectedly spiked, hitting her hard. It suddenly felt like she couldn't get enough oxygen, dizzy, her whole body throbbing with the urgent need to have him inside her as his fingers went gliding down from her clit to her cunt again. Playing. Her legs wobbled. Her breath was jagged and harsh. He was making her close already. Oh.

"Oh fuck. Please." Cramps of need wrenched through her core. Her fingers tightened on the door frame. "Oh my god, please, Malfoy. I need –" Hermione needed him in her. But she knew she wasn't going to get that yet. He would want to tease. To make her come. And then take her, on her knees. She swallowed hard at the imagery and the imagined pleasure, goosebumps rising all over her, her mouth dry and chest in a vice, arousal leaping up mindless and consuming as he dipped his fingertips into her – two, stretching her gently open. "Ngh…" She gasped.

"Eyes open, Granger," Malfoy reminded her evenly as he slid just one finger inside her in the end, and she made an inarticulate, warbling sound. More of a gurgle really, as she forced her eyes open right when he curled his finger inside her, and oh she was so tender, it felt like too much. Her legs nearly went out from under her and she grabbed the doorway so hard her fingers felt numb, her breathing now an escalating whirlwind of gasps. His finger was so deep, and so good, and his hand cupped her vulva, half holding her up with that grip, his left hand grasping her breast and pulling her securely against his body.

"I've got you."

In the mirror her mouth was open in a taut little 'o' of what almost looked like pain, her brows scrunched down and her hair wild, a flush making her pink from cheeks to chest, his hand obscuring everything between her legs.

She could do nothing but breathe and slur a blurry moan as he slid another finger into her.

"Want. Want your cock. Please." She had devolved into broken demands, a wave of shivers rolling over her as he licked her ear lobe. "P-p-pleeease." It was hard to keep her eyes open when she wanted to let them slide shut and imagine what it would be like if she were on her hands and knees instead of standing, his cock thick and stretching inside her cunt, instead of those – admittedly oh-so-good – fingers.

"No, not yet," he told her, tension harsh in his steady voice as he nibbled her ear and neck, his fingers twisting and the sheer disappointment at his 'no' that washed through her was ridiculous. A moan of misery and pleasure was forced from her lips by the twist of his fingers, and inside her abdomen she felt a wrench of need and want, and disappointment. She was so sensitive. She wanted it now. Hermione's hands released the door frame and reached up behind her, watching through half shuttered lashes as she pushed her fingers through his hair, grabbing and tugging.

"Please."

"No." His face was still buried against her neck amongst the masses of her hair as he spoke, but she saw a glimpse of his wicked grin in the mirror as he lifted his face. "Be patient. Get on the bed. On the edge of the bed, on your back. Legs spread."

And then he withdrew his fingers from her cunt and patted her on the bum. "Go."

Hermione went, on jelly-like legs, feeling dizzy and light, her blood whooshing in her ears and her heart thrumming, her skin buzzing with sensation. She sank onto the bed and flopped back, legs apart, all self-consciousness gone as she rolled her head to watch him. The mirror vanished with a wave of his wand, and then he tossed it and the holster on the dresser and stripped off his trousers and shorts, before moving to her bedside table and…oh.

Anticipation and excitement gripped her, and she grinned as he took her vibrator out of her drawer.

"You won't get my cock until you've come, because I want to eat your sweet little pussy 'til you're twitching on my mouth. But in the meantime, you can have this."

And then Malfoy knelt on the floor before her and went to work taking her apart, piece by piece, slowly and thoroughly, until she was begging and sobbing with a frantic need. Her feet braced on his shoulders. His face buried against her, one hand fucking the vibrator slowly in and out of her. His tongue laving and swirling at her clit, tormenting and perfect. Teasing. Building the need and the sensation higher and higher, always dangling orgasm just out of reach until she was sweating and hot, and nearly angry, plotting her revenge as she flailed for climax.

And then he gave Hermione exactly what she wanted, and all was forgiven.

When she came her bump went all tight – the distorted muscles in her abdomen clamping down, and it felt as though she were stretched taut as a drum, the most bizarre feeling, even as he twisted the thick vibrator in her cunt, his mouth sucking wetly at her clit. She made a groan that probably sounded more like a wounded animal than porn star perfect, and her hips arched off the bed, pushing her vulva harder against his mouth and he made a growling noise deep in his throat. He let go of the vibrator and slid his hands beneath her bum, feasting on her as her cunt spasmed and pulsed and slowly pushed the vibrator half out of her.

"Oh fuck, Malfoy – too mu-uuch…" she whined after several long, hazy, spasming seconds, her hips bucking as the pleasure shifted to unbearable hypersensitivity. Reluctantly he pulled his mouth away from her swollen, sensitised clit – with one last, teasing lick that made her gasp – and withdrew the vibrator the rest of the way, tossing it aside.

"You said you wanted to be fucked like a dog?" he asked, his voice unsteady as he shoved himself to his feet, and his cock was flushed dark, his eyes pools of ink and his chest heaving.

Hermione whimpered. Nodded. She couldn't bring herself to say it, her already reddened cheeks blazing darker.

"Get into position, and then answer me properly," he ordered, and she bit her lip as she smiled, and scrambled upright with an effort, turning over onto all fours on the edge of the bed. She looked over her shoulder at him and vertigo made the world whirl for a moment. She dropped her head and squeezed her eyes shut, managing to get the words out.

"I want to be fucked like a dog." His hands skated warm over her bum, his fingers delving into the slickness of her cunt, and it clenched down. "Hngh."

"How exactly did you put it before?" he asked, sounding half strangled as he drew his fingers away, and then the head of his cock nudged at the entrance to her cunt and nearly pushed in.

A wave of full body arousal rolled over her, and she gulped, giddy. "Like a bitch in heat."

"Salazar's sake, yes. That's right. Fuck, Granger, sometimes you're just filthy," he said, still teasing, and she couldn't think straight.

"I'm…sorry?" she panted, and Malfoy huffed a breath.

"Oh no, don't you dare be sorry," he said, and then he pushed his cock into her, and she lost herself in the sensation of his body reshaping hers to fit him, the pleasure exquisite and maddening, and her world shrank down to where he breached her. Where he anchored her to him. His hands on her hips, and his cock in her cunt, and the shockingly fast, sharp, all too shallow thrusts.

"M-more –" she gasped, bewildered by his pace. "Slower. Deeper."

She could hear the damned grin in his voice behind the breathless strain as he spoke. "N-no. I'm fucking you like a bitch in he-heat," he said, and she could've killed him as he kept going, so good but all wrong.

"Properly! Fuck me properly you bast–ohh…" Hermione's protests died in a wail as he finally thrust deep, and then she was nearly sobbing with the intensity of the pleasure, and the breaths driven out of her, as he fucked her hard and firm. It was like a torrent. Like being caught in an onslaught. It was a devouring, inexorable pleasure that ate her awareness, reducing it to this present second, and this present feeling, and nothing else. She became an instrument of pleasure – taking it, giving it, living it. "Oh my god."

Malfoy's cock was so much and it was just right, and he kept going, and going, holding his orgasm off with gritted teeth – she could feel how close he was from the way he breathed, and the way his fingertips dug into her hips, and the careful shifts in rhythm now and then as he prevented himself from tipping over the edge. He always held out until she gave some sign she was ready for him to come, whether verbally or with a shift in her body language that he'd swiftly learned to read. He would keep going all day if it pleased her, Hermione believed, and power swam in her veins, a heady enjoyment.

Oh, it was perfection. She could feel how desperately he wanted to come. How badly he needed it. How precariously, excruciatingly close he was.

Usually she would begin to feel sore before he broke, but not today. Not quite yet. She clamped her lips shut and pushed her hips back into his thrusts, moaning, revelling in the sensations.

"Fuck," he grated out on a breath. "Fuck, Granger."

"Wha-at?" she panted faux innocently, the word broken in half by the force of his thrusts, her head hanging down, her hands fisted in the bedcovers.

"I can't –"

"Can't what?"

"H-ho-hold on." He started off on a gasping, stuttering plea but half snarled the last word. "Fuck," he added, sounding delirious with need.

"What do you want?" She pushed her bum back with every thrust, her pleasure beginning to shift now to a mild discomfort, her body reaching its limit. But she'd be damned if she gave in when she was this close to making him beg for it.

"You fucking know what I w-want, Granger."

"Beg me," she demanded, and he made a panting sound she thought was laughter and obliged without pause, his voice throbbing and shaking with desperation, his hands clamped at her hips.

"Please. Please, I want to come. I need to come. I'm begging you, Granger. Let me come. Please."

She grinned. "Okay. You can c-come," she gasped out, and he whimpered, the sound making her brain short circuit. "Come," she repeated, and he obeyed her.

His hips jerked and he moaned, and she could feel it as he fucked into her in that staccato collapse of orgasm – a short burst of hard, fast thrusts to reach the edge, a half dozen thrusts that were losing all cohesion but still just as urgent as he came, and then a sloppy, slow, several more as he rode it out, and then gradually put his brain back together.

And then he sank forward, over her, hands braced on the bed each side of her head and his lips pressed to the nape of her neck. "Fucking hell," he mumbled, and she could feel his heart thundering against her back. He was panting. "Salazar's fucking sake, Granger." He withdrew his cock and she felt a trickle of semen seeping out of her in its absence. "You're going to kill me."

She rolled onto her back as he moved off her, her knees all stiff and her insides aching. It had taken her a while to convince him it was fine to have sex as vigorously as usual, once she'd started showing, but now he did. And it left her as wonderfully sore as it always did.

"You're fine," she told him, breathless and sweaty, and he flopped down on the bed beside her, just as sweaty, and out of breath. She reached out with a meandering, wobbling hand and patted his abdomen awkwardly, the angle all wrong. "Totally fine."

"No' fine," he mumbled. "Dead. But so good." He rolled his head, eyeing her, his lips swollen and puffy and his eyes shining like quicksilver, his hair all ruffled up. Her hair was probably a haystack on her head, and she was all sticky with perspiration. She beamed at him, their hands finding each other blindly, fingers lacing together on the bed between them. "Worth it," he added, and let out a satisfied sigh.

"Very, very good," Hermione agreed, and yawned. "I should pee, or I'll get a UTI," she said unromantically – she was prone to those during pregnancy – and Malfoy made an amused sound.

"We don't want that. It'll put you out of action." He shot her a wicked look. "And I'll just lie here and watch you go."

"Hmph," she said, standing with a grunt and stretching, stooping to retrieve her abandoned knickers on the way out. "When you're done ogling me," she added, as she paused strategically while bent over, her knickers beneath her fingers, "go make me a coffee."

"How can I say no, when you ask me so persuasively?" he said drily, and Hermione smiled to herself as she grabbed her knickers and straightened, glancing over her shoulder as she left to see him lever himself upright with a groan. Success, she thought smugly, as she shut the bathroom door behind her.

Hermione had a question on the tip of her tongue as she cradled her half drunk coffee, in one of Malfoy's t-shirts and her knickers, perched up at a bar stool at the kitchen island.

She'd spent the past twenty minutes being a supportive, listening ear as he ranted about his parents' intolerance of Scorpius. They treated the boy much as they always had, Malfoy said, frustrated – they weren't cold to him, and they never brought up his sexuality. It was just that they never acknowledged his sexuality. There was an unspoken, only alluded to expectation that he should do his duty, marry a witch, father several children, and if he must, then take a male lover on the side, discreetly.

They're really incredibly old-fashioned, Hermione had said, put in the extremely uncomfortable position of half defending Lucius and Narcissa, in order to give Malfoy the hope for change that she could see he desperately wanted to cling to. I suppose shutting their mouths to his face is a bit of a victory. Maybe with a concerted effort, we can bring them around to acceptance. She'd grimaced and shrugged. Or we can just have nothing to do with them. But Malfoy didn't want that, not really, and neither did Scorpius from what Hermione had observed.

Talking seemed to help Malfoy, though. He spilled his frustrations – quiet and sad, rather than angry – as she listened, and when he was finally done he seemed easier. Lighter.

He'd leaned in and kissed her afterwards, lingering and sweet, and asked if she was hungry.

She was.

And now he was busy making them both pancakes; she'd had a craving, and he'd insisted on making them for her. The baby needs feeding, he'd said. She'd pointed out that the baby did not require that much extra nourishment, and all his feeding was just going to make her fat, and he'd leered and said, it suits your arse, and then pinched her bum before he went to work, the last of his sadness seeming to fall away.

They deconstructed how lunch had gone as he cooked, picking apart the details of it, and they both seemed to have thought it went about as well as could be expected – but Hermione had kept wondering about his tension, in the dining room in particular, and his nosedive into too much wine. And she wasn't sure if she should ask or not. Her nosiness finally got the better of her.

"So what was that about? At lunch?" she asked, trying for nonchalant and failing. "In the dining room, that drove you to drink?"

Malfoy's shoulders stiffened a little and the fish slice froze in the pan for a second, before he slid it under a perfectly golden brown pancake, turning to face Hermione and sliding it onto the plate in front of her. He sighed, eyes flicking up to hers, all silvered in the afternoon light.

"Voldemort used to hold court in the dining room, when he was at the Manor during the war," he said, a tired twist to his mouth, and ghosts haunting his eyes. "He murdered Charity Burbage at that very table, before dinner. Nagini ate her."

He would've been only seventeen then, Hermione thought, horror and empathy striking sharply through her as he turned back to the pan, dropping in another pat of butter, and then as it sizzled away to liquid, a ladle of batter. "He did that not infrequently. He seemed to think murder would stimulate everyone's appetite." His shoulders hunched. "It might have, with Aunt Bella, and Greyback when he visited. But not me. Or my parents."

"I'm sorry, Malfoy. I did…wonder that." For all her bad memories of the drawing room, Hermione had to think that Malfoy would have his own unpleasant memories – perhaps tempered by all his good, childhood memories. But upsetting all the same. She supposed, as she cut up her pancake – lovely and thin, liberally garnished with lemon juice and sugar and all rolled up – that she shouldn't be surprised Voldemort had fed people to Nagini at the dinner table.

"Don't be sorry for me," Malfoy said grimly, as he watched the next pancake cook, and Hermione made herself take a bite of hers, her own appetite suddenly rather squashed. "Be sorry for Charity Burbage, and all the others." He glanced over his shoulder at Hermione and then back to the pan. "They never even replaced the table. A family antique, you see. So –"

Oh Merlin. Hermione had eaten at the table that people had been murdered on? Her gorge rose, and her fork clattered to the plate. Don't be sick, she told herself. He's gone to trouble to cook these. Bloody eat them. He looked back over at the noise.

"Sorry. Lemony," she said, seizing on an excuse, waggling lemon juice wet fingers at him and making an apologetic face. "Go on."

Malfoy looked suspicious, but flipped the pancake and went on. "So it makes formal meals at my parents' difficult. In general, being at the Manor is not entirely enjoyable. Too many memories." She could sense his tension as he picked up his coffee mug and turned to face her, although he stared down at his feet and not her face. "Combined with the joy of their company, it's probably why I tend to drink my way through their events," he admitted. "Not entirely a healthy coping mechanism, but it works." He shrugged as he sipped his coffee, deliberately flippant.

"So I suppose you wouldn't want to get married there, then?" she asked around a mouthful of pancake, going with his flippancy, and he nearly choked on his coffee.

"Would you want to?" he asked her, disbelieving, and she rather enjoyed shocking him. Being unpredictable.

"Well, I don't know," she said honestly, "But there is a certain appeal, if your parents manage to keep up basic civility. Imagine how furious your father would be." She smiled, imagining it. And the gardens were beautiful. Malfoy reflected an echo of her smile.

"You're wicked, Granger. You just want to goad him."

"Can you blame me?"

"Not at all." He eyed her, seeming oddly pleased. "I think I like it, actually."

"Pancake," she said with a nod, toward the pan, and he stared at her in confusion for a second before he realised, and spun and saved the thing before it burned.

"Ready for another?" He held it up, balanced precariously on the fish slice.

"Yes, please." She made room on her plate.