It was snowing when they landed near the main road of Hogsmeade, and Hermione's fogging breath caught as a wave of familiarity added to the weight of Malfoy's arm draped around her. The air was crisp with the hint of a winter not yet gone, the pavement warm enough that none of the falling flakes lasted more than the blink of an eye upon impact. She barely had time to shiver against the damp before a warming charm chased away the cold and settled comfortably in her bones.
Malfoy gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and stepped away, casting his gaze skyward as he squinted against the bright grey light.
"Let's hope this clears by tomorrow," he said, half under his breath, and Hermione took a few steps to confirm there were no lingering effects from the apparation. "It'll be helpful to have some natural lighting while we're spending time in the shallows."
She nodded absently, not quite able to make herself care about the late-season snow in the grand scheme of things. So long as there weren't high winds or heavy rains that might disrupt the life forms in the Black Lake, their schedule wouldn't be changing. Still, miserable weather wasn't ever nice to be in, so for the sake of a comfortable experience, Hermione hoped for the best.
"The roadway gets pretty slick in these conditions," she mused, glancing down to confirm Malfoy's choice of footwear was appropriate for the potentially hazardous pavement and doing yet another double take when she took in his uncharacteristically casual trainers. She watched those shoes step toward her and raised her eyes in time to see him take her wrist, slipping her arm through his.
"For safety reasons," he said with a solemn nod, and Hermione bit down on her smile and met his too-serious expression with one of her own. "Shall we?"
They walked side by side down the High Road with careful steps, their pace—and their newfound compatibility—adding an air of peacefulness to the brief journey that had been missing when they walked it only five days ago. There had been a disconnected silence then, keeping them separate from one another: Hermione lost in the excitement of returning to one of her favorite homes, Malfoy appearing completely ambivalent to the situation.
I used to come here when I wanted to die.
He'd quietly carried his trauma with a straight back, never letting on that he was bothered until the universe practically forced him to confront it. Hermione spared a moment for the flash of envy she felt for his superior masking abilities. Then it passed, and she considered the man—and the boy—who faced so many things alone.
But he had talked to her about it. Without prompting, he'd chosen to share (with Hermione Granger, of all people) a darkness within himself. It was possible that, after witnessing her multiple panic attacks in a one-week period, he felt compelled by some embarrassed kindness to even the scales. But whatever his reasons, Draco Malfoy had opened a door between them that night, and Hermione had walked through whole-heartedly.
As the gates to the Hogwarts grounds came into view, Hermione reached out to see if she could feel the magic of the wards. She'd been so overcome with awkward excitement during their last visit that it hadn't even occurred to her to try. But now, comfortable and quiet as her mind was, she felt a thrum brushing her inquisitive net, massive yet gentle against Hermione's own magic, unyielding yet welcoming at the same time. She took a deep breath, imagining the centuries-old charms, from casters both long gone and present, seeping into her lungs and spreading through her veins to mingle with her own innate being.
"Breathe, Granger." Malfoy's voice was tight beside her and she exhaled on a low chuckle, feeling some of the residual magic tingling out through her skin even after it had left her lungs. She nudged into him with her hip.
"I'm breathing," she assured him. "I just wanted to see what Hogwarts might feel like."
"And?"
Hermione considered for a moment before answering. "It's timeless," she concluded with a nod, "and freakishly strong." She glanced over at him and caught his eye. "Do you want to try feeling for it when we get closer? Maybe before we send the Patronus? This seems like as good a place as any to try, and if you can feel it, then we'll want to consider how we might incorporate old magic into our task."
Malfoy shrugged, bringing her looped arm along for the ride. "Worth a shot," he allowed, "but for the record, I think I may be too old to start learning how to feel magic now after having spent my life surrounded by it."
Hermione hummed in response. He was probably right, but she was entirely unwilling to give up trying until they were virtually certain—especially now that they had both essentially committed to a relationship and would therefore have plenty of time to explore the theory together. Her stomach predictably fluttered at the idea of a long-term research partner, then abruptly dropped at the thought of a long-term romantic partner.
Several quiet minutes passed before their steps took them up to the towering gates. Hermione withdrew her arm from the crook of his elbow and made to reach for her wand.
"Would you like to, or shall I?"
Malfoy gestured politely in front of them. "Be my guest."
She withdrew the vine wood from its holster then closed her eyes and cast her mind back for a recent memory, a smile tugging the corners of her mouth as she landed on the recollection of Malfoy's expression when they'd heard the whales' songs for the first time, and the feeling of pure rightness she'd felt in sharing that moment with him. She opened her eyes to find him already watching her and grinned, not missing the way he flushed—just a little—as he smiled back.
"Expecto Patronum."
The otter somersaulted its way into existence, erupting joyfully from the tip of her wand in a glittering surge of white. Hermione laughed aloud as it curled around first her and then Malfoy before hovering at chest height.
"Potter teach you that one, then?"
"He did, actually," she sniffed, though the smile stayed on her lips. "While you were busy tripping over yourself to kiss Umbridge's arse, some of us were learning proper defense magic."
A noncommittal huff was his only response to that, and she turned her attention back to the sweet otter lazily swirling through the air in front of them.
"Please tell whoever is minding the front gates today: Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy have arrived. Thank you." And with a final backflip, her patronus swam through the gates and up the path to Hogwarts.
Hermione took out her notebook and flipped to the proper page, noting down the details of her casting and feeling a rush of warmth at summarizing the feeling she'd focused on as "shared discovery."
"So does it have a name?"
She paused for the briefest moment as Malfoy's question registered, then resumed closing her notebook and tucking it away, keeping her face carefully blank.
"My patronus?" she asked casually, rifling through her pack for nothing in particular, other than an excuse not to look at him in that moment.
"No, Granger, your notebook." She did look at him then, her eyes rolling into a glare that lacked any real conviction. He snorted. "Yes, your patronus. Do people typically name them?"
Hermione slid smoothly into the out he'd provided. "Not typically, no," she said. "At least, I've never met anyone who's made a point to introduce theirs by name." Come to think of it, Luna would be the most likely of her acquaintances to have given her ethereal hare a name, but the only times she'd seen the woman cast the charm they'd been teenagers learning in a group environment. She made a mental note to find out the next time they spoke.
Malfoy was peering at her rather intently and she looked stubbornly back, her expression still impassive.
"So," he repeated slowly, "does yours have a name?"
Hermione sighed inwardly and did her best to keep the blush from rising in her cheeks—which was an absurd thing to attempt, really, considering it was an involuntary reaction that her body refused to shake even as she'd worked her way past so much of her self-consciousness. Then she gave a short nod.
"Alanis."
Malfoy did a shit job of hiding his triumphant smile, but there was no malice in it. "Alanis?"
"Yes, Alanis," Hermione huffed, though she wasn't sure why it bothered her to tell him. Maybe it was that no one else in the world knew this about her, or maybe it was the fact that Draco Malfoy, of all people, had been the first to ever ask. Regardless of the logic (or lack thereof), she felt a pang of loss as one more piece of her identity unfurled from the tight-knit web of solitude she'd woven around herself with inconsequential traits that were hers alone, unable to ignore the trickle of resentment as this iota of self became known to the world around her, one person at a time.
Malfoy didn't seem to pick up on her quiet simmering. He had shifted his attention past the Hogwarts gates, where Hermione's otter had disappeared up the path.
"Do you have a particular affiliation to otters?" he asked, and Hermione was grateful for the opening to default into academic mode once more.
"I never had before, no," she said. "Although now I certainly feel a deeper connection with them."
He acknowledged this with a short hm, his gaze focusing as a lone figure appeared, tramping its way toward them from the direction of the castle.
A dusting had begun to stick on the grass as Argus Filch approached looking, impossibly, exactly the same as he always had. Hermione wasn't sure if there was something in magical blood that stayed the physical aging process after a certain point, but regardless of how many times she'd witnessed the phenomenon, it was still unsettling. The man's hair was lank and unmoving in the soft breeze, a familiar, eternal sneer etched on his features as he reached them, glaring suspiciously through the gates.
"Mr. Filch," Malfoy said with a friendly nod. "I hope you were expecting us?"
Filch jerked his head in response. "Ministry mucking about the grounds as usual," he muttered, opening the gates to them with a heavy key and an even heavier clang. "Haven't you lot had enough of this place?"
"You don't seem to tire of it," Hermione said, trying and failing to smile sweetly at the ever-cantankerous caretaker. "Why should we?"
Filch let out a bark that Hermione assumed amounted to laughter. "If you think I haven't been tired of all this since before you first passed through these gates, you really haven't been paying attention."
Fair point, her mind acknowledged as Malfoy let out a chuckle, deciding in a stroke of wisdom not to say anything at all. As soon as they stepped through the entrance to the grounds and Filch had locked the gate behind them, the man turned his sour expression on them once more.
"You know where you're meant to go, I presume?"
"Of course," Malfoy said with another nod. "Thank you for coming down."
And with nothing more than a grunt, the caretaker turned his back on them and made his way back toward the castle and, presumably, Mrs. Norris. Hermione spared a moment to hope the mangy cat had been equally blessed with long life.
"Shall we?" she asked Malfoy, and he dipped his head in affirmation and started down the path they'd taken with Hagrid the previous weekend. Hermione set off beside him.
The last time they'd been here, Malfoy had surprised her. Whether it had been an intentional step toward forging the necessary trust for their mission, a tit-for-tat trade stemming from the guilt of witnessing her trauma responses on multiple occasions, or something else entirely, he'd opened up to Hermione and shared a part of himself that she felt certain had never before seen the light of another person's awareness. It had been bitter and raw and not a little awkward, all said and done, but it had introduced a new kind of vulnerability to their forced alliance—one Hermione appreciated deeply, even if Malfoy had seemed to resent it as soon as it had been voiced.
She glanced over at the prat-turned-partner, taking in his perfect posture and wondering if it was a little more rigid than usual, if the set of his jaw was causing his teeth to grind behind those thin lips. His hair fell casually to frame his face, somehow looking perfectly put together even in its natural state. It occurred to Hermione, not for the first time, how strikingly different she and Malfoy were. Where he was tall and stoic and stately in his presentation of himself, her shorter frame moved often (her mother's try not to fidget, dear was a regular visitor in her head) and typically without much consideration on how she appeared to the outside world. His sleek and sharp features contrasted with her riotous and rounded ones. She suddenly had the urgent desire to have their picture taken, muggle or magical, just so she could study the physical contrasts and try to align them with their differences in personality.
"You're staring, Granger," Malfoy drawled, eyes still forward as they veered left toward the lakeshore.
"I am," she acknowledged, and she saw his nose wrinkle slightly when she didn't look away.
"Why are you staring, Granger?" he clarified.
She considered him for a moment longer, then shrugged. "You're quite pretty."
His low huff of laughter made her smile.
/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\
They set up their tent at the same campsite as before, working efficiently with all the practice they'd gotten since that first day in Hanger Woods. It struck Hermione that this was the last time they'd be doing so, and she wasn't at all surprised by the streak of sadness she felt at the thought. She was going to miss this—the academic stimulation, the forced proximity, even the unpredictable nature of the work. She'd felt more challenged over the past two weeks than she could remember being since she'd started her career with the Ministry. Not that her job wasn't challenging, it was just a different sort: advocating for unpopular yet necessary changes, manipulating legal language to invite buy-in from multiple interest groups, learning proper customs and modus operandi in order to properly communicate with and represent a wide range of magical beings.
In the past ten days, Hermione had felt the thrill of learning in the field, the vigor of applying herself to a variety of diverse situations that forced her to flex an array of muscles (both physical and mental), and become reacquainted with the frustration of trying to work with a deeply reluctant creature for the good of the many members of the magical world. While she no longer felt the need to employ her various calm-by-cataloguing techniques, Malfoy still tested her limits, forcing her to consider things in new ways, igniting her curiosity by guilelessly displaying his own, and, of course, pushing her buttons at every apparent opportunity. Hermione didn't know how their relationship would shift when they returned to the real world, surrounded by office buildings and outside friendships and hard deadlines and personal obligations and half-kneazles and elitist family histories and the press and every other thing that made up their individual lives. So little of what they each had was shared. What would it be like to try and merge their existences when they weren't contractually required to do so? There was a chance it would be easy, but she wasn't fool enough to expect that. Still, it was not a challenge she was considering backing down from. Not in the slightest.
Her musings came to an end as she surveyed their work, the tent standing proudly, sleeping bags centered and gear stashed off to their respective sides. Hermione let out a small, wistful sigh, and Malfoy bumped her arm from where he stood next to her.
"Don't tell me you're feeling sentimental about tent sleeping," he chided, and she rolled her eyes.
"Fine, I won't tell you."
He slung an arm around her shoulders and gave her a small sideways hug, then released her, turning to the small table by the lake. "Lunch?"
A selection of warm sandwiches, soups, and small dessert portions appeared at his word and Hermione grabbed her water bottle from her pack before lowering herself into the chair across from where Malfoy had seated himself. Pulling out her wand, she quickly spelled out a message for her supervisor.
Arrived at final stop with no delays. R tonight, test-runs tomorrow.
Hermione helped herself to a large portion of tomato bisque and a cheese toastie triangle, dipping the sandwich into the steaming broth and holding it there as she idly surveyed the lake by their campsite. It didn't appear much changed since they'd last been here—the headmistress had assured them that the grounds surrounding this particular area would be gently warded to prevent students from wandering through. The water's surface was calm today, the only movement soft ripples that formed if the inconsistent wind happened to blow at more than a whisper.
They planned to return to the spot that mirrored the centaurs' clearing when darkness began to fall. Upon taking in the grey, cloudy sky, Hermione wondered briefly whether a starless night would impact their surface attempt at reaching the merfolk below. But they didn't have any other ideas for connecting with the elusive colony, so she did her best to clear the unhelpful musings from her mind.
The two finished their meal in companiable silence, and Hermione was pleased to note that Malfoy ate what she was coming to recognize as a typical amount. Not that she was making it a habit of studying his, but now that she was aware of his tension in their return to the school, she wanted to make sure he wasn't letting it detract from his participation in their mission. Before long, he rose from his seat and angled his head toward the tent.
"I'll get my notebook, then I'm hoping we can figure out the final details on these weights before we lose daylight." Hermione nodded and stood to follow him, stretching her arms up and feeling her back crack one glorious time before following Malfoy past the canvas flap.
He knelt in the center of the tent, his lower legs crossing both sleeping bags as he reached for the gear stacked as usual against his wall. Hermione picked up her own bag from her side and sat cross-legged next to him, their arms close but not touching. They rarely navigated the small space alone, and she was surprised to realize how decidedly not cramped it felt, regardless of their physical closeness. In fact, she had to stop herself from thinking about all the ways their bodies might get even closer.
"Oh, before I forget—" Hermione was snapped out of the heat that was starting to rise in response to her wandering thoughts. Malfoy reached into his pack and withdrew a simple white rectangular box, his hand brushing her sleeve as he held it out to her. Hermione stared at it for a moment before looking back up at him, and rolled his eyes he shook it impatiently until she took it from his outstretched hand. "That Aberdeen corner store had a surprisingly wide selection," he said, watching her as she slowly opened the flap, "and you simply wouldn't let me buy anything else."
When she tipped it into her palm, two pens slid smoothly out, thin and surprisingly soft to the touch with a strong metal plunger on the end. She pressed one experimentally, then again to retract the tip once more with a satisfying click.
"Pens?" Her mind was having trouble quantifying the warm swelling in her chest that had nothing to do with her previous almost-thoughts. Well, probably nothing.
"Yes, Granger, pens," he said slowly, as though speaking to a dimwit instead of the brightest witch of their age, but he was shifting rather uncomfortably all the same, leaning back on his heels to put more space between them. "Mother always said that blue ink felt more friendly to write with, but I didn't want to be presumptuous since you've been writing in black this trip."
When she only blinked at him, he retrieved a second box and glared sardonically at her. "Don't get any ideas about nicking mine, either," he quipped, pulling out a pen of his own in the same style. "I've already marked them to tell them apart, and I spelled mine to alert me if you use them."
Hermione let out a laugh and looked at her pens again, noticing now the small, simple HG engraved around the top. She beamed and clicked both of them active, wasting no more time in drawing a line on her inner wrist with each. The ink rolled along her skin like warmed butter and she felt a shiver of delight trickle through her. Wordlessly, she transformed the exterior of the blue pen to a bright cerulean and placed it carefully in her pack, smiling widely at Malfoy. He looked rather pleased, if terribly awkward, and she leaned forward and kissed his cheek, her arms bracketing his legs to support her weight.
"They're brilliant, thank you."
He caught her chin before she could pull away and kissed her lightly on the mouth. She smiled against his lips.
"You're too easy, Granger." He sounded a bit dubious and Hermione couldn't help but laugh.
"Not with most things, I assure you." She clicked the black pen and opened her notebook to the In-weight-ables page, noticing from the corner of her eye as Malfoy began writing in his own blue pen and quelling her organizational horror that he was perfectly comfortable switching inks after twelve days' worth of consistently colored expedition notes. She cleared her throat. "Shall we start by creating our weights?"
The two stayed in the tent a while longer, spreading out their haul from the shops that morning and getting to work. They transfigured the decks of cards into uniform weights using a simple duro charm, hardening each box and its contents into a rectangular stone that conveniently weighed in at just over a kilogram. Hermione calculated they would really only need about two extra kilos per person to maintain neutral buoyancy near the surface (and even less as they descended due to the ever-increasing water pressure), but she insisted they maintain the lot just in case they found a use for them before their final dive. Malfoy, ever the contrarian, refused on the grounds that he wanted to know more about what a deck of cards even was, and arguing that they'd transfigured ten decks in less than twenty minutes, so any last-minute needs could easily be met in the moment.
Hermione relented at that, and they compromised by keeping six decks converted, each packing two weights into their utility belts and stashing those among their gear for the next day, with the two extra weights placed for accessibility in the tent corner. They cast finite on the remaining four decks of cards and Malfoy stacked them somewhat haphazardly near the heads of their sleeping bags. Simply for the joy of having something to write with her new pen, Hermione made a (gloriously smooth) note of it all.
She was smiling again as she asked, "What do you suppose is the most appropriate way to add buoyancy as we descend, so we don't drop like stones with our extra weights as the atmospheric pressure increases?"
Malfoy, for all his impressive intelligence, had struggled to conceptualize some of the finer points of physics in their discussions about deep diving. His brow furrowed as he parsed his thoughts.
"We basically need to be able to create small infusions of… something… that's lighter than water, to help negate our weight the deeper we go." He spoke with confidence, but Hermione identified the hidden request for validation and nodded in agreement. Malfoy continued. "We'll obviously be going in with multiple charms already cast, but I like the idea of trying to limit our active magic use when we're in merfolk territory. So for me, that narrows the question to whether there's a spell we can cast at the surface that can activate without either of us triggering it."
Hermione was nodding more vigorously now, her forehead wrinkled as she stopped tapping her pen on her lower lip and brought it to her notebook instead, making notes.
"Engorgio and reducio could be very helpful here," she muttered thoughtfully, eyes flicking across what she'd captured over the past few days. "If we could find a way to fuse the charms to work collaboratively with the bubble head, and employ a trigger function that reacts to atmospheric pressure instead of magical intention, then it might not feel the same to them as a cast spell, and we wouldn't need to use our wands."
Malfoy huffed. "Two ifs and a might. Not your best work, wouldn't you say?"
"Oh, hush." Hermione brought the pen back to her mouth, closing her eyes as she patted it slowly against her lips once more. Her mind drifted through possibility. On the one hand, fusing three different spells into one working unit was more advanced charmwork than anything else she'd attempted without supervision. But on the other hand, Hermione had done well in Professer Flitwick's class, and her knack for feeling magic could help them tremendously in their efforts. Not only would she be more confident in knitting the charms together into a function, she would be able to test the outpouring of magical energy from the resulting reactive spell against that of engorgio and reducio cast actively on their own.
"How did you do in Charms?" she asked abruptly, opening her eyes to see Malfoy jump a little and move his gaze quickly to his notebook. She withheld a satisfied smirk at the thought that he might have already been looking at her.
"Fairly well," he mumbled, scratching out a few words in the bright blue ink as a soft pink infused his cheeks. "It wasn't my strongest subject, but with regular revisions I was certainly among the top ten percent in our year."
They spent the better part of two hours recalling the finer points of their Charms education at Hogwarts and working to apply it to the challenge at hand. More than once, Hermione bemoaned Professor Flitwick's absence from the castle, glowering petulantly when Malfoy finally snapped, "The bloke was over a hundred, Granger, he's earned his rest." If Filius had not retired nearly five years ago, Hermione would have leapt at the opportunity to learn from his expertise. As it was, she ultimately resigned herself to plodding along without their chipper former professor. There was, of course, the option to consult with Professor Killian in his stead, but Hermione simply couldn't bring herself to share their task with the man. She couldn't help noticing that Malfoy hadn't suggested the young professor as a resource, either, and it reinforced her guardedness, whether it was rational or not. She had faith in the two of them to find a solution that worked.
When the sun began to set, Malfoy forced her to stop her "incessant note-taking," hauling her to her feet with the reminder that the evening's attempt at merfolk contact took priority over research and development for the following day.
"I'm not asking you to leave your precious notebook behind," he scoffed when she resisted. "I'm sure you've developed the ability to walk and write without breaking your neck. Now get your water and let's go."
Hermione leveled him with a glare as they set off, though it lacked any heat. "As if I'd trust you not to stick your foot out in front of me just to have a laugh."
The mere idea of it seemed to do the trick, and Malfoy chuckled in genuine appreciation.
"I'll admit it's something I always wanted to witness. But I'm afraid my opportunity to be the cause of you falling on your face has officially passed." He heaved a dramatic sigh. "Such are the sacrifices I'm willing to make for you, my dear."
Hermione scrunched her nose as his playful delivery of the false endearment sliced at her with a jolting likeness to the elder Malfoy. But she didn't say anything. Draco was not Lucius, and it was certainly no fault of his own if he'd picked up on some of his father's mannerisms over his lifetime.
They continued their walk in silence, moving around the shoreline at a sedate pace. The flurries had let up sometime during their time in the tent, and anything that had begun to stick across the surrounding grounds was already melting away. Malfoy's hand brushed the back of hers as they navigated around a large stone in the path, and Hermione felt what was left of her disquiet seep away at the light touch. She reached out and took his hand, lacing their fingers loosely and delighting in the soft surge her heart sent through her whole being in response. She would not fault her body for its reactions to reminders of past revulsions, but she could choose which reactions to let go of, and which to hold onto. So she held onto the bizarre sense of right that came with the feeling of holding onto Draco Malfoy's hand, and only shook her head slightly at the completely unexpected turn of events.
Malfoy's grip tightened fractionally as they neared their destination. The sun had all but set at this point, the shadows of the early evening falling across his face, capturing Hermione's sideways glance longer than she'd planned.
"You could always just come in, Granger, instead of trying to figure out what I'm thinking by burning a hole through my head." The words came out brittle and tense. Hermione stopped and turned to look at him full on, tilting her head as she studied the resolute expression on his face and noting with concern how it contrasted with the resigned dullness in his eyes. She brushed back his hair where it encroached on his brow, her touch skimming gently across his temple and lingering.
"Really?" she asked, quiet in the crisp air. Malfoy closed his eyes, whether at her touch or at her question, and exhaled a soft breath of steam, head bowing as though laden abruptly with an unseen weight.
And then he said, simply, "Yes."
Hermione couldn't quite help herself and lifted onto her toes, her fingers sifting further into his hair as she brushed her lips against his with a whispered, "Legilimens."
And then she settled comfortably on the surface of his ocean and they knelt deferentially on the shore of the lake, and the stars had risen in the sky by the time they stood to take their leave.
/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\
"What even is a Jack?"
Hermione threw up her hands, all but ready to scream even as she registered with a detached academic interest that the breaking point of her patience was apparently nine interruptions in the first five minutes of a game of Go Fish.
"I don't know," she groaned, dropping her hand face-down on the table and rubbing at her eyes. "But he's the lad with the knife and no crown. Have you got any?"
Malfoy twisted his lips in consideration, eying his cards with a concentration that far outweighed the situation. Hermione actually growled.
"Steady on, Granger, I'm just making absolutely certain. But alas," he sighed in mock sympathy, "no Jacks." His perfectly charming smile was the most aggravating thing she'd seen in a week. "Go fish."
/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\
Preparations for sleep felt deliberately typical that night, Hermione decided, as though both of them were doing their best to act very, very normal—which she couldn't deny was the case for at least one of them. They'd spent the previous night sharing a single bed, bodies pressed against each other and arms entangled with nothing but their pajamas between them. Tonight, they were back to sleeping bags. The shift brought a level of uncertainty to Hermione's usual calm that she couldn't quite shake as she crawled into her sack, breathing deeply and intentionally to soothe her pounding heart.
She heard the sound of Malfoy's water bottle closing from somewhere on his side of the tent—he'd been fastidiously tidying his pile of gear for a while now—followed by his shuffling movements to where she lay. The zipper was comically loud in the otherwise silent space as Malfoy reacquainted himself with his least favorite mode of sleeping. Finally, his arm snaked around her waist (or, rather, around the bulky fabric that covered her waist) and she felt his nose nudging against the hair at her neck.
"Lift, please," he murmured, and Hermione raised her head from the cushion of her own arm as she allowed Malfoy's through, straightening her elbow to follow his progress so her fingers could entwine with his at the end. She lowered her head onto the squishy muscle of his bicep, her free hand coming up automatically to curl around his arm like she needed an anchor. She settled in with a cozy sigh.
"I want to kiss you again." His soft words didn't even move her hair. Hermione tilted her head to look over her shoulder but otherwise didn't move.
"I think you should," she whispered back.
And the angle may have been awkward and her neck may have been stiff by the end of it, but Malfoy's fingers held her chin so sweetly as he kissed her goodnight, and Hermione couldn't be bothered to care about any of the rest.
A/N: As I was writing this chapter, all it felt like was a necessary evil: no great plot advancements, no high action, not a lot of interpersonal or intrapersonal development, just… filler. I needed it to be impactful in some way and lend to the story as more than just a transitional chapter, and those efforts felt like they were dragged out of me one paragraph at a time. Because of all of that, it's one of my longest chapters so far and likely my least exciting, but I am truly pleased of how it turned out in terms of story advancement and small relationship development moments.
In addition, as many of you know, summer is my busy season—which already puts more time than I want between updates. But I'm wrapping up a ten-day vacation today, and traveling is typically an excellent energizer for my writing (hence the timing of this publication). I obviously won't make any promises, but I feel hopeful that, in addition to finishing this beast of a chapter, I'll make solid progress on key plot chunks in the coming ones during my flights back across the country.
