Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

You would have thought Hermione Granger was a rich woman, and you would be wrong. 

It started with the war, of course. Seventeen years old, performing an extraordinarily powerful and extraordinarily painful obliteration on her parents, her thoughts were not turned to the implications of liquidating her family’s assets and sending them to Australia. 

But that is what happened. Her middle class, comfortable life vanished to the other side of the world, along with all the securities that came with it. 

She didn’t notice for a while, of course. She received her Order of Merlin which came with a decent chunk of cash, and she could finally fund the charitable causes she cared about (creature legislation)(anyone else who wrote to her with a particularly compelling story)(there had just been a war - there was no shortage of these). Unfortunately, because she had been a child, and because financial literacy was not on the Hogwarts curriculum even if there hadn’t been a war, Hermione had never been in charge of managing sums larger than her pocket money. She seemed to have more than enough money. And then, she didn’t have any at all.   

Imagine! A thing Hermione Granger did not know about! Naturally, she couldn’t tell anyone. 

So she kept up appearances, slowly sliding towards the particularly dire financial state she is currently in. She is behind on her rent. She is wearing out her robes. Last winter her boots had gotten a small hole in the sole, and this winter they were only going to be worse. There is only so much mending charms can do, after all, and magic cannot replace hard rubber. 

It is this Hermione, beleaguered, overworked, sick to death of counting every single knut she spent. Sick of feeling stressed when seeing her friends for dinner that they will just split down the middle rather than itemise, sick of lying about not being hungry, or working late so she doesn’t have to go at all, sick of stodgy food and pretending she isn’t stressed at every hour of the day because of it, sick of sneaking upstairs to avoid being asked for rent she doesn’t have, sick of the fine lines and dark under eye bags caused by not sleeping through the night. Sick of the cold, sick of the stress, sick of it all. 

It is this Hermione who, confused and hungry, accepts a meeting from Draco Malfoy. 

The opposite of Hermione in almost every way, Draco has a lot of money. Almost more  money than he knows what to do with, except Draco has ideas for all of it. He loves money. It’s true, it's crass. But he loves money, loves the feel of it, loves the weight of it, loves the glimmer and sheen and most of all, loves what it does for him. Money makes all of Draco’s problems go away. Even this one. 

“Granger,” he says, bowing. Granger waves him in. The study is tiny, shabby, even for Ministry standards. There are piles of parchment everywhere. He would have made a joke about getting someone in to file it, but judging by the bulging cabinets, and the slightly unstable tang in the air indicating numerous extendables, lack of filing time really isn’t Granger’s problem. 

“Malfoy.” 

Her voice is a little squeaky, and she looks, he notes with relief, like shit. She looks older than they actually are, her skin tinged a bit grey. Slender, but not in an easy way, more of a way that suggests a lack of sustenance. Her eyes are tired and dull, her hair frizzy and overlong. She is wearing an old jumper, with holes. It might even, he notes with equal parts horror and glee, be a Weasley hand-me-down. 

He takes the seat opposite the desk, and steeples his fingers. 

“Thank you for taking the meeting.” 

“Naturally,” she replies. 

“I expect you are wondering why I am here.” 

“Astute of you.” 

“I am here, Granger, because I want to marry you.”

He had planned how he was going to ask on the way in, and is quite pleased with the way she stutters, eyes wide, then laughs. She laughs for a long time, until she realises he is serious, and then says:

”Fuck off, Malfoy. No.” 

”Hear me out.”

”No.”

”Please.” 

This small word stops her in her tracks. Her stomach rumbles. Draco cocks his head on one side, and smiles at her. Her eyes widen. 

“Perhaps we should discuss this over lunch.” 

“I’m not hungry,” she lies. 

“I have a standing reservation at Le Côte. Let me take you for lunch. They do a particularly delicious steak salad this time of year. You must come.” 

Hermione hates that she is salivating. 

“No, thank you.” 

“Granger -“

”You cannot bribe me with a lunch,” she snaps at him, and then he sighs, but smiles all the same. 

“Actually,” he said. “I was planning on doing so with a bit more than a salad.” 

Draco Malfoy loves money, but no one else loves him. Three years ago he was freed from Azkaban, to his mother’s relief. His father died shortly thereafter, and he was forced to adjust to being Lord Malfoy, at a time when the Malfoy name meant less than dirt. 

He hated that. Hated the snide glances. The nasty comments. The hexes behind his back. All of it. And even though he was free and richer than any man in England, even then, people did not like him. 

He didn’t mind at first, because prison had been hard and lonely and he needed to put himself back together, unwilling to show vulnerability to anyone else. But once he had, he realised that his life was empty. That he could donate to various causes and it did not make a difference. That people might shake his hand in person, but then be cruel behind his back. Draco didn’t like it . So he plotted. 

It might have been chance, had he not already been watching her. He knew of Granger’s charity ventures. She seemed to get stuck in the same places all the time - no matter how hard she tried or how well she wrote her little legislation thingies, they never passed in the Wizengamot. 

Draco at first was mystified. Everyone loved her. Why couldn’t she push through some, generally quite small scale, legislative adjustments?  

Then he realised. 

Hermione Granger couldn’t afford to. She couldn’t even afford to take the people that made the decisions out for dinner. She couldn’t afford to schmooze.

He glimpsed her on the other side of the Ministry atrium, hurrying away. Saw how worn down she appeared. Noted the use of the public, rather than private, Ministry floos. And Draco realised that Hermione Granger couldn’t afford anything. 

He did a little bit of forensic accounting, just to make sure. What he found surprised even him. 

And so the plan was born. He, Draco Malfoy, could not just pay Hermione to be his friend. There were, firstly, lots of ancient evil magics on his money and gifting them to a muggleborn wouldn't go well. Secondly, for tax purposes, the amount he wished to transfer upon her would be unwieldy. And thirdly, he wouldn’t get enough out of it himself by just…giving her a chunk of money. 

No. Draco Malfoy needed a wife. Not a permanent one, naturally. He is realistic rather than optimistic. But with Hermione’s name attached to his, he would finally be back in power, and she would finally have the funds to do whatever she wanted. Just for a year, of course. And then she could take a chunk in the divorce proceedings, and they’d go their separate ways, reputations intact and world changed. And then, for a year, he would have the one thing he hadn’t thought even money could buy: Hermione Granger as his wife .

He explained most of this to her in the office and not over lunch, which was a shame, because her stomach kept punctuating the silence. She expressed irritation at his prying into her financial wellbeing, which he waved off with a ‘I didn’t do anything illegal , Granger,’ which was a lie, and then she got quieter and quieter as he went on. 

That is one of the best things about Granger, he reflects afterwards. Because she is so clever, you never have to repeat yourself. 

She needs a day to decide, a day which he willingly gives her. He’s going to give her everything, after all. He insists they meet again in person, at the restaurant. He does not want her to back out and he does not want to be interrupted by her rumbling stomach again. As he walks away he mulled over her assertion that she could not be bribed. He wonders when she will realise that she sold her freedom a long time ago. 

Chapter Text

They meet, upon Draco’s insistence, in La Côte. He has ordered a bottle of wine before she has even arrived, and so she gets to watch him, long fingers gracefully clasping the thin stem of the glass, perusing the menu with a single-minded, all-absorbed focus. When he realises she is there, he smiles at her, in a way that is not kind at all. She feels rather like the menu. 

She has put on her best clothes for the occasion, which still feel shabby. Even though the restaurant is so dimly lit it is near impossible to see, they exude an air of hand-me-down. At times like these, Hermione realises she has not been very aware of what it had been like, growing up as a Weasley. She thinks of Ron, and she thinks of the man opposite her. She thinks of the fact that she is going to say yes. 

He stands as she is seated, filling up her own glass, though the waiter has offered to do it for them. It has been a very long time since she has drunk champagne, perhaps since the aftermath of the war. Hermione sighs, deeply, in pleasure. Draco watches her eagerly. 

“People are already whispering about us being together,” she says. It is true, they are being watched both discreetly and not at all. 

“If we are to be married, a little lunch is hardly going to be front page news.” 

He says it lightly, and her stomach bottoms out. She places the champagne back on the table. 

“A little flush suits you,” he says. “Top up?” 

“Stop,” she says. They have not addressed any of this, whether she will say yes, let alone the gulf of pain between them that he has only obliquely referred to when discussing “reparations” (where did he hear that word, she wonders). 

“It’s muggle champagne, you know,” he says, showing her the label as though she is supposed to be impressed. “Apparently Bollinger is very good, and I have to agree, though I generally prefer our own brand. Did you know that the Malfoy family owns a vineyard? We make sparkling wine. As it is not in the Champagne region, naturally we cannot describe it as such.” 

“Malfoy, stop,” she snaps. He fills her up, but waits for her to speak. “We haven’t discussed this.” 

“No, but you’re here,” he points out. “You’re here, and you’re going to say yes.” 

She tries to argue about it but then he does something strange. He reaches out, and grasps her hands. 

“Granger,” he murmurs, lowly. She is transfixed, like staring into the eyes of a snake. “It is okay to say yes.” She inhales sharply at this, and he keeps going. “It is okay to be tired of being poor. It is okay to want a better, easier life.” 

“I’m not doing it for myself,” she manages to say. 

“I know,” he says, the tips of his lips moving upwards. “That is why you are so deserving of this. Because you are so, utterly, selfless. Yes?” 

She finds herself nodding. 

“You deserve to have the support you need.” 

“I do.” This time she says her agreement out loud. He moves backwards, she is released from the spell. Loathing spills in now she is no longer under it, for herself, for being so seduced. For him, for the things he has done, for the things he will use her name to become clean of. 

“We are going to have to make it look official,” he says. 

“God,” she mutters, covering her face with her hands. “God, I think I really hate you.” 

“You always did.”

“I was a child. It was a childish hate. This - this is real.” 

He laughs, once. 

“Is that a yes, then? Will you be Mrs Malfoy?” 

“Must I take the name,” she says weakly. 

“I will check,” he says, surprising her. “I think possibly you might, legally and all that. However, it might be that there are loopholes. Double-barreling. That sort of thing.” 

“Then yes,” she sighs heavily. “Yes.” 

“Thank goodness for that,” he says, pushing away from the table. In a voice quiet enough to suggest discretion, but somehow loud enough to be heard by every single person there, Malfoy drops to one knee in front of her. He pulls out a leather and gold black box, opens it. 

“Hermione Granger. Will you marry me?” 

It is dark in the restaurant, but the diamond nestled in the box seems to be lit from within. It is enormous, it will dwarf her knuckle when she puts it on her finger. The central stone is flanked by two pear shaped shoulders, which even by themselves appear massive. It is the single most lavish thing Hermione has ever seen in her life. 

She is so shocked by the ring that she whispers ‘yes’. Everyone else is shocked too, and the applause is scattered and uneasy. Draco slips the ring onto her finger, where it shrinks to fit her perfectly. Hermione is still fixated upon it, unable to tear her eyes away from the sparkle. 

Strangely, she feels moved. She finally looks up at him. He is watching her, and doesn’t take his eyes off her as he bends over her hand, and places a kiss just above the ring. 

Because she doesn’t know what else to do, or perhaps because she feels at sea amidst the muttering, Hermione throws herself out of the chair, wrapping her arms around him, hugging the man who is going to be her husband. 

“Did you do this before so we don’t have to have lunch,” she whispers in his ear. After a surprised beat, his arms encircle her back. He smells nice, a fact which she is able to consider neutrally. 

“Don’t be silly Granger,” he murmurs into her ear. Perhaps closer than he needs to be, though she isn't sure. “I think I owe you a bit more than a lunch.”

Chapter Text

Hermione has to tell all of her friends before they find out through the papers, which prompts an interesting range of responses. 

They discuss it over lunch, her and Malfoy. The plan. He says it needs to be seen as legitimate. She agrees - wizards are old fashioned about this sort of thing, and the divorce law rarely used. It will be scandalous when they split, and Hermione finds she doesn’t care. She has ruined herself so thoroughly that she is willing to trade her own reputation in order to ease the mess she is in. 

“We should get married quickly,” she says, wanting the year to start as soon as possible, so it can finish soon, also. 

“I agree. My mother will want to host it at The Manor.”

“No,” she says quickly, as her mind twists in horror. His mother. His mother is going to know. She swallows, horrified. “I can’t get married there. We need something small.”

“That might be tricky,” he mutters, for the first time looking unsure. 

“Small and quick, Malfoy,” she says, feigning bravado. She needs to feel like she hasn’t just signed over everything to him, needs to feel like she can still win something. 

“Very well.” He slips her a credit card. “I have some muggle funds, it will be too complicated to get you vault access before we are wed. Go shopping.”

“W...what?” Hermione’s hand hovers over the card. 

“You can’t be my fiancée looking like that,” he says carelessly, though the words feel like a slap. She knows she looks terrible. The fact that he has pointed it out is unnecessary. “Go to muggle London and get some clothes. I’ll sort out the wedding robes. If we’re going to do it small and not at home then mother will want a traditional ceremony.”

“Don’t worry,” she murmurs, though he is talking quickly, ticking off things they need to consider from the tip of his long fingers. 

“We’ll keep the guest list under 50, mostly Ministry figures and friends - I heard about your parents, so I suppose we don’t need to invite them. Did you want some of the Wizengamot to come? It might be useful for your longer term goals. By the way, if you need assistance I am happy to connect you, I have a personal shopper. She can show you places to get your hair and nails done,”

“I don’t need that,” Hermione says, alarmed. Alarmed by it all, the glib reference to her parents, the thought that their wedding might be a networking opportunity, the fact that Hermione hasn’t said anything in minutes, just sat there and listened to him rattle off ideas while chewing her steak. 

He picks up her hand as though they are lovers, and rubs a finger over her knuckles. It looks intimate from any other table, but here he is close enough to see the ragged skin at the edges, the brittle, cracked nails that have been bitten down too far. Hermione knows vaguely there are spells for this kind of thing, but she has not had time to learn them. She never did at school, and now what is she supposed to do? Write to Pansy Parkinson, begging for cuticle care instructions? It is unbearable. 

She arranges to see Ginny for cocktails as soon as they are finished with the lunch, needing to speak with her best friend, hoping at least the papers wait until tomorrow to announce it. She isn’t used to working in the afternoon after such a large amount of food, let alone wine. Hermione wonders if this is how rich people feel all the time, bloated and snoozy and drunk. Her eyes drift shut, she hopes her assistant doesn’t come in. How is anyone supposed to get anything done? 

She is collected by Ginny, who jostles her awake. 

“What the fuck is that,” she says, as Hermione blinks her eyes blearily. Ginny is fixated on her hand. 

“You are not going to believe the day I have had,” Hermione says, scrubbing her face. 

“You didn’t steal it, did you,” Ginny asks, concerned that Hermione might have become a little too nostalgic for their school days, and robbed Gringotts for fun. 

“No. I’m engaged.”

“To who!” Ginny screeches. “Godric Gryffindor!?” 

“I wish,” Hermione mutters. “Draco Malfoy.” 

Ginny is appalled, and then approving (he is good-looking, after all), and then sad, as they cycle through martinis at a very expensive bar that Hermione has taken her to. The room is dark and wood-panelled, a gentle hubbub providing just enough background noise to be soothing, but not to overwhelm. Hermione is used to constant noise - shrieking of children, barking of dogs. The sound of her upstairs neighbour doing their morning ablutions, which she wishes she is not as intimately familiar with. Even the sound of the wizarding radio filtering through all the walls, slightly stilted, as her neighbours blare it all hours of the day. The bartender looks alarmed at the sight of the two women, before noticing the giant rock on Hermione’s finger. After that, he is very, very attentive. 

“Thank you, Mrs Malfoy,” he coos, looking at the name on the card she hands to him. Hermione, one and a half martinis in, snorts. 

“Not yet,” she says, ominously.

She feels a little rush at the idea of paying for her friend. She feels another rush, of shame, when she is forced into confessing just how much trouble she was in that Draco Malfoy was required to bail her out. 

“You should have said something,” Ginny says, chewing her lip. She shouldn’t have let Hermione get this far - should have noticed. She just always assumed the clothes and the hair and the shitty flat were intentional, signs that her friend was above such mundane things while she focused on the betterment of the world around her. Ginny once had even expressed admiration for Hermione’s poverty to Harry, confessing that she wished she were less hung up on material goods.  

“I didn’t know what to say,” Hermione says truthfully. There wasn’t anything she could have said. And now, she is going to be Mrs Malfoy. “I know I don’t deserve a favour, but please -”

“Anything, Hermione,” Ginny says sincerely, weighted by the cocktails. “You kept my boyfriend alive for years. You can have anything you want.”

“I can’t tell them,” she confesses. “I can’t face it. Harry and Ron. I can’t - I was always the one who got things right.” Tears prick her eyes, she tries to push them away through sheer force of will. “Can you explain it to them? I can’t.” 

“Of course,” Ginny says, trying to figure out exactly how she is going to do this and keep the two of them from turning up at Hermione’s flat in the middle of the night, demanding answers. “Of course I’ll tell them.” 

“Thank you.” Hermione sinks back against the bar stool, relieved at least that she can avoid this. 

“Well,” Ginny says, heavily, searching for something to lighten the mood with. “Shopping?” 

“Ugh,” Hermione scowls. 

“It might be fun,” Ginny suggests. “Now you have loads of money, it might be fun.” 

“Will you come with me,” Hermione says, desperately grasping her friend’s hand, feeling guilty for asking for yet another favour. “Please. I can’t do it alone, I can’t bear it. I’ll buy you something.”

Ginny grins. 

“I’ll take tomorrow off.”

Chapter Text

They huddle like first years in the doorway of the department store Malfoy has directed them to. Hermione knows it, obviously, because everyone knows Harvey Nichols (Harvy Nicks, her mum used to call it), though it is not like she ever bought anything there. The doorman takes pity on them. 

“We’re here for a personal shopping appointment,” Hermione squeaks, as though she is going to be thrown out for asking. She had tried, this morning, to wash her hair properly. The weather is overcast though and the frizz is returning, and her efforts appear to be wasted. 

“Welcome,” says the doorman, without betraying his surprise at the clientele. Hermione decides he must be very good at his job. They are whisked to the correct entrance, a private one, brought up to the top floor. They pass rows and rows of beautiful, expensive clothing, and then Hermione and Ginny are greeted by a tall, glossy, racing horse of a woman, who smiles at them benevolently. 

“Ms Granger,” she says warmly, professionally. Hermione relaxes as they shake hands. It is impossible not to relax in the face of such perfectly put together efficiency. “Welcome. It is such a pleasure to meet Mr Malfoy’s fiancée. Congratulations on your engagement.” 

Hermione and Ginny exchange looks as they are led to the private room. Draco Malfoy shops here? 

“I understand we’re looking for a wardrobe overhaul,” she says, allowing a little bit of excitement to infuse her tone. “Officewear is the priority, but also weekends, events, and casualwear?” 

Hermione and Ginny are ushered into a low seat, and presented with a glass of champagne. They both sip, alarmed. It is eleven in the morning. They have not yet been given an opportunity to say anything, express any sort of opinion. Things are just…done for them.  

Rows of clothing hanging on rails, hanging nicely on rails, Hermione notices, not all crammed in like her closet at home, are brought out for their perusal. 

“Let’s just get a sense of your taste first,” the woman, whose name is Allegra, is saying. “What are you drawn to? Textures, fabrics, shapes - there is no wrong answer.” 

Malfoy must have briefed them thoroughly, Hermione thinks as she places her champagne to one side and stands, ready to flick through. The thought of saying no to anything hasn’t quite formed itself in her mind. Allegra is handling her as though she is a newborn foal, unsteadily tottering around. Hermione half expects her to give her a lick. 

They run their hands over the different materials. Hermione, despite loathing Malfoy, despite loathing herself, finds herself enjoying it. She fingers a double breasted charcoal suit jacket mesmerised by the feel of it. It is so, so soft. All she can think of is how quickly Crookshanks would have covered it in orange fur. 

“That’s a fantastic piece,” Allegra says, appearing suddenly. Hermione swells with pride for some reason. She has chosen a fantastic piece! “The Row is very popular at the moment with our clientele. We’re nearly sold out. Have you seen the matching trousers?” 

Hermione has not. She tries the suit on - it needs tailoring, she has such a lovely, petite figure, so a tailor is ushered in. Hermione and Ginny stare at each other slightly shellshocked as she is pinned and tucked. Ginny has seen the price tag, she fished it out of the inner pocket. Hermione watched her blanch. The tailor and Allegra and the rest of the unnamed and invisible associates murmur compliments constantly. It is bizarre. Hermione has never been on the receiving end of so much flattery, even as a war hero . She knows, in her head, that they are doing this because they are salespeople and they are not her friend. And yet, they are so convincing that she finds herself thinking that maybe they should all get drinks together, afterwards. 

More clothes are tried on. The suit goes in the ‘yes’ pile. She pulls other pieces - buttery soft silk and cotton shirts for work. Black wool skirts, black trousers - practical, but better than she has ever seen, more beautifully made than she knew clothes could be. She gravitates towards soft, Allegra notices, praising her taste in natural materials. Wool, cashmere, alpaca jumpers are brought out and tried on. A burnt orange one with a slit up to the bellybutton is cooed over, as is a soft, dove grey oversized piece that Hermione fantasises about sleeping in. Ginny wants her to try on a dark red knitted waistcoat with black bows. Hermione scoffs - too childish - but she does for a laugh anyway. It actually looks quite nice on her, and only a few hundred pounds, too! It goes in the ‘yes’ pile also. 

A pair of loafers, a knee high, glossy black boot. Hermione suddenly is looking at a more expensively attired version of her mother, and her heart aches in spite of the location. The champagne is making her eyes prick, there has been so much of it. She cannot take a sip without it being topped up. Hermione takes the boots off, and they go in the ‘yes’ pile even if they make her feel sad. She adds a sensible pair of work shoes, which are probably hundreds - yes, she glances at the price when the others aren’t looking - hundreds of pounds, but at this point, what does any of it mean? She picks up a black bag for work. A lace vest top, retailing for over six hundred pounds, is thrust upon her as an ‘essential’. 

“Oh, Hermione, look!” Ginny is holding up a glinting gold bag, covered in spangles. “It’s like your little beaded one, do you remember?” 

Hermione cannot quite breathe. It is too much, all of it. The money, the excess, the memories. “Another glass of champagne -” Allegra offers. 

“No,” she says quickly. She does not want to drink another drop of champagne for at least a week. She wants to go home. Bizarrely, she wants to speak with Malfoy. He is the only person who she thinks would be able to explain what kind of farce they have found themselves in. But she can’t speak with him, because he isn’t here, and she can’t send an owl, or call him, because he’s a wizard and doesn’t have a phone even though they are standing here in a muggle department store and the whole thing is overwhelming, she is overwhelmed, she cannot suddenly handle this ridiculous turn that her life has taken. It has been two days since Malfoy propositioned her, and now she is engaged, and about to spend over ten thousand pounds on ‘everyday wear’. 

“I think I’m going to be sick,” she says instead, meekly. And then she is, all over the plush plum sofa. 

They call a doctor, even though the only thing that is wrong with her is she drank too much on an empty stomach. They all flutter around her. The manager of the entire store comes down, presents her and Ginny with vouchers. She is dimly aware that they are terrified, which is strange, because she is the one who has covered their very nice private shopping room in vomit. 

“Honestly, I’m fine,” Hermione says, weakly. 

“I think you must have caught something from the kids,” Ginny says. They are both in on the lie together. Ginny and Harry don’t have kids. “They pick up all kinds of things.”

Everyone in the room seizes on this with relief. The imaginary children are blamed. Hermione’s purchases are wrapped up and discreetly taken away - to where, she doesn’t know and doesn’t ask. She wants to go home. Instead, Allegra kneels down in front of her, kindly. 

“I know you probably just want to lie down,” she says. Hermione nods, even though she does feel a bit better now. Embarrassed, but the nausea has subsided somewhat now the clothes have been removed. “But we do have the spa appointment, should you wish to proceed.” 

Hermione feels Ginny tense beside her in excitement. 

“Sure,” Hermione says, sitting up, wishing she was more like Allegra and less like herself. “I think I can handle a spa.” Allegra beams.

Chapter Text

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Feeling sick?”

“Not any more.”

“Okay, well if you’re going to be, I can always ask them to send you with a plastic baggy or -”

“Ginny! I am not going to be sick again!”

Ginny sighs, and looks at her friend. The facial has removed any vestige of a grey tinge. Her own skin feels plump, radiant. Hermione has spent a small fortune on both of them in the shop attached. They had even been offered botox, which, when Ginny found out what it was, made her scream. 

“Do you think we’re going to be banned for life,” she whispers, as they both make their way out. Hermione grimaces. 

“Do you have any idea how much money we’ve just spent?”

“No,” says Ginny, truthfully. After she had seen the suit price, she had stopped looking. She doesn’t even know the exchange rate is for muggle currency. She just knows that whatever they’ve spent, it was a lot. She thinks of the flimsy nightgown she agreed to let Hermione buy for her thinking it would be cheap, of all the ways Malfoy made her feel bad for being poor growing up. After the first suit price, being taken shopping left a different taste in her mouth. The spa products are bagged up and dangling from her arm. She wonders what Harry is going to say when they clutter up their modestly-sized bathroom. 

“Me neither,” Hermione sighs. “I was too scared to look at the receipt.”

They both pause next to the sunglasses, looking at each other. And then they burst out laughing. 

“Hermione -”

“Oh my god -”

“It’s too much -”

“Stop, I’m crying.”

“You don’t even know-” 

“I’m going to wee myself. Oh my god!” 

Ginny realises that her friend’s hysterical laughter has a slightly manic edge, and then she is sobbing, into her arms. An alarmed sales associate hovers by them. 

“She’s fine,” Ginny mouths, tucking Hermione in. She has been given a blow dry, their nails have been painted and buffed. They both spent what felt like hours deliberating on a colour, only to both decide on a safe pinky-nude. She smells nice, her wiry strands don’t reach up to tickle Ginny’s nose as they usually do. Her hair is sleek, layered. A good few inches have been taken off the bottom, and it swings with volume and a healthy bounce rather than the sort of stiff-cloud it usually possesses. She is an altogether different version of the person Ginny has thought of as her friend. Which makes sense, because they have been ensconced in Harvey Nicks’ reassuringly insulated bosom for nearly the entire day. The sun is setting on their makeovers. 

“Shhhhh.”

Ginny makes what she thinks are soothing noises. She has fake children, this is motherly, right? Hermione keeps on sobbing, not noticing that Ginny is shuffling them to the exit. Ginny hopes muggles are normally this unstable, and Hermione’s behaviour will not be a shock to them. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

“I don’t want to get married,” Hermione heaves into her. “I can’t do it. I can’t!”

Ginny sighs. 

“Hermione,” she says, trying to not sound horrid. “I love you. But you don’t have a choice.” Hermione cries harder. “I’m serious,” Ginny said, sharpening slightly. “It is one year. One year! And then you are going to be the richest woman in England. One. Year. Do you know how many would kill for this opportunity?” Hermione’s weeping has slowed, and she is hiccuping slightly. “You are the brightest witch of our age,” Ginny reminds her. “Just because you’re terrible at money, that doesn’t mean you’re still not brilliant. Alright?” 

“Alright,” a meek response. 

“You are Hermione fucking Granger.”

“I am Hermione fucking Granger.”

“You - oh look,” Ginny says, as Hermione lifts her head from her shoulder. “You’ve ruined your facial. You’re all blotchy!”

“Don’t worry,” Hermione mutters, through the snot. “I can just buy another one.”

“That’s the spirit!”

Hermione is ushered into a taxi, which is filled with the shopping bags. It doesn’t look like an ordinary taxi, instead it is one of those all black, fancy cars that rich people drive around in. She supposes she is one of them, now. 

She is too embarrassed to ask where they are going. At least if she is going to be kidnapped and murdered, she is still a little bit drunk for it. 

They drive for a while, in a direction that becomes familiar. Hermione’s stomach tightens in panic. She cannot be going home. 

She isn’t, in the end. She pulls up outside a different house, somewhere in Hampstead village, the area stinging with memories of her childhood. Hermione stares at the beautiful, enormous house in front of her. It is built from red brick, must surely be Queen Anne she thinks absently to herself, the architectural description arriving in her mind in her father’s voice. The window trim is an elegant off-white, a detail she fixates on, for some reason. It looks so much better than plain white. How clever of the decorators to do that. There is a gravel path, a dark green door at the end of it. Topiaried bushes crowd her steps. Hermione has a horrible feeling about what is going to come next. 

She thanks the driver and apologises for the crying. He tells her not to worry, kindly, and calls her Mrs Malfoy as well. She is about to correct him, then changes her mind. Why not get used to it? 

“Let me take your bags.” 

The door is open, a relief, because Hermione doesn’t have a key. It smells of beeswax inside, beeswax and pomegranate. There are ancient red and gold rugs stretching in front of her. Hermione blinks at them, at the warm wood underneath them. It reminds her a little of the Gryffindor common room. A staircase rises upwards, windows behind it hint at more leafy green. Hermione fixates on that, too. There’s a garden? 

The driver shuts the door, having silently filled the foyer with bags. A glimpse to the right reveals an empty room. She wonders if there is anything in the house, and supposes with a horrible thought, that there is not.  

“Ah, there you are.”

She screams. 

Malfoy is suddenly there, standing in muggle trousers, appraising her.

“Nice to see you too, Granger.”

“What -”

“My house,” he says. 

“Since when,” she replies, stupidly the only question she can think to ask. He shrugs. 

“A few hours, I suppose.” 

“A few…”

“You won’t want to live at The Manor,” he says smoothly, picking off an invisible piece of lint from his shirt sleeve. “So I bought this place.”

“So you bought this place.”

“Come on, Granger,” he says, crossly. “It’s not that surprising, is it? By the way, your hair looks lovely.”

The compliment is worse than the house. Hermione isn’t sure if she was going to be sick again. She suddenly feels bad for all the times she had disparaged swooning heroines in romantic novels. Sometimes all a girl could do was collapse to the floor in a heap. 

“What are you thinking about,” Malfoy says, staring at her. “Your face has gone strange.”

“I had a facial,” she says, snapping back to the present. “And then I cried. Leave me alone.” 

“Very well. There are more than enough rooms.” 

“Malfoy,” she says. She doesn’t know why she is cross or what she wants from him, but she is still…confused. Is this really real? “Is this you asking me to move in with you? What am I doing here? What are we doing? I haven’t seen a contract and surely we should - I don’t know. What is this?” 

Malfoy appears annoyed with the questions. 

“This is our house, Granger. Because we are getting married, and are, for all intents and purposes, in love, remember?” Hermione just stares at him. “People who are in love live together,” he says, with exaggerated slowness. “If we don’t, people will talk. Even the cleaners need to believe it.” 

“Cleaners - Malfoy,” Hermione stares at him. “I’m not -”

“Human,” he says.

“But what about my room,” she says. “What if they come and clean my room.”

“What room,” it is Malfoy’s turn to look confused. “Granger - we are spinning a compelling and entrancing lie to the wider world. You are not going to have a room .” 

“Malfoy, do you expect me to sleep with you?!” 

There is a stunned silence. Malfoy takes a step back. 

“Sleep with - what are you on about,” he sneers, two points of red appearing on his cheeks. He looks flustered. Furious. “Why would I expect you to sleep with me,” he scoffs. “Do you think I need to pay someone to fuck, is that it?” 

“That’s not what I meant,” she says quickly, also scarlet. How could he even… “I meant in the same room. Not - not -”

“I’m not fucking anyone else for the duration of this marriage and neither are you.” 

The words are whip smart and Hermione blinks at them. She hasn’t considered that either. Sex. Of course they couldn’t ‘cheat’ on each other. It’s not exactly like Hermione has been doing a lot of it, sleeping around, mainly because she doesn’t want to waste money on dates or risk anyone coming back and seeing how she lives (used to live), but even so. The thought of an entire year stretching in front of her with nothing at all daunts her. 

“Disappointed,” he sneers. She snorts, to try to hurt him and cover up the fact that this whole situation is overwhelming her. 

“Please. As if I would want to go anywhere near you.” He smirks at her again, that horrible, nasty smirk that makes her want to slap him and makes her stomach twist. “I meant are we going to have to share a fucking bed, Malfoy.” 

“Yes, O Brightest Witch of Our Age. We are going to have to share a fucking bed. Though no fucking, naturally. A poor choice of words, I might add. Considering your general befuddlement.”

“You are such a total shit.” 

“I have been told,” he says mildly, as though his earlier anger has dissipated already and he is back to having the upper hand. “Do you snore?”

Hermione wants to stamp her foot and throttle him. He is smiling, waiting for it. 

“I don’t,” she says instead. “This is ridiculous.”

“So is being several thousand galleons in debt.” His eyes flick all over her. “I really did mean it, by the way. Your hair looks nice.” 

“Fuck off.” 

“The interior decorators are coming tomorrow. You should change. We have a dinner tonight.” 

“A dinner?” She blinks. 

“Yes, Granger,” he says mildly, his eyes still glued to her, his smirk still cocky. “We have to break the happy news to my mother.”

Chapter Text

Hermione stares at the sea of clothes she has just purchased, and does not know what to wear. She is in the wardrobe next to the primary bedroom, overwhelmed that it is where they will both be living for the next year. YEAR. The house actually isn’t even as big as she had first thought, it doesn’t have hundreds of bedrooms, and there is barely any furniture beyond a few rugs and the singular bed, which does not look nearly big enough for both of them to sleep in. 

She turns back to the outfits. What does one wear to dinner with Narcissa Malfoy? 

Most of the dresses she selected needed tailoring, and so the only ones that have been sent with her are short. Is that okay? Hermione doesn’t know. Is she supposed to have formal robes? She wants to ask Malfoy, but after the bed conversation she doesn’t want to ever see him again. She is still confused. He wants to share a room with her to keep up the pretence, she has spent a small fortune on clothes, he has bought her a multi multi million pound home in an area close to where she grew up. But on the other hand, she still isn’t sure how this is going to work, and she hates the idea of asking him. Again. Should there be some sort of written agreement? Or will that just be the marriage contract? What else is going to be included in this ‘selling it to the public’ plan? Not to mention the fact she is giving up sex for a year. What if - her heart picks up, anxiety spirals. What if he decides that they are going to add that into the bargain too?! The idea of Hermione having to be in this situation, of having to have sex with him is awful and degrading. And maybe a little bit intoxicating. 

She pushes the thoughts away. 

She puts on a cream, off the shoulder dress. It would have looked better with a tan, but Hermione hasn’t been on holiday in years. Adds some slingback shoes. The outfit isn’t quite right, but she doesn’t know how to fix it. And so she puts on the new trenchcoat, and makes her way downstairs. 

The foyer is empty, of furniture, of him. She waves her wand to check the time, alarmed to see it is six pm. What time are they supposed to leave? 

She hovers a bit, before deciding to look around. Hermione clops her way through the ground floor. The house is old, the ceilings lower than she would have expected. There is a lot of warm wood paneling, another surprise. She would have expected something soaring and Gothic for Malfoy, or perhaps some ultramodern highrise. This is surprisingly cosy. 

The gardens are slightly tangled, welcoming. An overgrown lawn stretches out, a church spire in the distance. Even the sounds of the road are almost completely muffled. There is an eeriness to it, an emptiness to the silence. Hermione finds herself flinching with every small sound, though these are few and far between. Even the fridge seems silent, though this was previously clearly a muggle dwelling, and it would surely have been using electricity. Another mystifying occurrence. Why is Draco Malfoy purchasing muggle real estate? 

“We should go.” 

She jumps, startled by his arrival yet again. She turns as he glances over her coat, but doesn’t say anything. Does that count as approval? Hermione wishes she didn’t want his, but she still feels so at sea she is desperate for anything. 

“Where -” 

“Le Manoir,” he says, as though the name meant anything to her. Another French place. She hopes they do steak salad, too. “My mother thinks this is real,” he says, abruptly. “And she will continue to.” 

Hermione blinks, startled that they are meant to lie even to his mother . “Why?” 

“It’s complicated,” he says with a shrug. “But it will be easier if she does. Don’t take it personally if she doesn’t like you,” he adds, then walks off. Hermione trails after him, nervously. 

“How are we -”

“Floo,” he says, as though it were obvious. 

“How -” she wants to ask how he had been hooked up so quickly, but he just sighs, and shoves the pot towards her. 

“For Salazar’s sake, Granger,” he says. “Stop asking questions. I am very rich. You are about to be very rich. That means people will do things for you. Now, do you need me to go first, or can you still remember how to use the floo, despite your horrid reliance on public transport?” 

Hermione is tempted to scatter the powder all over the expensive rugs. Instead, she pastes on a sickly, nasty smile. 

“Of course, my beloved,” she half-sings. Malfoy looks gratifyingly nauseated. “Anything for you.” 

She steps into the floo, and is sure she hears him mutter ‘give me strength’ as she is whisked away. 

Armed with a blow dry, freshly facialled skin, and an enormous diamond ring, the staff at Le Manoir do not look at Hermione as though she has wandered off the street. Draco’s appearance soon after, the possessive and quite frankly alarming presence of his hand on her shoulder further serves to legitimise her place there. 

“You have some dust on you, darling,” he murmurs, in such a shocking change of character that she can only stand there as he brushes his hand over the back of her coat. 

“Sir, Madam,” the maitre d’ said smoothly, his arms out to take said coat. Hermione realises that Draco hadn’t bothered with one, instead wearing his muggle blazer and trousers, with a sharp, pressed shirt. They haven’t stepped foot outside. She shrugs off the trench and hands it over. Malfoy, beside her, stiffens. 

“Is it too much,” she asks. “Should I change?” He clears his throat. 

“You look fine,” he says, his earlier warm, fake, tone evaporating under the stress of seeing her in a dress. “Let’s go.” 

Narcissa is already seated at the table. She sees Draco, and immediately hovers out of the chair, appearing to stand so gracefully it is as though she floated up. When her eyes snag on Hermione, she freezes. 

“Mother,” Malfoy says, leaning in to kiss her cheek. Narcissa’s attention is fixed on Hermione, a slight curl to her expensive smile. She blinks, recovering, turning to return her son’s kiss, unable to prevent her eyes from wandering back over to Hermione. Not just Hermione - they flick over her, assessing. Hermione wishes she had worn the suit. Her exposed shoulders feel very exposed. 

“Draco,” she purrs. “And Ms Granger. Darling, you should have given her a necklace to go with that dress. She looks practically nude.” 

Both of them smile, in a frozen sort of way. Hermione knows enough to know she has been weighed, and found wanting. Draco shrugs it off. 

“There was nothing suitable in the vault.” 

“I’m sure,” Narcissa says, and Hermione thinks that Narcissa probably still uses the term ‘mudblood’ when she’s alone. 

They sit, Narcissa opposite Hermione, Malfoy to the side.

“We have good news, mother,” he says, stiffly. He reaches for Hermione’s hand. She isn’t used to him touching her, not yet, and so she jumps when he takes it, resists a little, actually, until she realises that she is supposed to be in love with him. The ring glitters, and Narcissa hones in on it with the precision of a bird of prey. 

“Well,” she says, after a long silence. “Well,” she says, again, as though that explains everything. Hermione doesn't dare speak. She has done enough damage by existing. “Forgive me,” Narcissa says, sniffling slightly. Her eyes appear glassy, her mouth turned down. Hermione watches in interest as Narcissa tries not to weep over her son. “Do excuse me for a moment.” 

They don’t speak until she is out of the room. Hermione exhales, and realises that Malfoy has mirrored her. 

“Was that -” what you were expecting is what she wanted to say, but her mouth dries. She reaches for the water - sparkling, she notes. Even that feels overwhelming, Hermione never drinks anything in restaurants other than tap. Well, used to. 

“Some -” the waiter hovers. 

“Champagne,” Draco says robotically, barely looking at the man. “And three glasses. We’re celebrating.” 

“Very good, Sir,” he says, and leaves. Draco still isn’t looking at her, his hand on hers, his fingers stiff and caging it in. They sit in silence until the champagne comes back, and the waiter pours the glasses. They wait for Narcissa to return from the bathroom before taking a sip, watching the bubbles rise to the top. Hermione wishes, for the millionth time, that if she had to get fake married, it would be to someone she liked a little better. Someone who she could, at least, talk to. She realises that even if she hates Malfoy, she wants him to be this person. Wants to smooth things over, just so they don’t spend the next year in this awful, stilted silence. It is all far too quiet. The other diners, even, are conversing in hushed tones. For the first time, Hermione doesn’t think it is because they are eavesdropping. It is just because there is an air of the forbidden in the room, a heavy sort of quiet like that in a library, that you would simply never break. 

Narcissa takes so long Hermione is almost sure she has left. When she returns to the table she looks just the same as before, though she sits a little heavier. 

“Well,” she says again. They pick up their glasses. 

“Cheers,” Hermione says, as they clink. Hers seems to crash against the others, and she cringes. When she sips, Hermione decides she is heartily sick of champagne.

Chapter Text

The silence which they dine in is far from comfortable, and when they finally return, though it is only an hour and a half later, Hermione feels exhausted. She blinks in the gloom of their floo room, in their home. She wants to cry. Again. 

Draco emerges behind her. She has her coat thrown over one arm, not bothering to put it on. She shivers, though the house is perfectly temperate. 

“Cold?”

“No,” she says. 

He pauses for a second. 

“Whisky?” 

Hermione is surprised he has asked. She doesn’t normally drink whisky. Hard liquor at that moment seems a really, really good idea. 

She makes her way out to the terrace. The stars are visible, and even though they are shrouded somewhat by the light pollution, she can still pick some of them out. He follows after her. They have no furniture, so they sit on the floor. No glasses, either, apparently, because all Malfoy hands her is a mug with an icecube. 

“I couldn’t be bothered to transfigure it into something better,” he says roughly. She considers transfiguring them some furniture to sit on, but also decides against it. She at least extends the coat, so it drapes over both of them, like a blanket. She knows that she is clinging to him in this massive change, and that he is getting annoyed by it. Perhaps he wants her to be reliant on him. Perhaps he didn’t realise how many questions he would have to answer if she was.

“The food was lovely,” she says. This is true. She feels perhaps that she should have been unable to taste it, but she is still so unused to eating things that are so rich and seasoned she can’t help but savour them. 

“It’s always good there,” he says, taking a big swig. She copies him, and splutters slightly. Still, the warmth is nice. 

“Sorry about my mother,” he says, after another moment’s silence. “She’s a massive snob.” 

Hermione startles, and then laughs. Like in the office, when he asked her to marry him the first time. A proper laugh. 

“Yeah,” Hermione agrees, waiting to stop laughing before she takes another sip. “She is a massive snob.” 

He sighs. 

“When are we getting married,” she asks, because he said he would sort it, and all she has done so far is drink and shop. 

“A month.” 

She squeaks a little. “Sure.” 

“Your dress will be arriving tomorrow.”

“I’m in the office.” 

“The interior designers will be here. They can let them in.” 

“Oh.” 

Hermione is slightly unsure about having so many people she doesn't know in her house. Malfoy appears to be unbothered by it though. 

“I haven’t put my clothes away yet.”

He pauses for a moment. 

“Okay.” 

Then he gets up, and leaves her to sit looking out over their perfect, empty garden.  

Later, when she goes up after she has tracked down and filled her second glass (whisky, it appears, isn’t that bad after all), she finds her walk-in closet neat and tidy. The clothes are suspended magically, something she doesn’t know how to do. She always just used hangers, which, staring at her new clothing’s perfectly levitating forms, feels juvenile and foolish now. The air smells fresh and new. She stares at the row of jumpers, folded like they were in the store.

Some sleepwear has been provided, of course. Hermione, who had been buoyed by the champagne and luxury of the experience, and not at all thinking there would be a world in which she might actually share a bed with her husband, stares at them. In the dim light, Malfoy slumbering in the bed next door, they appear insidious. Threatening. 

She has not thought of school for years, nor does she continue to associate with her house. She is not a child. Perhaps it is the fact that this house, this home, reminds her so forcefully of it, that such things are suddenly rising to the top of her mind. But she looks down at the most substantial nightgown and swallows, dubiously. Why did she have to pick green? 

Hermione does not sleep well. Though the house is beautiful, it is old, and therefore proportioned normally. But they are not in a normal situation, and she does not want to share a bed with her fiancé. Theirs is a double, a large double. She doubts anything would be big enough. Even with the size, Malfoy’s body is very much there, however close to the edge she seems to be. It is comfortable, too, which only serves to panic her more. Visions of being engulfed by acres of soft, soft sheets, waking up pressed against him make her pulse pick up. The pillows are too soft. As quietly as possible, she relegates three of them to the floor. 

“Must you fidget incessantly,” Malfoy’s slightly sleep-soaked voice drawls from the darkness. 

“I can’t sleep,” she squeaks irritably. She flops back onto the single pillow with a sigh. “This bed is too squishy.”

Malfoy snorts. 

“Don’t tell me you were sleeping on the floor before,” he sneers, though it’s halfhearted. 

“Of course not,” she replies. She thinks of her ancient and broken bed, back at her flat. The mattress was stained at some point, and no amount of cleaning spells could remove the mark. Her sheets have a hole in at the bottom - she only has one set, which makes washing them an annoyance. They, too, are worse for wear. Crookshanks’ old claw marks are still there. Hermione sniffs, when she thinks of him. 

“Merlin Granger,” Malfoy says, his voice still on the edge of slumber. “I have to say you’re the first person to weep at having to share a bed with me.”

“My cat died,” she says angrily. “I was thinking of him.”

Malfoy is silent, she is sure he has fallen asleep. 

“I’m sorry,” he says into the darkness, surprising her. She swallows. 

“It was a long time ago.”

“That doesn’t always help.” 

The words are so quiet she isn’t sure if he is awake or dreaming. She rolls over, staring at the far edge of the wall, wondering what will happen in the morning. Finally, surprisingly, she drifts off.

Chapter Text

Malfoy emerges from the bathroom at the exact moment Hermione swings her feet over the edge of the bed. They both freeze, caught. Hermione fights the urge to make sure the nightgown is covering her up - she can’t feel a breeze, she is fine. Her nipples pucker slightly, anyway. 

He appears to alternate between shock and fury at the sight of her. It is quiet for too long. She breaks first. 

“Good morning.”

“Are you making fun of me?” 

“What?” She blinks. 

“Is this some sort of joke, Granger,” he demands, still staring at her body. Hermione looks down, frowning. Her nipples are safely behind silky fabric and lace. 

“No?” Her confusion makes it sound like a question. 

“Why is it green,” he grits out. Hermione blinks, again. Then she snorts, stands up. 

“You don’t own the colour green, Malfoy,” she says tartly, tossing her still-silky hair over one shoulder, and attempting a gallic shrug, which is hampered by the precarity of the shoulder strap. “I thought it looked nice on me. I hardly walk around thinking about Hogwarts Houses all day. Don’t tell me you do.” 

She does not wait for an answer and walks past him to the bathroom. He almost visibly recoils, which she chooses to ignore for the sake of her ego. When she emerges again, he is gone. 

Instructions are left for her on the kitchen island. No one is in the house, and it is still eerily quiet. They are written out in Malfoy’s neat script that has not changed much since their schooldays, and it is strangely nostalgic to see it. 

Granger. The floo is connected to your private Ministry entrance. Use it as you wish. Leave a list of other floos you wish to be connected to below. The wizard is coming again, today. 

The interior decorator will be here at lunch, should you wish to meet them. 

We have dinner tonight - a date. A photographer will be there. Dress appropriately. 

DLM. 

Hermione sets the note on fire with her wand. She roots for spare parchment in her work bag, dumping the contents out onto the marble countertop. Finding some, she writes her list. It looks small. 

The Potter’s 

Ronald Weasley

The Burrow 

Neville? 

She contemplates who else to add, falls short. She places it in the centre of the island, where there are now scorch marks. 

She returns home at lunch, mainly out of curiosity. She has never met an ‘interior designer’ before. 

Another perfectly pressed and perfumed woman is there, standing next to Malfoy, a hand on his arm. When Malfoy sees her arrive, he looks almost relieved, and smiles at her. 

“Glad we could tear you away darling,” he murmurs, bending down to kiss her cheek. In memory of the morning, Hermione flames scarlet. “You look beautiful,” he says, pulling back, eyeing her apparel appreciatively. She has put the suit on, along with the loafers. For a moment she thinks he means it. 

“I didn’t want to miss it,” she replies, her eyes flickering to the woman nervously. Malfoy takes her hand, standing next to her. It dwarves her, his finger rests on her ring, fiddling. Nerves? A warning? She cannot tell. 

“Olivia has worked with my mother for years,” he explains, though the woman barely looks older than Hermione. “I thought we could take her through your ideas for the space.” 

Hermione doesn’t have ideas ‘for the space’. She smiles at Olivia sweetly, who seems to accept her friendliness dispassionately. 

“Nice to meet you,” Hermione offers. 

“Of course,” Olivia replies. Hermione is slightly baffled. Malfoy squeezes her hand.

“I was just telling her about the ground floor. Obviously we want to keep the fireplace room as a reception room for those travelling in. My wards will have to be updated with Malfoy tradition, but that will take place after the ceremony - oh, darling, before I forget. There’s a robe fitting this afternoon. Do you have any meetings or can you be back here by four?” He softens the ask with a gentle kiss to the back of her hand. Hermione is once again captured and helpless in the force of his charm. She cannot for a moment understand why he needs her. Why he has not made everyone melt in front of him, if he really is this charismatic. 

“That should be fine,” she says, weakly. He smiles at her, so genuinely she has to list the evils he has caused, remember in detail every time he called her a slur growing up. 

“Thank you,” he says, lingering over her face. He turns back to Olivia and continues to list. “A formal reception room on the ground floor - if we do entertaining it will be here and below, although a more family style will be suitable on the lower ground. This is not The Manor,” he said, smoothly. “And we do not wish it to be.”

“Of course,” Olivia says again, sniffing aristocratically. 

“The upper floors we perhaps need to readdress,” Malfoy continues. “The library, of course, should be kept. It will be my wife’s main space in the home,” he says, grinning softly, as though he is enamoured with her, with the idea of trawling through their many rooms and floors to find her, curled up on a comfortable seat underneath a blanket, quietly reading by candlelight. “I will take the study.” 

“And the bedrooms?” 

He shrugs, removing his hand from hers and placing his whole arm over her shoulder, pulling her in towards him. Hermione comes up to his shoulder, she leans against it, her arm snaking along his lower back. Perhaps she is imperiused, she thinks calmly. There is no other way it could be so natural to act like this, or to take pleasure in the weight and heat of his body. 

“We will leave the top floor as guest bedrooms for now. If there are…” the promise of children dangles in the air as Malfoy kisses her head, again. Olivia smiles unkindly at the two of them. 

“Of course,” she says. 

They chat more, on colours and finishes. Hermione likes to stroke the materials, and so Malfoy pushes her forward, but always touching her in some small way, body turned towards her, eyes attentively on her face as she lists, tentatively, the things she likes. 

“I don’t want too many modern things,” she tells Olivia, who is attempting to ignore her. “The house is old, it doesn’t need to be overwhelmed, or to have too much furniture, even, you know? It should be comfortable.”

Malfoy nods next to her, the perfect husband to be. They are so in love. 

It is late by the time Olivia leaves, and Hermione decides she might as well stay till the fitting. She runs her small department, after all. She can take an afternoon off. As soon as they are alone the awkwardness returns. 

“She will report everything to my mother,” Malfoy says, slightly bitterly. “I appreciate the cooperation.”

“Of course,” Hermione says, mimicking her. Malfoy startles, then snorts, as though the surprise of her making a joke had removed the humour. He goes to walk up the stairs, then hesitates. 

“I’m having books sent over to fill the library. Add whatever you wish.”

“Thanks,” she says, looking up at him from the base of the stairs. He hesitates again. 

“Have you seen it? The library?”

She shakes her head, and follows him up. 

The room is fully panelled. There are divots in the floor where furniture stood, she can imagine them, huge comfortable sofas and chairs, thickly piled rugs. Warm. Candlelit. 

“They’re lovely, but I thought we might put in shelves,” he says, gesturing to the panelling. “Obviously it will only be able to hold a small number of texts, but it would be - cosy for you.” 

Hermione’s hands skate over the air where a desk would sit - for her, Malfoy had explained to Olivia - for the important work she was doing on creature rights. His voice had been suffused with a pride that made Hermione’s afternoon off feel naughty. 

“It would be lovely.”

“I’ll be over the hall,” he says, a little abashed. They are alone together in the room, she can see the tips of the garden trees through the window. The fireplace will be flanked by two comfortable chairs, perfect for reading. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Hermione says, voicing aloud her confusion. “Why - you don’t - I don’t understand,” she finishes with a sigh. 

He considers his answer, staring at the empty and blackened grate. 

“You have the only thing I cannot buy for myself,” he says. “Reputation.”

“And you think marrying me gets you that?” She says, a little stung. 

“Yes.” He meets her gaze head on. Her breath catches a little bit. She realises, as he stares at her, that she finds him attractive. She breaks eye contact, alarmed. The dressmakers arrive at the perfect time.

Chapter Text

She is in trouble, she muses, as she is prodded and pinned. Not just because the gown they arrive with is the most heart stoppingly terrifying item of clothing she has ever beheld. The more time she spends with Malfoy, when he is charming and pretending to be in love with her, the more she considers him…attractive. She should not, but she finds she does, anyway. 

The two witches who are attending her are silent in their edits. She wonders if Malfoy chose it himself. It is a heavy, glistening silk, simply cut. The robe topper is woven from perfectly spun lace, pinning up to a high collar. Her hair is twisted up around her wand so that they might see where it fits on her neck - perfectly, apparently - and needing no adjustment. She stares at her reflection in the giant, three-pronged mirror they have brought with them. It hovers around her, twisting as she does in order to always provide the most flawless reflection. Hermione watches dispassionately as the witches wand-wave and murmur to each other, exchanging nods and flourishes, extending the train here, hemming the bottom there. 

She tries to consider this appreciation rationally. It has arisen suddenly. She tells herself, quite sternly, that it is because he has intentionally seduced her with all his money, and she should not feel ashamed that desire, in general , has confused her. She does desire the things he offers: a comfortable home. A library. Soft sheets. Nice clothes. The ability to walk down the street and not hurry. Anyone would extend that desire to the man offering such security. 

Unfortunately, rationalising her response does nothing to diminish it. 

It also doesn’t help that she has no idea if he wants her. Based on their past meetings he emphatically does not. He has taken great pains to express how utterly repulsive she is to him. But that was a long time ago, and people change. He definitely considers her human, a disgustingly low bar. He speaks with her like an equal, even if he may not like her. Like and desire don’t always go hand in hand. She, even, wouldn’t go so far as to say she liked him. It is the opposite. Hermione has never quite felt like this before, she has never once wanted someone in one way and not liked them in every other way possible, and the concept is novel and strange. She thinks of his reaction to her in the morning. He could have been repulsed, he could be struggling with the same kinds of feelings she is.

There is no way of knowing without asking him outright. 

Hermione breaks the studious silence by laughing out loud. 

She is still thinking of her desire as she dresses, assessing what gowns have appeared in the day, back from the tailor already. They were not magically produced, and so it is clear the only reason they have been finished is that Malfoy has spent a lot more money on her. She swallows. That is the one thing she cannot read into, after all. He has so much, any spending of it is meaningless. 

She selects the black silk gown, cut to her knee. It fit her nicely when she tried it on, made her look curvier than she is, skimmed the bits of her stomach she is self-conscious of. To match, a pair of black and gold heels, with gold leaves unfurling over the toes. They are higher than she usually wears, and so she spells them diligently. 

She takes in her reflection. She looks like her, which is the most surprising part of it all. She does not look like she is dressed up in strange clothes. She looks like she should look - glossy, healthy. A good night’s sleep has minimised her dark circles, and though her olive skin is still slightly sickly with a lack of sun, she does not look so bad, anymore. The manicure and blow dry have held up, doing much to cover the worst of the sins. She goes to the bathroom. 

At some point, makeup was delivered. She cannot imagine Malfoy pouring over lipstick colours, but she also cannot imagine how else they arrived. She looks through the products, slightly bemused. Witches don’t tend to wear much muggle makeup, she wonders if this is a slight or a concession to her. She blots on some of the red lipstick with her finger, cautiously smudging it in. She cannot remember the spell to curl her lashes, and so she applies two coats of mascara manually. The remainder of the lipstick on her fingertips is massaged into her cheeks. She steps back. The marble bathroom echoes with the sound of her heels, her heart is beating fast. She does not know where they are going, and hopes to hell it's somewhere that this outfit would be considered ‘appropriate’. 

She is scientific in her descent, watching Malfoy turn from the bottom of the stairs to look at her, mapping every single twitch of his facial muscles. Does he want her? He takes her in, though there is no clear indication of desire. His gaze feels heavy as it starts on her ankles and trails upwards, though his regard is as thorough and dispassionate as she is trying to appear. He holds out an arm when she reaches the bottom, and gives her a single nod of approval. Her stomach swoops. 

“Where are we going,” she asks. 

“Dinner,” he replies smoothly. She rolls her eyes. He disapparates them both without warning. 

It is only the strong pressure of his hand, holding her arm entwined in his, that keeps them together. When they land she forgets she is supposed to pretend she likes him and swings her bag against his chest. 

“You complete arsehole ! You should have warned me! Do you have any idea how bloody dangerous a stunt like that -”

She is silenced as he kisses her. 

It is sudden and all-encompassing. His lips are on hers, his arms are embracing her, his hand on the bare skin of her back, snaking up her spine, tangling in the nape of her neck as he holds her against her. 

She has her answer. 

He is hard, she can feel the awkward angle of his cock in his trousers, pressing against her stomach and hip. He opens his mouth, and what the hell , she thinks, opening in response. She can taste him - he brushed his teeth before he left. The kiss deepens. It is obscene, how her body is bending backwards around him. How he is everywhere, how he is not letting her go, not that she wants to be stopped, actually. This feels like a relief, in the face of her not-knowing. Their lips move against each other, insistent, aggressive. It is not a soft or gentle kiss, and she relishes it, pressing against him in response, snaking her own hands up over his bunching arm muscles. It is easier to kiss like this when she hates him. Someone clears their throat, loudly, which reminds both of them that there are other people around. They both jolt, breaking apart. Hermione wants to see who it was, but she can’t, because he is still watching her, eyes lidded, lips a little smeared with lipstick, cheeks a little red, chest rising a little faster than normal. His arms are holding her up, because her legs certainly are not. And he is staring at her, a smirk slowly starting to grow. He keeps her held against him, not bothering to turn around, and then leans down to whisper something private in her ear. 

“Surprise,” he murmurs. She doesn’t understand, and then she does, as she is finally allowed to turn and take in their audience. 

“What the fuck?” 

“We could say the same thing, Mrs Malfoy to be,” Ginny says, smirking. They are all there - all of the DA crowd. They are tittering, holding up glasses of champagne, as though they were going to jump out and shout it. Behind them Hermione belatedly takes in a banner that simply says ‘HEN’. 

“What -”

“A muggle tradition, isn’t it,” Malfoy says lightly, tugging her back into his side and staring down at her, faux-adoringly. “I thought you would want to celebrate.” 

Someone snaps a photo of her shocked face, and she is momentarily blinded. 

“The groom isn’t supposed to be here,” she says. “It’s traditionally just women.” It is all she can think to say. 

“Oh,” Malfoy says, wrinkling his nose. “Well. That feels a little old-fashioned for you, darling.” 

“Ma - Draco,” she hisses, turning away from the crowd and towards him. “What are you doing?”

“Making my future wife’s dreams come true,” he murmurs into Hermione’s ear. He is crowding her deliberately, she notes. He must have realised his effect on her, a mortifying realisation. She had to resist. 

“You think that means a party?” She grinds the words out through a fake smile. 

“Don’t be stupid,” he sneers back. He is much better at talking through his teeth than she is, she can really hear the disdain underneath. “Hannah Abbott is now the assistant to Malory Whitman, at the -”

“Department of Mysteries,” Hermione finishes for him. 

“Exactly. You need to foster your friendship with Hannah. Given you were never particularly close, I thought this would be the best way to forge a relationship without it appearing calculating. Whitman trusts Abbott’s instincts. If she says what a nice time you have, then you can ask Whitman out for a coffee from a point of strength.”

“I can just ask Whitman for coffee now,” she says. Malfoy shakes his head. 

“A third party recommendation will bolster your eventual proposal. She’s pro-creature, but also powerfully connected in the Wizengamot beyond her affiliation with the Department. She’s a good first step, and Abbott is the perfect way to get to her without looking like you want something.” 

Hermione considers the angles, hates that he’s right, hates that it's simple and she just hasn’t gotten round to it yet. 

“You can’t just kiss me.”

“You were about to ruin everything,” he grits out, which might be true but is certainly a flimsy excuse if there ever was one, and she wishes she hadn’t realised that she found him attractive. 

“I can’t drink any more champagne,” is all she replies. “I’m sick of it.”

He lets out a laugh that sounds very real. 

“My future wife wants a martini.” 

One is immediately delivered to her, resting upon a silver tray.

Chapter Text

Hermione drinks two martinis before any food arrives, which is a mistake she should be old enough not to make. As the evening wears on she grows more and more grateful for the presence of Malfoy beside her, who keeps a steady hand on her lower back. Occasionally he will let his fingers trail up and down her spine, which makes her shiver pleasurably. People don’t stay and talk to them for very long, mainly because Hermione is just drunk enough to forget this is fake, and just drunk enough to decide that if they can kiss and still hate each other, then maybe they can do other things, too. 

“Stop looking at me like that,” he murmurs in her ear, after a particularly long stroke up her spine makes her nearly combust. 

“Then stop touching me like that,” she breathes, noting the way his eyes travel down the cowl-neck of her dress. He hums, she isn’t wearing a bra. 

“Or what? You will hit me with that infernal bag again?” 

“Did it hurt,” she asks, sweetly. His chuckle reverberates through her. 

“What the hell is going on with you two,” Ginny asks later, when Malfoy leaves her for a blessed moment and she can breathe. 

“No idea,” she says truthfully. 

“You look like you want to fuck each other over every surface in this bar.” 

Hermione considers it, shrugs. 

“I’m drunk. I hate him. He’s bought me a house. I’m very overwhelmed.”

“Too drunk, or just-drunk-enough-drunk?”

“Regretfully, the latter,” Hermione sighs. She looks at her friend, who is trying not to laugh at her. “I’m going to do something very stupid later,” she warns her. 

“That’s okay,” Ginny says formally, nodding. “I think you should do whatever you need to do to let off some steam.” 

“It’s a bad idea.”

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn't do it,” Ginny points out. Hermione considers this for a moment and nods. 

“That’s true.”

“People make bad decisions all the time.” 

“Also true.”

“You, especially, never let yourself make bad decisions. I think this is growth.”

“I suppose our adolescence was interrupted. Which is when most people get the bad decision-making out of their system,” Hermione adds. It is slightly slurred, but that’s okay.

“Very true! You missed out on getting fucked up and fucking things you shouldn’t.”

“Aren’t you supposed to tell me not to do this?”

“Hermione,” Ginny says, taking her hands in hers and staring deeply into her eyes. Hermione realises that Ginny is probably just as drunk as she is. “A year is a really, really long time. I think you need to get laid.” 

Hermione has to put her needs on the back burner in the face of Hannah Abbott. She concentrates very hard on appearing sober. 

“Hannah!” She says, enthusiastically. They weren’t really close at Hogwarts, but Hermione wasn’t really close with any of the girls in her year, a fact she is also now old enough to regret. “How are you?” 

“It’s so nice to see you,” Hannah enthuses. She, too, has been benefitting from the open bar that Malfoy has naturally paid for. “Thank you for inviting me. I can’t believe you’re getting married!” 

“Neither can I,” Hermione admits. “It’s weird.” 

“So weird,” Hannah agrees, her eyes a little glassy. 

“How are you, anyway,” Hermione says, switching over. She knows that Malfoy is watching her, can feel his eyes from across the bar. Her spine straightens slightly, she wants to toss her hair. She reminds herself sternly that she is not a show pony, even if he seems to be surrounded by a ring of them. 

Hannah is telling her a long story that she is only half-listening to. Something about a filing system that, in another world, Hermione would be very interested in hearing about. At this moment, in the dim lights and the memory of the kiss, the fact that she wants him - she wants to sleep with Draco Malfoy - she tells herself, still slightly agog at this, at this moment the urge to show off for him is strong. 

She has never really felt like this before. She has always been competitive - why else would she be top of every class? But this is a different sort of feeling. Hermione wants to get Hannah on side to show off for Malfoy. She wants to win at work to prove to them both that she can. She blinks, refocuses on Hannah’s story, laughs a little at an appropriate moment. They gossip, good-naturedly. Arrange coffee for after the wedding so they can talk about it some more, Hannah can’t wait to see the dress, the flowers, details which Hermione cannot provide, because Malfoy is doing all of the organising. This, too, makes Hannah swoon excitedly, and Hermione smiles. When she leaves to go back to the bar he is there in an instant, pressing a kiss to her cheek from behind, his body hiding her from the rest of the party. It doesn’t seem to matter that none of this feels like it is for show anymore, and his hands unerringly find her waist.  

“That was well done.” 

Hermione leans back against him, tipping her head back. The room is spinning as they kiss again, as she hums her agreement. It was well done. His thumbs rub small circles on her waist through the satin of the dress, his breathing is a little ragged and the hard steel of his cock is once again, hard and pressing into her. None of this, not a single second, feels real to her beyond the deep emptiness that she needs to be filled. 

“Let’s go,” she murmurs. 

He pauses for a moment. 

“You’re drunk.”

“Aren’t you?” she points out. He shrugs a little. 

“A little.”

“Then who cares.”

“You hate me.”

“You hate me, too.” 

“You -”

“I don’t care,” she admits. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.” She would have been embarrassed but for the fact that, right now, he clearly wants her as much as she wants him. 

“This isn’t real.”

“I know.” 

“We’re not -”

“I just want you to fuck me, Malfoy,” she hisses, as the sounds of the party filter out. “Just  fuck me.” 

He kisses her again, his hands tightening on her waist, fingertips almost digging into her  painfully. His kiss is controlling, making it very clear that when they do fuck - because how could they not - he will be in charge. That he will own her, however long it is for. The feeling adds to her wooziness. 

“Hold on,” he says, pulling away. This time, she is braced for the familiar whirl of apparition. 

Chapter Text

They arrive into the bedroom, and then the kissing starts again. Malfoy’s grip on her is firm and desperate, her fingers scrabble over his shirt buttons. 

“This is such a bad idea,” she breathes, as his shirt is tugged, the buttons ripped off the top half. Both of them have lost patience for anything slow and careful. 

“The worst,” he moans, as her hands move over his stomach to his belt buckle. 

“It doesn’t mean anything,” she reminds him, enjoying how his hips undulate under her fingers. 

“Whatever you want,” he pants. His hair falls into his eye, they are screwed shut, he can barely break from kissing her to demand: “take your dress off.” 

Hermione steps back, shrugs the shoulders down and the dress falls to the floor easily, in a soft billow of black satin. Malfoy opens his eyes and looks. Appraises her. She stands there, hip cocked, in nothing but a pair of black knickers and her heels. 

“Fuck,” he says. 

“I hope so,” she replies. They consider each other. 

“I am going to fuck you now,” Malfoy tells her, finishing the work on his belt buckle. He slides it out, slowly, as Hermione watches. “But if you need to stop -”

She rolls her eyes. “Shut up, Malfoy. Take your clothes off.”

He huffs a laugh. His trousers are gaping slightly in the absence of his belt, she can just about see the dark line of his briefs, the way his hips disappear, the way his stomach muscles are taught, the slivering of scars across his chest that she knows are the result of the war but in their dim bedroom light, in this different context - these are sexy and dangerous and relegated to another part of her brain that wants to lick every one. He pushes his trousers and boxers down, they both stare at each other’s bodies hungrily. 

His cock is not small, it turns out. She probably could have guessed that. It jutts out aggressively. The tip of it bobs as he breathes, red and beaded already with desire for her. The downy hair that covers him is a similar platinum to that on his head, and looks soft. She wants to run her fingers all over him, she wants to suck him. 

“Lie on the bed,” he tells her. She contemplates him for a moment, deciding whether or not to play along with his orders, or whether to resist. “You’re going to do what I tell you,” he warns. That answers her question. 

“I don’t know if I feel like it,” she replies. She thinks she must have been replaced, or someone else has possessed her. She has never acted like this, and yet it is strangely freeing. She hates Malfoy and doesn’t give a shit what he thinks of her. She can say whatever she wants. 

“Oh,” he asks, his eyes burning and intense, roaming all over her. 

“I think you’re going to have to ask nicely.” 

“Am I?”

“Yes. Ask me nicely, Malfoy. And then maybe I’ll consider it.”

“Will this do?” He crosses to her in one step, and sinks to his knees, his mouth grazing the mound of her knickers. “Please, get on the bed Granger,” he mumbles into her, big eyes looking up at her, hot and wanting. Her breath stutters a bit, and he smiles again, arrogant even though he is the one on his knees. “Please,” he says, running his nose over her, breathing in. she does too, sharply, as the bridge of it grazes her clit. “Not so cocky now, are we,” he murmurs against her. Every word brings hot air that only serves to drive her need higher. She is squirming without realising it, his hands holding her hips in place. “If you didn’t smell so fucking good Granger, I’d make you beg too.” 

She realises belatedly that she’s whimpering, and then he slides one finger across from her hip and drags her knickers across, and then his mouth is on her. She cries out, not expecting it, the warm wetness of his mouth, the way he keeps her against him as though he really, really wants to eat her out. Her hands fall onto his shoulders to keep her balance, he readjusts, slinging one of her legs over them so that she is opened to him, and then she can barely breathe. 

“Please, oh - fuck. You - yes - ah”

It doesn’t seem to matter that she can’t form sentences. His hands are gripping her hips, she thinks she might fall but she doesn’t, the emptiness within her growing more urgent. She doesn’t let her brain drift to the reality of the situation, because she deserves at least one orgasm without it first, and he really - really - really -

“You’re so good at this,” she whimpers. “There. Keep going.” 

Hermione has never had an orgasm standing up before, and she can’t quite believe she is about to. Her legs tense around his face, trembling, his grip tightens, he maintains his steady rhythm, licking her, letting her set the pace as she grinds on his face. Her last thought before it overtakes her is that this is a fantastic way to keep him quiet. 

The orgasm is intense, she does stumble a little bit afterwards, her body spasming as she loses balance. As though he was waiting for her to come first Malfoy is on her immediately, grabbing her, pressing kisses into her body that almost hurt in their intensity, animalistic and desperate and it is fucking delicious, all of it. It’s messy and sloppy and she wants more and more and more, she might be panting that into his mouth or that might just be drumming in time with her pulse. He practically throws her onto the bed, she scrabbles to remove her knickers properly, and then he’s on top of her, kissing her almost clumsily, their teeth are clashing and his cock presses into her hip, thrusting awkwardly. 

When she reaches down to grab it and guide it in he gasps, she gets to watch as his Azkaban tattoo flexes on his neck, and then he presses forward, almost painfully. 

“Fuck, slow - big -” She still can’t quite get full sentences out but he knows what she needs, because he stills, letting her readjust. He looks down between them, his upper arm muscles flexing as he holds his weight above her, and they both watch as his cock disappears inside her, as she stretches around him. He breaks first, hiding his head in the cloud of hair around her, whimpering in her ear. She likes the sound of it, flexes again to take more of him, to make him do it again. 

“Slow down,” he manages, hands tightening against her scalp. “Or I’m gonna come, just like this.” 

The idea that he might be undone by her in one thrust is oddly intoxicating, she wants to make him lose control. She’s spent days or weeks having her entire world upended, all while he has been calm and collected and holding the upper hand. And finally, she can have her revenge.

“Are you going to fill me up,” she whispers in his ear, then bites on the lobe. “Are you going to come in me so hard, Draco? Am I going to be able to feel it?” 

Another whimper and she flexes forward, finally taking all of him. She tries to thrust again, he tightens his hold on her, stopping her. 

“Slow. Down.” He punctuates, undulating slightly, brushing against her already swollen and sensitive clit. “Or I’m not going to let you come again.”

She almost laughs, incredulous, before he sits back, hands on her hips, staring down at her body as he thrusts into her, staring down in disbelief. 

“Fucking hell, Granger,” he says, as he continues the slow and torturous way he’s been moving in her. “I should have known you’d take me this well.” Hermione tries to speed up, take control again, but he just grins. “So greedy. You want to fight me baby?” 

“Yes,” she grits out, twisting on him, trying not to let the stretch and burn of his cock overwhelm her but it’s hard - it’s so hard to stop him from using her like this. “Just fuck me. I want you to fuck me.”

“I am,” he says, voice still tinged a little in shock. “I’m fucking you right now, Granger. My big fat cock is filling you up, and you look so pretty stretched around it.” She cries out, snaking a hand down to touch herself. “Good. Touch yourself. I want to watch you come again. I want to watch you come all over me.” 

“I - hate - you,” she manages, shuddering around him. 

“I know, I know you do baby,” he croons. “But you fucking love this, don’t you.” 

She comes again - how can she come again? “Yes,” she whimpers, her voice high and breathy. “Yes, fuck.”

He speeds up, finally, fucking her through her orgasm, she can feel everything move with the force of it, her hair is going to be ruined tomorrow, she has to reach above her head to make sure she isn’t shoved into the headboard. The bedroom is filled with the sound of it slamming against the wall and for the first time Hermione is genuinely relieved they live in such a silent and empty house, because she doesn’t think she could bear thinking about neighbours at this moment, can’t bear to think about anything except him, on top of her, fucking her into the mattress. 

“Fuck - I’m going to -”

“Yes. I want to feel you -” 

He comes, loudly. His neck snaps back, veins on his arms and neck straining, his chest shaking as he fills her and she can feel it, feel his cock throbbing and twitching within her. “Fuck, Hermione.” 

She trembles slightly when he finally pulls out of her, and flops down beside her on the bed. It’s late, she’s drunk, she’s just been fucked within an inch of her life. She will hate him again in the morning, probably. 

“So good,” he mumbles, and he places a hand on her thigh proprietarily, the other arm flung over his eyes. She mumbles an agreement. They fall asleep like that, still touching, his come drying on her upper thighs, her body aching. Thank god for bad decisions is the last thought she has. 

Chapter Text

Hermione wakes up sticky. Her back is plastered against the sweaty, hot and very naked body of her fiancé, a man she otherwise despises. Her head aches. Her stomach clenches, and she in a moment of panic thinks she might be sick. She exhales very carefully. The body behind her moves. 

“...Granger?” 

“Unh,” she says. She squeezes her eyes tight. She knows what he is going to do: he is going to want to talk about last night. She cannot talk about last night. Her head hurts too much to concentrate. 

“Are you -”

“No,” she says, her eyes still closed. “No. I want a cheese toastie and I want a black coffee and,” she hesitates, thinking about what her body is craving. “A hangover potion. And a fizzy drink. Something cold and lemon-y. But with lots of sugar. It has to have lots of sugar.” 

There is a pause before Malfoy exhales, possibly humorously. 

“Put your leg on the floor if the room is spinning. Do you need to work today?”

“Just fuck off. Please.” She adds, in case he gets annoyed and doesn’t bring her her list of demands. Now that she has thought about the toastie and the coffee and the fizzy drink and the hangover potion, she needs them all urgently. 

He leaves. 

She wishes the room wasn’t so silent as she waits for Malfoy to return. Wonders where her radio is - she can’t summon it, because her wand is on the other side of the room, where her bag and dress is, and the effort of wandless magic at this moment is laughable. Her knickers are nowhere to be seen, she is mildly horrified to realise she is still wearing her shoes. At least, she would be horrified, if she felt less terrible. 

He does come back, clutching a paper bag. One by one he sets her beverages on the side table, she watches him, squinting. He looks like he has showered and is smirking - what a nasty prick. She can’t believe he doesn’t feel as bad as she does. 

The toastie is dripping with grease. 

“Are you going to eat that in bed,” he asks, raising one eyebrow. She is propped up on one arm, sipping at the hangover potion slowly. She can feel the back of her hair is sticking up all over the place, her blowdry not managing to withstand last night’s activities. 

“Probably,” she says, her throat still a little hoarse. He leans against the door frame, crossing his arms. “Are you going to watch me?”

“Probably,” he parrots. She rolls her eyes, then regrets it and is forced to take another deep breath. “Bad, huh?”

“I should have eaten before,” she says, hopelessly. “Please go away.” It is all his fault. It must be. 

“We need to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” she mutters. Somehow getting married doesn’t feel so bad now she can be a bitch to him. “I want to eat my toastie and be left alone.”

“And I want to fuck you again, Granger, but we can’t always get what we want.”

This is the last thing she has been expecting, and she snorts while sipping at the next beverage - the fizzy one. It goes up her nose. 

“You what?”

“I want to fuck you again,” he says. “But we can’t all do what we want. You and I need tohave a discussion about boundaries.”

“You - you want to fuck me. Again?” She knows what she looks like. Hair a mess. Makeup not removed. Bloodshot eyes, aching limbs. 

He shrugs, as though he is totally comfortable discussing this. He probably is. She has no idea how. “Last night,” he trails off, letting his eyes scan down her. “Last night was fun.” 

“Um,” is all she says. Then she pulls herself up so she is sitting properly. Then she realises her tits are on display, and she brings the duvet up anxiously. 

“A year is a long time to not fuck anyone,” Malfoy continues, his eyes on her chest,a  slight smirk again on his lips. “Naturally we couldn’t have an affair or do anything to jeopardize how our relationship will look.”

“Naturally,” she snipes at him. 

“So I thought perhaps you’d be amenable to it.”

“Whatever happened to you insisting you weren’t going to fuck me,” she replies. “Whatever happens to you not having to pay someone to fuck?” 

It is the wrong thing to say, because her stomach clenches at the words, and she cannot deny she is a little excited by them. His own eyes darken, seem hungrier than before. 

“I tasted your pussy,” he says. She gapes at him. He takes a step in, and sits on the edge of her side of the bed. The mattress dips, one of his arms is behind him, holding his weight up. He’s wearing just a tshirt and some loose shorts, the tshirt looks soft, is tight across his shoulders, displays a little bit of his stomach. His other hand goes under the bed clothes and she tenses, before he grasps her ankle. He chuckles. “Did we not take these off?”

“No,” she says, feeling his fingers trace over her ankle, unbuckle them, slide them off. She can’t help but sigh as they are removed, wincing slightly at the places they cut into her feet, the charms having worn off during the night. He flicks the duvet back to look at them, her feet, frowning slightly, running a hand over them. 

He takes his wand and summons a bottle of dittany, dabs little bits against each and every abrasion. She is very aware of the fact that she must be filthy, yet he seems unbothered, her feet and calves just poking out the end of the bed. He is methodical with it, attentive, absorbed. 

“All better,” he says when it is done, then looks back to her and cocks his head. “Yes?” She just nods, mute. He watches her for a moment. Then nods to himself. “Boundaries.” 

He stands up, hands her the toastie with a smirk. She’s still just sitting there, a little bit gormless. “Once you’re done with that, we’re going to the spa.” 

“Oh,” is all she says. The door closes, and Hermione places the sandwich on the side. She needs to touch herself first, and hopes he won’t come back in during. That would be difficult to explain. ‘The combination of you openly saying I tasted so good you want to fuck me again, coupled with the very caring way you healed my feet has made me unbearably horny’. She flinches away from it even as the throbbing inside her gets stronger, more demanding. 

She is wet, and it doesn’t take long. Also a little sensitive, and when she thinks of why, of last night, of how he moaned when he slid inside her, of the filthy things he murmured in her ear and the promises he made her, of the way he licked and sucked and held her against his face until she came, of the way it felt with his thumb pressing down on her clit as she stretched around his cock, she comes again. 

She eats the toastie after a quick shower. At least her headache has gone.

Chapter Text

Hermione had not purchased a bikini or swimming costume, so she is surprised to see that there is one in the wardrobe. It is a pale blue. Periwinkle, one might say. She thinks of the green silk nightdress and wonders if this is revenge. 

She slips it on underneath her outfit anyway - the baggy jeans, a loose shirt. It isn’t quite warm enough yet to wear shorts. She braids her hair because she can’t bear to brush it, and makes her way downstairs. Does she need a towel? Spas will have towels, won’t they? Hermione realises she also doesn’t have any sandals. She doesn’t want to walk around barefoot down there. Her only real experience with that kind of thing is the communal swimming pool where she learned as a child, or the pool in France, at the rental villa that summer. Her mother was fearsomely diligent about veruccas. Someone always had a half-hanging off plaster. She cringes. She knows enough now to know that Malfoy is hardly going to take her to a leisure centre when he says a spa, but she still doesn’t know enough to know what to expect. 

“What is it?”

He is standing in the kitchen, holding a phone in his hand. She stares at that, too. 

“Who are you calling?”

“The driver,” he explains, like that is a stupid question.

“The driver," she replies.

“There aren’t any wizarding spas nearby that I’m a member of,” he sniffs at this, as though they are distasteful enough for existing without his patronage. “And I’m hardly going to take you to the grotto at The Manor.” She flinches, he ignores it. “So I’m calling the driver.”

“What driver?”

“Sam,” he reminds her, though she never did ask his name.

“And he’s just…available?”

“I pay him to be,” he scoffs, bringing the phone to his ear. “Sam, hi. Hermione and I want to go to a spa - no - yes - if you could. Brilliant. See you soon.” He hangs up naturally. “He’ll be twenty minutes. Do you have everything you need?”

“Bikini,” she nods. “Spare underwear. Do I need anything else?”

He opens his mouth, about to say something, then changes his mind. “All good.” 

“Right. I’m just going to look something up.”

Hermione runs to the library. Some of the books have already arrived, and she is sure there has to be a general health one. She finds what she needs quickly, the people at Flourish and Blotts having helpfully packed everything by subject. The charm looks simple enough. She casts it there, taking her socks and shoes off, embarrassed to be caught in the changing rooms by Malfoy just in case it isn’t like that at all. But still, it’s a useful thing to know: no athletes foot, no veruccas. When Malfoy calls up to her that the driver is here, she feels a lot less anxious about the upcoming experience. Even if it does include watching her fiancé walk around in a minimal amount of clothing, even if the bikini he picked out for her has very small bottoms. 

Sam drives them smoothly and silently into central London. Malfoy seems generally immune to the slow Saturday morning traffic. He is in sunglasses, staring out the window, sitting perfectly still. He has a small tote that Sam put in the boot. Hermione has stuffed her knickers into her jacket pocket, briefly she wonders if she has made a mistake. She doesn’t have her purse, because he said she did not need it. She also still isn’t quite sure how it works. The money. She has been trying not to use the heavy platinum credit card that seems to burn a hole, just in case this all turns out to be a joke. Malfoy seems to not have noticed, however. They inch through Bloomsbury streets, gliding past tourists. 

“Have you ever been,” she asks, nodding out of his window. The British Museum stands there. 

“No,” he says, his lip curling slightly. She feels foolish for asking - of course he hasn’t. He hates muggles. She wonders if Sam knows what they are or not, and decides not to ask, just in case. 

The spa looks like one of the famous Bloomsbury terraced houses on the outside, all four stories and checkered steps. 

“When I was younger I used to want to live in a house like this.” She needs to stop talking, but she finds she can’t. Sam opens the door for her and offers his hand to help her out, which feels ridiculous. She blushes. Malfoy waits while he fetches the bag from the boot, as though he can’t even open a car door himself. He doesn’t even seem to have noticed how silly it is to just stand on the pavement, but Hermione does. Which is why she opens her mouth again. 

“Do you still want to,” Malfoy says, gesturing for her to walk through the door first. His hand hovers over her lower back, his body blocking her from view from the street. She cannot believe she had sex with him last night. She hasn’t even spoken to Ginny - something which she knows her friend will be waiting for eagerly. 

“Hm? Oh. I like our house,” she says without thinking about what those words sound like until they come out of her mouth. Our house . Except it isn’t, not yet. It’s just his. He greets the woman at the front desk, another glossy specimen. Hermione wishes she had sunglasses too. Her leftover mascara is cracking underneath her eyes and feels stiff and dirty. 

But the room is very nice, which shouldn’t surprise her by now but it does. It feels like the front room of someone's house, with a big fireplace and walls covered in books, something that maybe she would design if she could. Malfoy catches her looking and smiles quickly as he talks to the woman at the desk. He seems to be in a very good mood. Is it just because of the shagging? It was very dirty. It was also satisfying, even viewed through the dim blur of her memories. She shifts her weight.

She is taken through to the changing rooms. There is no one else around, something which she wasn’t expecting. Rather, there are lots of people, but they all seem to work there, and they all seem to have the ability to melt into the walls and turn invisible at a moment’s notice. 

When she walks out to the pools, Draco is already there, idly floating in a pair of short navy swimming trunks, his arms above his head, his arm muscles on full display. When he sees her, wrapped in her overlarge white dressing gown, he smirks. 

“Is it cold,” she asks, her voice echoing over the stones. 

“No,” he says, moving backwards, watching her walk into the pool. He is right. It is silent, no noises from the street even though they must have been just below it, not even a faint rumbling of traffic. The hushed atmosphere and the stone vaults made it feel temple-like, religious. She dips her head, scrubbing off the rest of last night. And then they both float there, idly letting the silky soft water flow over them. 

“Pictures are in the society pages from last night, by the way,” he says after a bit. She startles, splashes a bit. 

“Really?”

“From the beginning of the night," he tells her. She huffs. 

“So I’m not hammered in the Prophet?”

“So you’re not hammered in the Prophet, Granger.” She can hear him smiling, though they both are staring at the ceiling. 

“You can’t call me that soon,” she says. 

“I suppose I can’t,” he agrees. They continue to float a little longer. Drinks are left by the side of the pool, they make their way deeper into the basement, trying out different waters. Hermione squeals in the cold plunge pool and Draco laughs at her, though professes he is too scared to jump in himself. They decide the salt-water one is the best, and enjoy the feeling of weightlessness, coming back to it again and again. 

“This is weird isn’t it,” Hermione says, when they are both in the steam room. It is so steamy she can barely see him, which is perhaps for the best. 

“What’s weird, Hermione?” 

“We hooked up last night. We’re getting married next week.”

“Did you expect not to fuck your husband,” he teases. 

“Draco,” she says, because he used her first name and so she thinks she ought to use his. “Draco, we don’t like each other. You’re using me.”

“You’re using me too,” he points out.

“I had much less of a choice.”

He is quiet for a bit and she thinks, maybe she should have been nicer in the way that was framed, but then again, she isn’t wrong. She did not have a choice - that was exactly why he asked her in the first place. 

“Is that so bad? We’re both already using each other. What’s one more little deal?” 

The way he puts it, it sounds very simple. But Hermione isn’t sure. She isn’t sure why not, but it feels like a step in a direction she cannot come back from. 

“Can’t we just see how we feel,” she asks a bit weakly. He chuckles. 

“I’m not suggesting a number of times a week. I’m merely suggesting…it not be off the table. And if it does happen, for it to remain as it is. It doesn’t have to be complicated.”

No feelings is what he is really telling her. A year of no-feelings sex, in addition to a year of a very emotionally devoid marriage. A business transaction. It is quite hard to think. Her whole body aches, for one thing. Hangover and lack of sleep and all that floating. And then it aches in other ways, too. For him, because of him.  

“No feelings. No weird schedule.”

“No weird schedule.”

“Just - I don’t know. I’m not - I mean. Last night was…very nice,” she finishes lamely, not quite sure any of the adjectives she knows really do it justice. 

“Very…nice.” He is displeased, clearly, but she nods, head rushing in the heat. 

“Yes. It was very nice. I am amenable to a future where that might…happen again. But that’s all. I’m not making any more deals with you. Or promises. Or..whatever this is.” 

He is quiet for a moment. 

“Alright Granger,” he replies eventually. She is relieved that she can still hear the smile as his voice curls round her, surrounding her in the billowy clouds. “You’re on.” 

No one comes into the spa when they are in it, and as Hermione points this out Draco informs her, a little bit rudely, that it is because he obviously hired the whole thing. 

“I’m not sharing this with muggles,” he says, crumpling his nose up. Hermione splashes him, though she wishes she could do more to hurt him, and then he rolls his eyes and tells her not to overreact. “I mean the general public, Granger. Stop being so do-goody.” 

Hermione doesn’t feel bad at turning down the sex pact after that little outburst of his, and is cross the rest of the time they spend floating, her with her arms crossed over her chest, replaying over and over again all the things she did wrong that made her reliant on this nasty little bully of a man. 

“Are you still sulking about that?” He asks her when they both emerge on the other side of the changing room. “Thank you,” he throws out to the front desk, opening the door for her and putting his sunglasses back on in the glare. She is momentarily distracted by the way his still damp hair slops slightly over his forehead, the way he pushes it back, his pale blue shirt rolled up to the elbows, tattoo on show, silver watch back on. 

“Yes, Malfoy,” she snaps as they begin to walk through muggle London. “Of course I am.”

“It was a poor turn of phrase.” He is unbothered, the sun is shining. “Do you want an ice cream?”

“Stop changing the subject.” 

“Fine. Let's argue about it with an ice cream.” 

They join the queue. She hisses insults at him while he orders two Mr Whippy’s with flakes. He handles the muggle money with ease. 

“If I really held onto all my old points of view then how would I be able to buy muggle ice creams, go to a muggle spa, and walk through muggle London, Granger,” he replies, as Hermione’s ice cream melts over her hand. She had tried to tell him she didn’t want one, and he had ignored her, and now it looks very much like they are on a date, wandering hand in hand through Bloomsbury. 

“You can still hold onto preconceived notions about muggleborns even if you don’t outwardly want to kill me,” she snaps. He jerks a bit, his composure finally cracking.

“I never wanted to kill you,” he mutters. She lets out a brief, angry cackle. 

“You moron. What do you think that represents? Matching ice creams?" She points to the Dark Mark, faded and ugly, and they spend the rest of the time eating their ice creams angrily and in silence. After a while Sam pulls up beside them, appearing from nowhere. They don’t speak the whole way home either. And Hermione decides that night to use one of the guest rooms for the first time, regardless of what Malfoy might have said originally. 

Chapter Text

When Hermione goes back to work she cannot find her office. 

Mathilda, the younger girl who works for her, just out of Hogwarts, finally tracks her down doing laps of the fourth floor. 

“Ms Granger,” she says, eyes bright and breathing heavily. “I’ve been looking - we’ve been moved!” 

“Moved?” Hermione does not want her office to have been moved, as small and useless as it was. 

“Yes! All the way to eighth!” 

Hannah Abbott is on eighth. Hermione does not think she has the type of sway to move her. But she unfortunately does know someone who might. 

Her new office is enormous. It has windows. Two of them. They are spelled to look like her garden at the house, and that is when she knows for sure. 

She sends him a Howler, and then gets to work settling in to the space and facing the mountain of things she was supposed to do last week, but then she had moved house and been fitted for a wedding dress and been sent shopping, and all of those things seemed, through a haze of endless champagne, more urgent than this. Than the piles of paperwork and slow but steady progress she had been making, whatever Malfoy seems to think. 

She hates him even more this morning than yesterday. Mostly because she keeps thinking of him, and his off-hand muggle comment is interspersed with other things. How he held her hand like it was normal, and how she hadn’t even pulled away. How he looked at her in that bikini, how his hands had hovered over her getting in and out of the pools. How every time she adjusted the top his eyes were drawn there, and lingered. How she could feel him stare at her bum when she walked away. How, when she had tartly told him that she normally wore swimsuits he had just smiled in a sinful way and said he was glad he hadn’t known that about her before. How she was very, very sure that whatever he said about sex, if she had crawled into his lap he would have fucked her over every spare inch of that spa. 

“Ms Granger?” 

Mathilda - Mathilda was saying something to her. 

“I’m sorry Tilly,” Hermione sighs. “I was miles away.”

“Your lunch has arrived!”

“My lunch?” 

Hermione usually - or used to - bring food in with her. The Ministry canteen, though it is subsidised, was still too expensive for regular patronage. She had actually been looking forward to going into London that day and finding something. She glances at the clock, startled to realise it is already 2 in the afternoon. The whole morning has gone, in between fantasies about her fiancé and paperwork. 

“I don’t think I ordered any food,” she says, though Mathilda is standing there with a brown paper bag which smells delicious. 

“It’s from La Côte…do you want me to get rid of it?”

“No,” Hermione says quickly, even though she knows who sent that too, and is even more annoyed at him. “Pop it here. Thanks, Tilly.” 

Tilly places the bag down and leaves, hiding a smile she thinks Hermione can’t see. 

Hermione opens the bag. There is an honest-to-god proper plate with one of those silver cloche things on top. As Hermione touches the handle, whatever enchantment was placed upon it is released, and she reveals to herself with an accidental flourish a steaming pile of fresh cod on a base of green vegetables and some spring potatoes. Her mouth waters. 

There is a glass bottle of sparkling water in the bag. And a note. 

Hermione eats before she opens the note, glancing at it warily all the time. It is in his handwriting. Hermione , in cursive. If it was strange to hear him say her name yesterday, seeing him write it down feels even more intimate. 

She eats the lunch quickly with a hunger she did not realise she had. Had he asked the restaurant to deliver it? But then how did the note get included? How did he know she would not have eaten anything? 

She opens it, cracking across the seal on the back in thick, dark green wax. Then she folds it quickly back together, trying to squint to see if he has sealed it with his fucking family motto. 

A rampant dragon stands, claws outstretched. There is no wording, no purity conquering. She recalls the original crest, which is different to this one. Is this Malfoy's personal seal? Why does it look different to his family’s? She opens the letter. 

He has written it himself. 

I wasn’t sure if you’d have time to eat. 

I’m sorry. 

DLM.

I’m sorry. 

She looks at those little words. 

He probably is sorry. He is probably sorry he ever opened his big fat mouth. Hermione is sorry too - sorry she ever trusted him, or warmed to him, or fucked him. She’s so sorry that she sets fire to the stupid note, and then cleans it all up - lunch, ashes, paperwork. Puts everything away. Silences the door. Screams a bit, which does help, in all fairness. Unsilences the door. Calmly asks Tilly for a cup of tea, and some time to go over the latest proposal updates. 

Tilly looks confused, which is strange because she is generally a bright girl. 

“There aren’t any,” she tells Hermione, apologetically. “Hannah came through earlier when you were unpacking - she didn’t want to disturb you, but she did say you should go through them together over coffee this week. I’ve pencilled you in for tomorrow afternoon.”

Hermione is speechless in rage because Malfoy is right and has won and it’s all because of him and his stupid plan. 

“Should I have not…” Tilly trails off. She has worked for Hermione Granger for nearly a full year, a point of extreme pride for her and her family. In that time she has seen her beleaguered and bewildered and brilliant. Cross, frustrated. Focused. In all that time, she has never once seen Hermione Granger furious. She quails. Thinks to that anonymous Daily Prophet rumour a while back about beetles in jars, and reconsiders her assessment that ‘there is no way it could be true.’ 

“No, that’s fine,” Hermione says, in a voice that is frigid and not fine at all. “Thanks Tilly. I have to dip out for an afternoon meeting. If I'm not back later just head home. We’ll pick this up tomorrow.” 

She moves to grab her coat, hesitates in the open door. Then slams her coat down again on the desk. 

“Actually Tilly,” she calls. “I’m going to stay here.” 

Tilly nods, uncertain. The rest of the day Hermione scribbles drafts and drafts of something, snapping more than one quill, and muttering to herself furiously. When Tilly gets home her housemates, old friends from Hogwarts, ask her how it went in a general, disinterested sort of way. 

“You are never going to believe what happened,” she tells them. They perk up, the promise of gossip in the air. Tilly is always very discrete, a fact that is normally incredibly boring. Surely war hero Hermione Granger has some weird qualities? It is possible they might finally be revealed.

“Draco Malfoy hand delivered lunch,” Tilly says. “At 2pm. He just waltzes right into the Ministry, drops it on my desk. Ask if I’m Mathilda Thornton, I say yes. He gives me a wink and asks me to take it through to his fiancée. Then he asks if I like the new desks, and I say yes, and he smiles at that too. ‘Don’t tell her I dropped by,’ he says, and then waltzes out again.”

“Oh my GOD.”

“Is he hot? Is he as hot as he looks in the papers?”

“SO much hotter,” Tilly has the satisfaction of announcing. “And like, has a real swagger. But in a good way, you know? Anyway,” she says, warming up to the real fun bit of the tale. “A bit later Hermione comes out. She’s furious. Terrifying. She’d obviously started getting blowdries, since they went public with their relationship I guess because they’re in the papers all the time,” there are nods - it has been just over a week and the three of them have done much dissection of Hermione Granger's sudden makeover and marriage announcement, “she comes out and I swear she’s going to hex me when I tell her about a meeting I put in. She also clearly just burnt something because the whole office smells a bit smokey, like paper. And then she is about to storm out when she suddenly decides not to and spends the rest of the afternoon drafting something at her desk.” 

Tilly waits for the excitement, but it doesn’t come.

“Erm, so? Let’s talk more about Malfoy -”

“You don’t get it,” Tilly says quickly. Then she does something she knows is wrong, but she can’t resist. “I saw some of her parchment, in the bin.” This is said quickly and isn’t quite as accidental as the phrasing suggests - Tilly did see some of the parchment. She also snuck into Hermione’s study in order to stare at it. She would have also brought one of the drafts home with her, had she not been terrified it might result in some dastardly curse. This, on Tilly’s part, was a wise choice. Hermione has privacy charms stuck on all her bins, and any attempt to remove an item without permission from her would result in a Marietta Edgecomb-esque punishment. 

“What did it say?” 

“She was writing to him. Draco. Furiously - saying she hated him. Something about muggles? I couldn’t work it out. But there was one bit that was definitely along the lines of ‘I am never fucking you again.’”

This, finally, prompts the desired results. They scream. They squeal. The girls go over this for the next week solid, discussing every possible angle, including which of those they think Hermione has fucked him in. Tilly avoids making eye contact with Hermione every morning, a fact which Hermione, as furious as she continues to be, luckily does not notice.

Chapter Text

Ginny is called in once again for Hermione’s ‘honeymoon shop’. She didn’t ask for this. She doesn’t have time for this. She goes, anyway, on the Saturday morning. This time, she tells herself in her enormous bathroom mirror, as she rubs a bit of concealer under her eyes, she is going to say no to champagne. 

She invites Ginny to come with her because she knows the woman is desperate to find out about their tryst, and Hermione is desperate to confess to someone who knows the whole truth about them being together. She needs to have her friend look her in the eye and tell her that she hasn’t made a massive mistake, and that it is all going to be okay. Even if it isn’t. So they make a plan for lunch afterwards, and they both meet outside the correct personal shopping entrance, standing a little straighter, Hermione looking a little more polished, feeling a little more confident in her casual weekend jeans. The ones that cost Malfoy a grand. She hopes Ginny feels more like shopping for herself today. 

Allegra is ecstatic to see them both. She tells them, coos, that she is sooo thrilled they have returned so soon, and enquires how she is finding the clothes so far. Hermione, thinking of their fight and the sex and the way his mother stared at the nude dress she wore to dinner, smiles awkwardly. 

“They’re great,” she lies. 

“And honeymoon! How exciting!”

Hermione doesn’t know where they are going for this ‘honeymoon’, can’t really begin to care. If she starts caring then its real, so she just agrees to try on whatever Allegra suggests, and makes small talk with Ginny who is clearly nearly bursting at the seams with the pressure of not being able to talk about the fact that Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy had sex . 

Ginny, who grew up with all brothers and doesn’t really understand the concept of personal space, ignores Hermione’s shyness around showing her the underwear she is trying on. Sets are selected and thrown into the pile, mostly whites and creams, mostly unmistakably bridal. 

Ginny snorts as she holds up one pair. 

“This looks like that stuff you use,” she says. Hermione blinks, not thinking she has ever used anything that even resembles the string. “You know,” Ginny says. “For your teeth.” 

“Floss?!”

“Floss!” 

The two of them burst out laughing. The knickers are not put in the ‘yes’ pile, Hermione deciding she would prefer something ‘a little more substantial’. She tries to force Ginny to spend more money, Ginny refuses, bsaying meaningfully that she is hungry, and wants to go to lunch. Hermione soon finds herself bored, now that she is not so overwhelmed. She appreciates Allegra’s enthusiasm but in the face of everything else, namely that she had sex with Draco Malfoy , shopping is not as enticing. Her disinterest makes her careless with her credit card. She spends over a thousand pounds on two white t-shirts because she doesn’t have any. An oversized draped black top is chosen because it can double up as a dress. Various other items of summer clothing are glanced over and thrown into the pile without even really considering whether or not she likes them. They’re fine. All of this is fine. Allegra, perhaps sensing their lack of interest, wraps things up quickly. 

Over matching caesar salads, french fries and fruit juice, the conversation finally turns to the other night. 

“Was it good,” Ginny asks, leaning over the table. 

“Yes,” Hermione says, grimacing. 

“...Well? Come on. Details!” 

“He ruined it the next day,” Hermione begins, 

“Don’t tell me that yet. I want to hear about the sex first.”

“The sex is irrelevant, because he ruined it,” Hermione points out, but Ginny is undeterred. 

“Did you come?”

Hermione is fairly sure the next table looks over at them, Ginny once again, does not care one bit. “Well? Did you?”

“Yes,” Hermione hisses, leaning over her salad. She is ketchup red - she knows because Ginny has deposited great globs of sauce on the little plate with the fries. “Please, Gin. Be quiet!”

“What,” Ginny asks, rolling her eyes. “It’s just sex, Hermione. Everyone does it. But you came! This is good. Once?”

“Twice,” Hermione mutters, and Ginny drops her fork. 

“Seriously?”

“Yes. Seriously.” A blessed pause in conversation, where Ginny’s eyebrows disappear into her hairline and no chips are eaten. Then Hermione sighs. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” Ginny disagrees, forcefully. “Two orgasms and on the first time you slept together?! Let’s be realistic, Hermione. When does that kind of thing actually happen? Like, actually?” 

“It -”

“Not a rhetorical question.” The fries are now being used to demonstrate points, in a very Ron-like way, Ginny is waving one in Hermione’s face in place of a knife.

“Never,” Hermione is forced to admit. “Fine, yes. The sex was very good! I mean, that’s not that mad and yes -”

“What’s his body like?”

“Covered in scars from Harry, the Dark Mark is still on his arm, and he has his Azkaban tattoo on his neck.”

“Oooh.”

“ These are not ‘oooh’ tattoos ,” Hermione hisses. “What has gotten into you?”

“I’m reading that new romance you put me onto. And you’re right, they’re awful. But he doesn’t actually think that -”

“He does,” Hermione snaps. And then she tells Ginny about the spa, the little comment, the fact that it doesn’t matter how many orgasms he might deliver unto her, he still doesn’t like muggles. Ginny tries very hard to not suggest Hermione is overreacting.

“Even if it was just a slip of the tongue, do you think he still thinks like that? I mean, he is marrying you. And you guys did seem cosy at the Hen - I would have believed it too, even knowing the truth I almost thought it was real.”

“I don’t care,” Hermione says. “I genuinely don’t, Ginny. I shouldn’t have - ugh. I shouldn’t have gotten carried away. I really just completely let myself go, and look what happened! I’m not drinking and I’m absolutely not flirting with him ever again.”

“Right. Well it is just that you do have to get married in front of a bunch of people soon so -”

“I’ll hold up my end of the bargain. I’ll pretend. But I’m not letting it get out of hand.” 

Ginny sighs. “Is it sooo bad to get out of hand every now and then?”

“He hates muggles.”

“He didn’t actually say that.”

“He practically said that. I would be a fool to ignore it. I’ve already been so stupid in so many ways and I can’t - not again. I can’t be stupid about this, too.” 

They finish their salads, talk turns to Ginny’s life which is still ambling along in cosy familiarity, with work and her boyfriend who loves her and Molly’s unsubtle hints about grandchildren and Ron’s current season and all kinds of things that make Hermione feel truly homesick. Not for her shitty flat or former life but for all those years ago, with Hogwarts carriages and too many sweets and the kind of danger that gave you a thrill, made you scamper through the midnight corridors and throw yourself into the warm bed waiting for you, not fake marriages and grown up work problems and ill-advised orgasms. An innocent, charmed kind of childhood, before it was ruined by boys with silver hair. 

Chapter Text

Malfoy doesn’t know what to do with her, and his uncertainty makes Hermione feel vindicated, powerful, and annoyed all over again. 

Even she, by the middle of the week, has to admit he has been perfectly polite to her in the face of her fury. She sends him another Howler when he drops lunch off the following day. Among the salad is a box containing a pair of beautiful diamond earrings. 

Stop trying to buy me , she screams. Because as you keep reminding me, you already fucking did!

She thinks she’s going to give the earrings away. Maybe she’ll throw them at Tilly who can enjoy them, she doesn't care. She then makes the mistake of looking at them properly and is entranced, and then of course she can’t throw them at Tilly. They’re probably worth the GDP of a small country. She’s probably going to wear them to her wedding. 

And the wedding is racing towards them. Women are sent in to her for hair and makeup - how does he organise all of this? What does he do all day? That prompts another furious message, to which he doesn’t reply. He never replies. He just sends a stream of people doing useful things for her, and jewelry. 

She wants to ignore him and she can’t, because he is always there. Cars arrive to take her to dance lessons, Tilly informs her of this delightedly. Sam is used to her sitting in silence and has started to play music for her, soft, soothing classical. Inside the car the streets of London fade away, and she often arrives to the studio having almost nodded off. 

Malfoy is attentive and she smiles as fakely as she can and says nothing, and they move across the floor, the ancient, evil Sybile informing Hermione of her faults on a constant basis. It gets so bad that even Malfoy notices, and he informs the shrivelled woman, his eyes on Hermione the whole time, that the future Mrs Malfoy is perfect the way she is. 

Hermione is startled by the fury in his voice at this pronouncement, and then does not know how to manage this, this protectiveness over her. She retreats further into her own anger at him, instead. 

The hair and makeup is planned. Tilly hovers, excited. Hermione tries to remember that she is supposed to be excited about this, that she does need to uphold her end of the bargain. She is aware of the vast sum that will soon be hers. She knows that Ginny is correct: it’s one year. She just needs to suck it up for one year. 

She admits to herself late at night that the reason she is so hurt was because she wanted him to be better. She believed that he was better. That they might be able to get on. And she does want that, it turns out. Quite desperately. Not even the kiss, the sex. But the closeness, the hand on her back, the supporting her career. She wanted all of that to be real. And then one offhand comment has ruined all of it. 

Narcissa, inexplicably, sends flowers. Well, an arrangement of sorts. It is a Venus fly trap, the fleshy central part bright red and glowing, its jaws muscled and angry. Hermione feels strangely attached, and the thank you note she sends back to her almost-mother-in-law is full of genuine warmth. She also sends a quick sketch to Neville, who informs her that there is no secret meaning to this: Narcissa probably does want to just eat her. This is also reassuring. At least she knows where she stands with the woman. 

How is she supposed to move on? She doesn’t know. She doesn't know if she has to. 

“There are going to be cameras,” Malfoy informs her, tight-jawed over dinner. She thought to arrive late and avoid him, it appears he was attempting the same time. “When we have the wedding.”

“Right.”

“It’s here,” he tells her. There have been people in and out the house every day, things keep appearing when she arrives after work. “In the home.”

“Oh,” she blinks. She actually is surprised at that. It makes sense, it is May and beautiful, the wisteria is tumbling and luscious, scenting the air with that heavy, city perfume. “That’s nice,” she tells him, nodding. He blinks, accepts this silently. 

“I am sorry,” he says later, from the bottom of the stairs as she makes some vague excuse to read in the library. “I really - I really am sorry, Hermione." 

She is frozen with her hand on the bannister, looks back at him. 

“I know.” That is also true. She does know he is sorry, it is palpable. 

“I know that isn’t enough.” He places a foot on the bottom step, sees her freeze, removes it. “But we need - the wedding. We need -”

And there it is all over again. She walks up, ignoring the rest of his mumbled apologies. Because that is the only reason he is sorry. The timing, the appearance. Once again, her fury is renewed. 

The next morning, gentle pressure wakes her. She has been remaining in the guest room, and he has not said anything about it. She opens her eyes to see two small green ones blinking at her, and the soft sound of her door closing.

“Malfoy!” He opens it again, guiltily. Hermione is staring at the kitten, who is sleepy and bemused, blinking at her curiously. 

“Good morning,” he says. He sounds terribly unsure, which she hates.

“What -”

“You were sad about your cat. Crookshanks.” He says the name like he is practising. She stares at the kitten, which is waking up very quickly, and shuffles into a sitting position. The cat appears delighted, and pounces on the rivulets made in the silky sheets with interest. They both, even though they are cross at each other, chuckle. 

“What’s its name?”

“I don’t know,” he says. She considers. 

“What about Cnut?”

“Cnut,” he repeats, flatly. She smirks. 

“Merlin?”

“Surely we can do better than that.” 

He is right. Hermione watches the cat, its long glossy black fur making it seem more soot than creature. 

“Heka?”

“Heka?”

“The ancient Egyptian god of magic, Malfoy. I would have thought you’d know that.”

“The muggle education system once again proving its strengths.” 

They both hesitate. 

“I do know it was a mistake,” Hermione admits finally, stroking Heka. “I believe you. But you haven’t spent your whole life listening to people make small comments like that. Small comments that lead to bigger things. Like you, becoming a member of a racist death cult, thinking you’re better than me and I should serve you.” 

He clears his throat, and then sits at the side of her bed. Heka is attracted by the gleam of his hair, and crouches to stare at it. The two of them are furiously avoiding looking at each other. 

“Yes,” he says after a bit. “I’m sorry I didn’t understand why you were angry.”

“Thank you.” 

“I’m sorry about all of it.” 

“I should hope so.”

He snorts, awkwardly. 

“I’m not just sorry because everyone hates me and I want it to go away,” he says, quietly. “I am, genuinely, sorry.” 

“I really don’t see how everyone hates you,” Hermione can’t help but snipe, because if he thinks that's a good enough apology she disagrees. “I actually think you deserve to be more hated.”

“Thank you very much.”

“My assistant is charmed.”

“Tilly? A nice girl. Seems bright.” 

Hermione ignores the fact that suddenly she is jealous.

“She is. Very good, actually.” 

He hums. Or maybe he moans a bit - Heka has pounced on his hair, and is now trying to eat it. Hermione chuckles. It is hard to stay so angry when the kitten is cute. And she got Crooks when he was a grown up, and she missed all of this stage, and he really had been thinking of her, and trying. 

“He’s very sweet.”

“I can’t say I - for fucks sake!”

Heka discovers Malfoy’s ears. Hermione laughs. That night she sleeps in their room again, but only because the cat has claimed the guest room. She doesn’t want to get woken up by Heka trying to murder her feet, after all. And if she wakes up with Malfoy’s arm over her, then she is perfectly capable of pretending like she doesn’t enjoy it.

Chapter Text

“Malfoy - what the fuck is this!”

Hermione has spent a productive day at work. She finally had coffee with Hannah after moving the meeting around a bit, and the list of things to adjust before her latest proposal gets sent to Wizengamot has been most helpful. She no longer wants to murder her fiancé, even if she still doesn’t like him very much at all. But when she comes home to find an enormous, hideous sculpture in the living room, she rethinks her decision to be friendly again. 

He waltzes in, wizard robes on, unbuttoning the top of his shirt. She is momentarily distracted, but only momentarily, because the thing really is hideous. 

“It’s a cat tree. Apparently they’re all the rage. And it will stop Heka from climbing up the curtains. Did you know how much that fabric cost, Granger? I’m not frittering my fortune away on -”

“I know a charm for that,” she interrupts, rolling her eyes. “And I also know what a cat tree looks like. This -” she gesticulates, speechless again. 

In front of them stands a seven-foot tall statue of Heka’s namesake. The headdress brushes the ceiling. The ankh it is holding jiggles. There are streamers attached to the crook and flail which, Hermione has to admit, would probably be very fun to play with, if you were a kitten. The whole thing is some sort of disgustingly cheap velour-looking material, with inbuilt ledges for Heka to climb in. It is impossible to ignore. It sucks up the oxygen in the room. It might, very well, be cursed. 

“This is offensive,” she finally says. “Where did you get it?”

“I had it made. Can you believe that they don’t just sell this sort of thing?”

Hermione lets out a mad cackle. 

“Somehow I can.”

“You don’t think it’s fun?” He pouts.

“I’m baffled,” she admits. “I’m truly - in what world would you think I’d like this?”

“It’s for the cat,” he says. The cat suddenly sprints into the room, stops dead, hisses violently at the statue, and backs out crab-style, hopping and wriggling unhappily. There is a pointed silence. “The cat will warm to it,” he says eventually. “Do you want to go out for dinner?” 

“What?”

“I thought we could go to dinner.”

“Why,” she asks, stupidly. He cocks his head, suddenly a bit embarrassed. Surely not actually embarrassed, though. Then he shrugs carelessly and she tells herself she imagined it. 

“You’re no longer poor, Granger. Most people have three meals a day.” 

She is relieved by the nastiness even if it also makes her stomach twist. 

“I’m not hungry,” she lies, and her tummy betrays her, rumbling. “Well, I wasn’t hungry. I wasn’t thinking about food. Now maybe I am hungry.”

“There’s also one more wedding thing we have to sort,” he says, finishing fiddling with his shirt and cuffs and starting to fiddle with the trim on the robes - a dark, soft grey in a deep wool that look slightly too wintery for May, but then again, what did she know about wizard tailoring? “We can drop by and then get some food.”

“Oh?” Even though he has done everything she still feels fatigued by the decisions. 

“You need to choose your jewelry." 

They arrive in Gringotts, his hand on her lower back as always, the giant rock on her finger feeling heavier under the beady eyes of the goblins. Hermione is not well-liked in here, a fact that does not escape Malfoy’s notice. He shoots her a quizzical glance, she shakes her head slightly, and they are taken through the many, many wards to the Malfoy vault. Hermione is blindfolded early on in the process, and she huffs as she is forced to rely on Malfoy’s arm around her to remain steady in the little cart. Goblins, it turns out, can really hold a grudge. 

In spite of this, he has still managed to undo the many and varied curses that sat on every single piece of his inheritance, preventing people exactly like her from wearing them, before the wedding. Every single piece. It has been a matter of weeks. He tells her this, almost shy with the effort. But when they arrive at the vault he smiles at her softly, which is strange and even more disorientating than the mad ramshackle journey they went on to get here. 

And then they enter the vault. 

One of the vaults, he explains. They are split, naturally, based on the contents. 

“What the fuck,” she says, for the second time. He chuckles. 

“Yes. If you’ve been around since the eleventh century you tend to pick up a bauble or two.” 

“Do you have eleventh century jewellery,” she asks. 

“One or two pieces,” he shrugs. “It’s all organised chronologically.”

“Oh,” she says, pleased with that. 

The vault is huge, larger than Bellatrix’s was, and much less menacing. The walls are made from pale Cotswold stone by the appearance, arching gracefully upwards into pointed domes, a lot like the corridors in Hogwarts. There are warm candles in sconces liberally sprinkled along them, and the reflection of the candlelight on the mountains of shimmering jewels and precious metals is staggering. It seems to swim in front of her gaze.

The place is well organised. There is a row of particularly finely embossed robes on one wall, all hanging neatly. There are cabinets with open faces that reveal lines of black velvet boxes. Open chests like in Aladdin’s cave. But even with the organisation, the sheer volume of objects overwhelms, spills over the floor, are stacked haphazardly on top of each other. Hermione has a strong urge to drop to her knees and start praying. 

“I don’t know where to start,” she says, hoarsely. 

“Perhaps with the tiaras,” he asks. “It's tradition for a Malfoy bride to wear one - though we have several to choose from.”

“Tiaras,” she says, flatly. “Sure.” 

They move through the room to another room - there are so many rooms! This one, apparently, is the hair ornament room because there are tiaras, as well as crowns, and clips, and head bands, and hair pins, all of which are bedecked with enough jewels to sink a ship. A large cabochon moonstone catches her eye, encircled by small diamonds and placed on the end of a pin. Malfoy shows her how it works, twisting around her hair to hold it in place in the perfect French twist. He conjures a mirror for her to look at herself in, and in it their eyes gleam just like the jewels, the way his hand rests on her shoulder makes her heart stutter. She looks away, but she doesn’t miss Malfoy putting the pin into a bag anyway. 

She makes him try on one of the crowns so she can laugh at him, but it looks almost natural on him, the ancient gold ( maybe twelfth or thirteenth century Granger, I don’t have an encyclopaedic knowledge of what’s in here ) meshing with his silver hair rather than clashing, the hand cut rubies and diamonds and emeralds almost casual. 

“You could wear that to the pub,” she says, a little nonplussed that she is joking but also,  it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to happen if he did. He just rolls his eyes and reaches for its twin, a smaller, more feminine version that is clearly meant for her. It is heavy, heavier than she expected, and a little uncomfortable. He turns her, his hands back on her shoulders, and suddenly they are standing in front of an ancient portrait of the two of them, their bodies close and intimate, the hunger in his eyes maybe even matched in hers. 

“We look stupid,” she says. His thumb reaches up against her neck, the two of them look far from stupid in this room, and that is what is stupid. He knows it. 

“We do,” he agrees with her, his voice smokier and older too. Perhaps this is a strange type of time travel, Hermione would have thought they were bewitched had he not just told her all such things had been removed, she is dizzy and horribly, stupidly, turned on. She watches him swallow. He’s turned on too? Or is she just seeing what she wants to through a stupid, horny haze? She wets her lower lip, and then she can feel his body behind her as he steps closer, runs his hands up to her bare neck. 

“You need a necklace,” he murmurs, his voice almost directly in her ear as he continues to stroke her neck with both his thumbs. It is so light, the whisper of a sensation. Goosebumps erupt all over her arms. 

“Sure,” she says. She knows she has spoken because she watched her lips move, but her voice does not sound like hers. The night after her supposed ‘Hen’ Hermione had managed to quite calmly separate from her consciousness. They had both been drunk, it didn’t count. 

Now, here, standing in his vault, surrounded by his wealth, Hermione is drunk again. 

He moves away and then the spell is broken. She takes off the ancient crown, places it back on its plinth. Malfoy does the same, scrubbing a hand over his hair and chuckling slightly. He disappears, to root around for necklaces she presumes, she continues to browse the rows of glittering diamonds. 

What kind of tiara would she actually want to wear? It is not a question she has ever contemplated. The closest she supposed was Ravenclaw’s diadem, but that had been cursed and she had never wanted to try it on. But now… 

The mirror is still floating, and so she tries on several. Simple, diamond bands she presumed would be best. But her hair swallows these up, several of them requiring extensive detangling before removal, and she soon finds herself drifting to the more majestic versions. Roundels and acanthus leaves all made from glittering stones. Birds with their precious tail feathers erupting over the cascade of her curls. And one, cresting waves that seem alive which hold up her hair in a tumbling fantasy. 

She thinks back to the hair and makeup, the sleek up-do they had agreed upon. She thinks of Narcissa and her pointed, nasty silences and the venus fly trap, which is currently thriving on Hermione’s desk. And then she thinks of the very proper, very expensive dress she will be wearing, and she decides that the wave tiara will come with her, everyone else be damned.

Chapter Text

Malfoy is in the necklace room, slinging strands over his arm. She laughs when she sees him, frowning and rooting through a particularly sparkling chest. He looks up, surprised. 

“Found something?”

She holds the tiara case aloft, and he smiles again. He keeps being nice to her. The snideness and the aloofness and even the sorry-ness are all fine, but the being nice is overwhelming. 

“I did.”

“In the bag then.” He pushes what looks like a sort of velvet trolley towards her. There are already several boxes in there. 

“What are you taking?” she asks. He doesn’t reply to her, just straightens and sticks out his necklace-laden arm. They are all diamond. They are also all slung across him like children’s beads. 

“Something to match the tiara?”

“My dress has a high neck,” she tells him, transfixed by the way the candlelight makes the stones flicker, makes them cast rainbows and light fires across the flagstones. She thinks of the diamonds in her ears, the apology ones he sent with lunch. Maybe a necklace would be nice…

“If you don’t wear it for the wedding you can just keep them,” he says, stepping towards her. “You are going to be Mrs Malfoy, after all. You should be in diamonds every day.”

She’s wet. His voice has dipped again. It must be the vault, the candlelight, the amount of wealth on display. It must be anything other than her attraction to him, because that cannot happen. 

She puts on one, two, three. Carefully. Then he smirks and ladens her with all of them, long ropes with central diamonds more like quail eggs than stones, smaller sparkly diamonds that encircle her throat, marble sized strings that remind her of the house, all cut differently, all, actually, seeming so different and full of personality. She tries to laugh it off, this silly thought that these stones have thoughts and feelings. It doesn’t quite work. 

“Why diamonds,” she asks. There are plenty of other stones, after all, all of them multicoloured and beautiful, not to mention the thick gold ropes of chain that are curled up in the corners like sleeping dragons. 

“Suitable for everyday wear, I suppose,” he says, clipping a final necklace together. The weight of the metal around her throat is heavy and cold, he rests his hands once more on her shoulders, and they both look, another one of those floating mirrors materialising. She tries not to gasp when she sees how they reflect the light onto her face, how she has somehow been transformed by the stones in a very real alchemy, how she appears brighter, younger, happier, all because of some stupid necklaces that he has put onto her. 

“Oh,” she manages to say. They both inhale, heavily. She wonders if she should do it. Make a move. Maybe it won’t count, in here. And then he speaks. 

“Suits you, Granger.” 

She nods. 

“Does it?”

“Yes,” he replies, his voice getting huskier by the moment. She wants him. She wants him badly, they have only just made up, if he really is still anti-muggleborn then she can’t sleep with him again because that would be some sort of criminally embarrassing lack of self respect but she is struggling, right now, to care. 

All the necklaces are weighing her down. His hands move over the jewels covering her shoulder and neck, coming to rest right at the top of her throat, finding the sliver of skin available there. She knows it looks like she is wearing a collar, she knows he has bought her. Her breath comes a little heavier. 

She waits for him to make a move but he stands like that, watching. 

“You look good in my jewels.” The ‘my’ is stressed ever-so-slightly, and that turns her on even though she knows she shouldn’t want this. She does. 

“Thanks.” 

He steps back, the spell is broken. 

“Come on. Let’s get dinner.” 

They make their way back, he keeps his hands on her, Hermione as twisted as the labyrinth they have to return through. The jewels are taken off them by the goblins to return to the house safely, a singular eyebrow is raised as the number of the contents is taken in, and Draco is still touching the small of her back, staring imperiously down and daring him to ask questions. Hermione decides that she hates him, that he can pretend so easily and be so unaffected by her presence. And actually, it was the influence of the vault. And actually , actually, - 

She can’t think of a third reason, his thumb tracing the band of her skirt. 

“Are we going to La Côte,” she says as they finally emerge into the cooler evening air, which Hermione gulps great big mouthfuls of. Draco looks at her when she says this, bemused. 

“Why? I only ever go there for lunch.”

She rolls her eyes. “Where are we going, then?” 

“I feel like sushi,” he replies easily. 

Hermione didn’t even know that sushi was popular with wizards, but she is taken to a tiny, dimly lit restaurant. There are ten seats placed round a central bar, and that’s it. No one else is there. 

“Did you rent this out, too,” she whispers to him. 

“Of course,” he murmurs. She tightens her lips. “What do you usually like, by the way,” he asks. There is no menu. “The chef usually just gives us whatever is best, though they can take requests if there is something you’re craving.”

“Oh, um. I don’t know.”

Draco snorts, makes a snobby joke about ‘California rolls’.

“I haven’t eaten much sushi before,” she snaps, then blushes, then hates that she has blushed. She isn’t this provincial, she wants to scream. But she can’t, because suddenly a small, old man is there holding an enormous knife, and his face lights up as he spies Draco. They greet each other in Japanese, and the man is thrilled to meet Hermione, too, bowing over her hand. 

“Since when do you speak Japanese,” Hermione mutters, annoyed by this.

“I spoke a bit before. Had time to learn in prison,” he says. Hermione wonders if she is allowed to ask more questions about that.

“Hmm,” she says instead, taking a cautious sip of the sake in front of her, and flinching slightly from the unexpectedly strong taste. “Is it weird for you? Being free?”

“It has been several years, Granger,” he says, his voice tight. 

“That doesn’t always make a difference.”

“It’s fine,” he replies, cutting off the conversation. “Why do the goblins hate you, by the way? Aren’t you supposed to be the patron saint of magical creatures?” 

He is back to sneering at her, and she makes a mental note of this. Maybe he’s not a dick, maybe he’s just struggling as much as she is, and is using being cruel to manage it. 

“Oh, a long story,” she says, trying also to brush it off. “There was a dragon, it was slightly complicated.”

“Oh Merlin,” he says, staring at her with new eyes. “You were the ones who did that? Of course you fucking were.” He mutters the last bit, turns away, shaking his head. She smiles. 

“ So , sorry about my lack of sushi knowledge. I suppose I was too busy saving the world to develop opinions on California rolls.” 

“So what now? You spend all that time mousing about in an office? You must be the only people who have ever managed to rob the place, and you’re back behind a desk?”

Hermione does not appreciate this reminder of her wasted potential. 

“Fuck off, Draco,” she snaps.

“The photographer is here,” he says instead. “Let me feed you this bit of sushi. Then you can go back to ignoring me, or peppering me with inappropriate and personal questions. Deal?”

She opens her mouth, stares goofily at him, bats her eyelashes. It makes him laugh, and then she tries whatever he puts in her mouth, and pulls a face, and then he laughs even harder. 

“Did you do that on purpose,” she demands. “Did you feed me something disgusting on purpose, Draco?!” 

“It’s a delicacy Granger. You’re going to offend the chef.”

“Did you do -”

“Genuinely no,” he admits, an aristocratic brow raised. “But I suppose I should have expected your palate to be so uneducated.” 

She shoves him off his stupid stool, and the next day the papers are full of the pictures, the two of them laughing and touching and not looking at all like they were arguing over dragons and things better left unsaid. Hermione stares at them for a long time, before sighing heavily, and dumping the entire thing in the bin.

Chapter Text

Hermione is staring at herself in the mirror. She has been left alone, finally. She can hear them all downstairs. The guests. The snap of a camera, the drilling voice of Rita Skeeter rising above the more polite chatter. Hermione stares and stares and stares, and tries not to cry. 

She should have expected this. After all, this was the whole point. They can’t just be swanning around vaults and picking out jewels and eating steak salads for lunch. 

She has to hold up her end of the bargain. She has to pay the price for all this luxury, which already seems to have filtered through and become impossible to imagine life without. 

Hermione has to marry a man she does not love, in front of a lot of people she doesn’t even know. Her parents are in Australia and have no recollection of her. Harry is walking her down the aisle, he is waiting outside for her now. Her best friends think this is real. She is trussed up like some sort of expensive Christmas goose, and even with her hair incorporated around the wave tiara, she still doesn’t feel like herself. Even with all the money spent on her. 

She feels cheap. 

And she is going to be married . Mrs Malfoy. Not even able to keep her own name. She is going to be, for a year, owned by him entirely. 

“Hermione?” That is Harry right now. She cries harder. They defeated Voldemort together. And now Harry is going to hand her over to him . 

She doesn’t know why it’s so easy for her to forget when they are together. But now they are apart, and it is all too easy to remember the reality of the situation, the reasons she made this deal in the first place, the fact that, aside from any ill-advised hooking up, she doesn’t want to marry him . She doesn’t want to lose herself. The girl in the big white dress in the mirror already looks so shrunken away, already looks too perfect and glossy to be her. To be real. 

Harry rattles the door. 

“I’m coming,” she says, through her silent sobs. Her voice wobbles, but not too badly. She sniffs loudly, and presses tissues to her eyes. She has been given so many beauty charms and spells that she has no idea if anyone else will even know she has been crying underneath them all. She hopes not. She opens the door. 

He’s wearing a suit, a smart one, looking much smarter than he did at BIll and Fleur’s wedding. 

“Wow,” he says, a bit stupidly. She tries to smile. “Oh, Hermione.” 

Then he hugs her, and she cries into him, already breaking her promise to herself to stop. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m being stupid.”

“It’s okay," he replies, awkwardly patting her on the back. And then it is even more awkward, trying to disentangle the tiara and the hair and the lace from his suit, and then she notices a smear of foundation on his black suit and they panic about removing it, and then they are running really, really late. He tells her the whole time that it is going to be fine, that she doesn’t need to be nervous, because why else would a bride be crying on her wedding day, and let’s be honest, Harry never was the most observant about these things anyway. 

“We have to go,” he whispers. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she lies. “Let’s go.” 

She doesn’t trip down the stairs to the garden, or down the aisle, and she doesn’t cry either. She smiles prettily, and she can’t look at him even though she can feel him look at her, feel him stare at her. His attention is inescapable but she manages it, fluttering her lashes, looking down and away, the perfect blushing bride. Every time she breathes in she is reminded of the floral design meeting that she snoozed through, the benefits of which however are clear. The air is perfumed, the people are happy to be there, Rita is nearly incandescent with rage, and Narcissa is better at hiding hers. Finally, she knows she has to meet his eyes. They exchange their vows. The gold ring he slides onto her finger nestles against her engagement ring, and she is momentarily distracted by the old French saying engraved on it. Malfoy’s quirk of his fingers round hers brings her back to the present and then she is giving him his own ring, and he is saying vows which sound much more sincere than hers did. And then there is nothing for it but the kiss. 

His lips are soft and chaste and warm. She leans in because she has to cling to something, it might as well be him. His hand on her waist flexes slightly, pulling her closer. The camera flashes, people clap, he is still kissing her and she lets him. 

Hermione lets the rest of the wedding flow over her. She drinks a little, not too much. Malfoy - or Draco - tries to gently push her into conversations with people who might be useful to her but she lets them float past her. She smiles and holds onto him and waits for everyone to leave, and when they finally do, Hermione sits down heavily in the entrance hall, her dress billowing out around her, and is so tired she can’t even sob. 

Heka has been let out of his prison, a fact he is initially furious about, and dives among the folds of her gown. She plays with the kitten and stares at nothing and lets the day simply fade away. She is married now. 

She hears her husband’s footsteps before she sees him. But then he is there, and she takes him in properly. 

His robes are flowing and long, puddling around him also, but he wears them lightly. Or did, in the day. Now he just looks tired, the lines around his mouth pronounced. He kneels, unbuttons the top of his shirt, and slides out his tie. The sun has set, and it is very late. The servants have all gone. The house is dark and empty and still filled with the heavy scent of spring flowers. Peonies and blousy roses and freesias. The sound of Heka’s paws as he pounces and dives between them for a while are the only sound.

“Your mother looked beautiful,” Hermione offers in a gesture of generosity. Draco snorts. 

“Thank you for your patience with her.” 

Narcissa had publicly snubbed Hermione, even after she was married to her son. The only thing she had remarked upon was the tiara, which apparently did not match the dress, and why hadn’t Draco tried to steer her towards a more suitable choice, like the roses, for example? Hermione tried not to care. Rita ate it up. 

“It will make for good press,” she says, which is true. 

“Are you hungry?” 

“No,” she replies, also truthfully. There had been more food than she had known it was possible to produce even with all their wealth. Tiny, perfect bites of food that filled her up and made her stomach press against the elaborate corset she is wearing under the dress, because she could hardly explain that she didn’t need wedding lingerie. 

And truthfully, she wasn’t sure if that was correct. Were they going to have sex again? 

“The little crisp things were good,” she says, trying to focus on the canepes. “Whatever they were.”

“You were at the tasting,” he reminds her. She hadn’t really taken much of it in, because all of it had been delicious and rich and overwhelming. 

“They were my favourites.”

“I liked the little treacle tarts,” he says, idly teasing Heka with a tassel from his sleeve, fashioned from silver thread. 

“I didn’t have one of those,” she admits. “Too full.”

“You didn’t - are you serious?” He is genuinely appalled. She laughs a bit. 

“No,” she says. He stands, the cat rolls off the robes and attempts to climb Draco’s leg immediately once he is righted. 

“Come on.”

“I really -”

“Midnight feast.”

“I’m not hungry,” she professes, and he ignores her, gripping her by the arms and pulling her upright. 

“You will be once you try these.”

“Do we even have any left.”

He snorts. 

“Hermione, we have enough leftover food to last the rest of this marriage. Come.” 

They sneak into the second kitchen, spotlessly wiped down. She goes to lean but he picks her up, propping her up on the stainless steel workbench. 

“Stay,” he tells her, and she suddenly has a rush of appreciation for him. It could be worse, after all. 

He rifles through the fridge, boxes of various things all piled on top of each other, and then he gets bored of looking and accio’s one of the tarts. Approximately six thousand come streaming out of the fridge, pelting him with gooey, sugary mixture, and Hermione is laughing properly as he ducks and dodges, cursing the whole time. 

After all that there isn’t even a whole one that survived the pelting, and so Hermione scoops some of the mixture off his robes and eats it just like that. He looks so sad, knowing that he ruined his treacle tart supply. 

“You were right,” she admits. “This is delicious.”

“I told you so.” He sniffs. 

“You know, I think they washed the floors before they left,” she nods at the mass of smashed up treacle tart in piles. “If you wanted to eat some of the top bit.”

“I’m not eating off the floor Gr - Hermione,” he snaps, and she pretends like she isn’t sad about the name. He doesn’t believe her. “I’m sorry you can’t keep it,” he says, moving closer to her. 

“I think everyone had fun,” she says after a beat. “I actually do think they did.” 

This is also true. Harry and Ginny and Ron at least seemed very merry by the end. Draco’s friends weren’t as awful as she thought they’d be, Blaise even made her laugh. Theo seemed very cosy with Pansy who was less mean than Hermione remembered, even if still a snob, and Percy Weasley had surprised her by being there as well. 

“Everyone except you,” Draco says, looking at her. 

“Why does it matter,” she asks, finally able to voice what she has been wondering. “Why does it matter what I think? Or feel.” 

He reaches for her, then stops. Opens his mouth, then closes it. Eventually, he shrugs. 

“You’re not that good an actress,” he tells her, his voice tight. She snorts. She is, actually, quite good. Impersonating Bellatrix springs to mind after all. But maybe he needs to lie to himself as much as she does. 

“Sure,” she replies, letting it drop. She offers him the last bite of non-floor treacle tart, and he accepts. 

“What time is it,” she asks. 

“Two? Three?”

She hums. She is exhausted, and yet not. The empty house is oddly energising. The faded buzz of the champagne still tingles. 

“Come with me,” he asks quietly. “Please.” 

She follows him, back outside to the marquee. It is more flower than tent, really, charmed to stay warm underneath the groaning bowers, a wedding fit for Titania, not for her. Draco waves his wand and music starts from somewhere. He turns, appears nervous and young. 

“Would you like to dance?” 

It would be easier to say no, but Hermione nods. 

“Okay,” she says. He nods as well, serious, and then pulls her in, and then they are moving across the floor, just the two of them. They did this earlier, stiff and uncomfortable, following the steps they had learned and following him, but this time it is quieter, softer. She makes a mistake, and he doesn’t mind. She moves awkwardly in her dress, he helps her out of the top layer, so she is no longer swathed in lace but the undergown, and then he sheds his robes too with a slightly confessional ‘they are ridiculous, aren’t they’, and then they are really moving. He whirls her, she feels like a princess in her tiara and diamonds and between his arms. It is hard work maneuvering both her and the dress, and soon she is breathless, and he is smiling a little looser, and then as the crescendo of the music rises, Hermione realises that she has not taken her eyes off him the entire time. She has watched every smile, every flex of his neck as he dips and twirls her, every time the corners of his eyes clench in concentration, how the surprise at her own mistake made him seem lighter as he laughed. She is breathing too hard, the music is slowing, there is a tension in the bottom of her stomach that makes her unsure whether she is going to be sick or something else. 

They had kissed before. They kissed earlier that day. But the deliberate way he dips her towards the floor, the fact that no one else is there, the fact that they are both staring at each other and she sees some sort of truth in the way he is looking at her, grave and nervous and longing, that makes this all feel different. 

The music ends. Neither of them move. She is half suspended, he is holding her against him tightly. She can feel the way his hands are clenched against her. There is just the sound of their breaths. 

.

..

…

He rights her, pulling her up but not letting go. 

“You look beautiful,” he tells her, his face tipped down as hers is tipped up. That strange stomach feeling tightens. 

“So do you,” she says, hoarsely. His lip quirks. He looks so serious once more. She waits. 

He steps away, bending over her hand, pressing a courtly kiss to the inside of her wrist. 

“Congratulations, Mrs Malfoy,” he tells her. She finally takes her eyes off him, and smiles down at the floor. 

“Congratulations, Draco.” 

She takes off her wedding corset alone in the bathroom, changes into some sensible cotton pyjamas she had bought for herself, wishing she was bold enough to put the green nightdress on, to walk out in her cream lace underwear. He is already asleep, or at least feigning it when she comes into their rooms. She stares into the darkness for a long time. Why didn’t he kiss her?

Chapter Text

Draco is taking her to the cottage, he tells her the next morning, for their honeymoon. 

“Where is the cottage?”

“We can do a longer trip when you have more time with work, but I thought a week might be a nice…you know. Get away from it for a bit.”

“Right,” she agrees. Honestly, a holiday sounds fantastic. She just wishes he wasn’t going to be there for it. A cottage does not exactly sound like the sort of luxury break she had envisioned as the newest Mrs Malfoy, where she might be able to avoid him and curl up alone, but she would take what she could get. 

They can’t take a portkey, he informs her, because he wants to take the cat. 

“We can’t exactly leave the next Malfoy heir at home,” he says breezily. She snorts, despite herself. “So we’ll drive.” 

“In a car,” she asks, eyebrows raising.

“Yes,” he colours. “I learnt how to drive as part of my muggle, erm, appreciation studies. The prison sentence thing.”

Hermione knows very well what he is talking about, because she consulted on the programme herself. It had been all over the papers, even though she had wanted to keep her involvement quiet. There is a polite silence. 

“Alright then,” she breaks first. “Where are we going?”

“France.” 

Hermione and Draco open the door to their honeymoon car. It is a perfect, silvery sportscar that looks vintage. Her eyes bug. She knows nothing about cars. This is clearly expensive. Draco takes her suitcase. 

“Allow me,” he says, leaving Hermione with the rattling cage containing the furious Heka Malfoy. The cat yowls. Draco opens the boot with ease, sliding their suitcases in. 

“Will it fit,” she asks, anxiously. 

“Extension charm,” he replies. Hermione stares at the car with newfound anxiety. 

“Do you know how to mix magic and muggle vehicles,” she asks slowly. 

“Of course I do,” he replies. She can’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses, and so she asks again. 

“Draco. I am serious. We cannot break down on the side of the road if this car has been magically enhanced. Do you promise you know what you are doing?”

“I hired a professional,” he tells her. 

“Who?”

“It’s fine, Hermione.”

“Draco.”

“If we do break down,” he offers her, “I’ll… I don’t know. Name your price.”

“I don’t want any more deals,” Hermione says. “Stop trying to make them.”

“Suit yourself,” he shrugs. He is horribly cavalier, despite the fact they have a meeting when they return to organise the structure of their freshly combined assets. “If you want to miss out, fine.”

Hermione doesn’t want anything that she can’t buy for herself. The thought is depressing. 

“I highly doubt you’re going to wager a divorce in six months,” she says nastily instead. He pauses, half in the driver's seat. His mouth tightens. She can’t see his eyes, she knows they are unhappy. 

“No, you’re right about that.” 

They drive, slowly through London, then faster as they approach Dover. Whenever they go through a town Hermione can feel the eyes of passersby on them. She thinks he is loving it, the attention, he’s smiling, fiddling with the radio. Heka is on her lap, he mercifully settles after about an hour of miaowing and Draco threatening to silence the cat carrier, and Hermione refusing, because how will he let them know if something bad happens? Draco rolls his eyes - she can see the tops of them as his sunglasses slip down his nose slightly. He places his hand on her leg. She could pretend that he wants to touch her, but after last night she suddenly feels unsure that he does. Maybe he just thinks there are going to be more photographers, maybe he has called them. It would be a good look. Draco Malfoy, driving a muggle car. Hand on war hero’s leg. Fully forgiven. She suddenly knows he is going to come off better in the divorce. Hermione stares out the window. 

“Did you charm your hair,” he asks, making small talk. 

“It was yesterday,” she forces herself to reply. “For the wedding.” 

“It looks nice. I like it down.” 

“Your mother didn’t.”

“My mother is, as already demonstrated, a snob.” 

Hermione is quiet for a moment, but then she has questions that she realises she can just ask him. He can’t call their deal off now, after all. She can be as annoying as she wants. 

“Why do purebloods have to have sleek, perfect hair,” she asks. “It’s just curly. It’s not bad.”

“Don’t know,” he replies, checking the wing mirrors as they move smoothly across the lanes on the motorway. There are no photographers around now. He still has his hand on her leg. “I suppose that is what we grew up with thinking was acceptable. Got to be neat, you know. Tidy. Anything else is…” he trails off. She knows what he is going to say.

“Muggle.”

“Common,” he corrects.

“So muggle,” she pushes. He sighs.

“Alright, yes. Muggle.” 

She isn’t happy even though she pushed for him to admit it. 

“Whereabouts in France are we going? How long is the drive?”

“Do you need the loo?”

“I just want to know,” she finally snaps. “You’ve been whisking me around for weeks now and you never answer my questions, Draco. You could at least tell me where you’re taking me.” 

He stifles a smile.

“I thought it better not to bother you with the details. You’re working on that case, after all.”

“I am capable of managing more than one thing. You’ve been really fucking patronising, actually,” she’s warming up now, feeling quite good about the idea of a fight. 

“I hate to break it to you, darling,” he tells her in a warning voice, “but you’ve been moping and furious and dismissive. So excuse me for not realising you wholeheartedly wished to thrust yourself into this new life, and this, quite frankly, unbelievable opportunity -”

“You think I am getting the better end of the deal here? You have got to be absolutely kidding,” she seethes. Heka wakes up to the sound of their raised voices, and joins in meowing. 

“Don’t upset the cat,” he snaps.

“Don’t upset me, and then I won’t upset the cat!”

“I have been fucking trying,” Draco yells, suddenly losing control and slamming his hands on the car wheel. “I have been treading on fucking eggshells, Hermione. I’m so fucking sorry that everything I do upsets you!” 

“That’s because you’re a total arsehole!” She decides, why not, and yells back. “You bullied me at school! You watched me be TORTURED! You can’t just force me to marry you and expect me to be grateful! I hate you! I wish I never slept with you!”

“I know!” He shouts. “You have made that perfectly obvious!” 

Hermione pauses for a moment. She’s very angry. But she also realises something. 

“Is that why we didn’t - last night,” she asks, in a normal voice. He is breathing hard. 

“I need to concentrate on the road, Granger.” He slips. 

“It’s Mrs Malfoy, now,” she corrects him snidely. She thinks she can hear Heka be sick in the cat carrier, and has to peer through the bars to check. She brings her wand out with a sigh to vanish it. 

“I told you not to feed him before we left,” Draco mutters. She wonders what series of spells she would have to cast to kill him, move his body out of the driver's seat, and then gain control of the car before they crashed. Then decides it wouldn’t be worth the effort. Heka, unfortunately, would be distressed.

Chapter Text

The cottage is an 18th century almost-chateau, because of course it is. Large, curved windows are set along the ground floor, spilling out onto a pavilion ringed with jasmine and roses and overlooking ornate, formal gardens. There is a fountain, there is the evening bird song. And there is the sound of Malfoy’s wedding ring clinking on a crystal flute, as he raises a glass to her. 

“Santé,” he says, in perfectly accented French. He’s spoken a lot of French on the way down - to the men at the tolls, the men at the petrol stations who ask him envious questions about the car, who, if she can remember her teenage language skills correctly (she can, of course) ask him several questions about his wife, to which he responds warmly, voice fat and satisfied. Hermione wonders what is real for the millionth time. 

“Santé,” she responds, taking a sip and stretching out her legs. They are stiff from the driving, she is stiff and tired and still cross at him. Heka is cross too, at both of them. She wants to chuckle as he stares at them, furious, from underneath a tangle of ivy, a water and food bowl untouched out of protest. They sip, relax from the drive, servants - human servants, she notes - bring them out various nibbles, waters, top them up as soon as their glass falls below the halfway line. Draco treats them with a sort of polite distance. Hermione feels enormously uncomfortable. They look out over the gardens in silence. 

“Why ‘The Cottage’,” she asks into the evening peace. 

“My mother,” he says, as explanation and answer. “She thinks it’s run down.” 

She laughs, and then realises he is not joking. 

“Good god,” she mutters. 

He is quiet. Sulking, perhaps. Does she care? She tries not to. She does care, she supposes. A little bit. She shouldn’t! After all, it is all his fault. She is justified in hating him. And yes, she may be here in the beautiful, peaceful pocket of France but also she was forced into it. And maybe he could be worse. But that doesn’t mean she has to adore him for it. They finish their champagne. 

“Are we eating in tonight,” she asks. It is her attempt to be involved. An olive branch. 

“Yes,” he replies, then stands suddenly. “I’m going to shower.” 

“Fine,” she mutters as he leaves. She could shower too. Someone offers to show her the way. Hermione smiles at the young woman, and says in perfect French: ‘I think I’m just going to get hammered on the terrace instead.’ She takes the bottle from her outstretched hands, enjoying the surprised look on her face. Decides not to cast a freshen-up charm on her underarms just because she is in France, and she is married, and she doesn’t give a fuck. When she swigs from the bottle, the bubbles spill over and splatter on the pale stone paving. 

The air must be different, she decides when she wakes up the next morning. In the same bed, of course, because they are supposed to be married and for some reason there are all these people around and they have to keep up the pretence. She can’t remember, her head is a little fuzzy from last night. She fell asleep on the terrace, actually, and had to be carried to bed by her new husband. She might have even clung onto him a bit. But she isn’t hungover this morning, and that feels like a treat. 

The ceilings stretch far above them, the bed is right in the centre of the room, on an angle to overlook the windows, which have their shutters drawn across them. It is a four poster, dark wood creation with lots of billowing white cotton sheets so finely woven they feel like silk. They are tangled across her legs, she is in those same cotton pyjamas from her wedding night, she thinks she changed into them at some point in the night, she is fairly certain he did not dress and undress her. She is hot already, raises a lazy hand to rub her eyes. Her husband is missing, though she can see where the sheets have been dislodged on his side, smell his bodywash. As though she summons him, he opens the door, carrying a tray and glistening. Wet. She props herself up to look at him, frowning slightly. 

“Breakfast,” he tells her, his voice still slightly sleep-tinged. She cocks her head. “I went for a swim.”

“There’s a pool?”

He places the tray (silver - real, actual silver) on the bedside table, nudging her book out of the way. 

“Of course there’s a pool. It’s on the east side of the rose garden. Better in the morning.” 

She hums happily, sitting up properly and reaching for tea, orange juice. There is a croissant, too. 

“I told the chef we would have pastries in the morning. The bakery in the village is fantastic, I crave them the rest of the year. If you fancy anything else though, just ask.” 

“No this is exactly what I want to eat when I’m in France,” she says, tearing into it. Her fingers are already greasy with butter, a very good sign. He hovers, a little awkward, and she has deja vu from that morning before the spa all over again. He must have made the same realisation as she, because he clears his throat and leaves, shirtless and padding damply across the floor. 

“See you out there,” he calls over a shoulder. 

She emerges a little while later. It is perfectly still and quiet, and she has a tote bag filled with books on her shoulder, a towel stolen from the bathroom, that same blue bikini on and her new flip flops slapping against the stone pathways. She gets a little lost, enjoying meandering through the gardens before finally following the faint smell of water underneath the baked stillness of the garden. She passes a gardener on the way, he stops what he is doing immediately to bow, wish her a good day. She smiles tightly, responds in kind. And then crosses under the stone archway to find a perfectly situated pool, ringed by several large sunloungers, and a shirtless and gleaming Draco Malfoy. 

He is reading, one arm behind his neck, one leg up, the other extended. There is a faded dark green baseball cap on his head - an ancient Hogwarts one that looks like it has seen many summers. She doesn’t ever remember seeing him in one at school. His shorts are different to the ones he wore in the spa - these are red. Though he is pale, there is a slight flush on his chest, across his nose. His arm flexes, he turns a page. She’s ogling. 

“You’re going to burn,” she calls out, walking towards him. There are other sunloungers, but only one in full sun, suspiciously close to his. And she wants to be warm. He hums, absorbed, clearly not listening. She can’t stop her smile at that, and plonks her own bag next to her lounger. There are different towels out here, obviously. She feels a bit foolish from taking the one from the bathroom. Christ, it has been a long time since she went on holiday. Ten years? Hermione twitches away from the realisation.    

She rifles through her tote, deciding which of the treatises to start with, and settles back. 

“You’re going to burn,” she repeats, idly opening her wizarding history of Alexander the Great’s Persian sorcerers. She contemplates letting him, but then thinks of the breakfast tray. So she pokes him. 

“Ow. What?” 

“You’re going to burn,” she says.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re a little red,” she counters. “There. On the nose. And the top of your chest.”

He tries to look but can’t see properly. 

“Did you put the charm on?”

“I don’t need to,” he mutters.

“Oh for goodness sake,” she says, rolling her eyes. “It takes five seconds.”

“I’ll do it in a moment. I’m at the good bit. You’re interrupting.”

“Just put the charm on,” she wheedles. He goes back to his book. She sighs, opens the first page of hers. Doesn’t read a word before deciding that she can’t let him. 

The spell really does take five seconds, but the tingling aftermath lasts a little longer. Draco yelps, furious, and she laughs at him, calls him childish. 

“I’ll show you childish,” he mutters, wriggling uncomfortably. Then he grabs her, suddenly pulling her up into his arms. His destination is clear. She starts shrieking, laughing. She hates him, but she might not actually. She’s begging him to put her down, to not throw her in. She hasn’t warmed up enough yet!

It doesn’t matter. Hermione is plunged into the perfect, sapphire water. And when she emerges, she knows their fight is over.

Chapter Text

Hermione reads all of her books in the first few days of the honeymoon, which means Draco is forced to show her the library. They have spent the time rather pleasantly, she must admit. Aside from reading, eating enormous, delicious meals, and occasionally floating around the pool, Hermione has been sleeping. She sleeps a full eight hours a night, at least. She takes naps in the day. She is, she professes with a sort of bewilderment, exhausted. 

“You’ve been under a lot of stress,” Draco tells her mildly, as she once again asks him if he thinks this is normal. This is the closest he comes to discussing their arrangement. Draco, it seems, just thinks all of this is normal. That they are married. That they sleep in the same bed. That occasionally he’ll touch her, or tell her she looks beautiful, but only when the staff are within earshot. He just acts as though it was the plan all along. 

Anyway, he takes her to the library. Hermione wonders if a year is long enough when she sees the books. 

It is on the ground floor, tucked away in a wing of the cottage that she hasn’t yet been to. To be honest, the weather has been so beautiful she hasn’t ‘been’ anywhere other than their room, the terrace and the pool. She is half-surprised that there is the equivalent of a second mansion tacked onto the side of the one they are staying, but only half, because it is the Malfoys. All the shutters are closed but the slats are open, so the books aren’t damaged in the sun, Draco says, almost apologetic that she has to visit when it is not at its best. 

It smells of the cleaner she has come to associate with the place, lemony, fresh. The wooden parquet flooring stretches out in front of her. It seems ornate, fussy, different from the medieval style of the Hogwarts library. The walls are painted white, they have gilded edges. A small hand, on closer inspection, has written labels for the shelves, the contents of which are all leatherbound and matching. The books are held behind locked doors, with criss-crossed wire caging in front of them, rather than glass, or just being free to float about and roam.

“I believe it's mainly philosophy and natural philosophy, Enlightenment things,” Draco tells her as she trails her fingers over the shelves and their footsteps echo around them. “All in French,” he adds. “But you could -”

“I think I can remember a translation spell,” she interrupts. “And my French isn’t that bad. Can I use a charm to open them or are they all bewitched? Where is the key?” 

He goes to a panel in the wall, presses it. A small golden key floats out, which he then brings to her. At least, she thinks he’s going to bring it to her. Instead, he reaches around her, so that his arms are caging her in. He unlocks the door himself. Smelling of sun, and sweat. Faintly of his bodywash, the sweat is a little more overpowering as it is the afternoon, and Hermione tries to breathe in subtly. It is embarrassing, actually. She likes it. 

The wire door springs open, Hermione takes in the gold-imprinted covers. There are many names she does not recognise - she was expecting actual Enlightenment, but then chastises herself. Of course the Malfoy’s didn’t collect muggle books. Descartes to Draco is probably some sort of disease. 

“What would you recommend,” she asks, a little bit breathily. Because she is overwhelmed by the books. “I can’t say I’m that familiar with this period of wizarding history -”

“I haven’t read a single one of these books, Hermione,” he tells her, smirking at his ignorance. She gasps. 

“You’re joking.”

“I wish I was,” he says, mock serious now. Then he shifts. “I haven’t been here since I was a small child. We usually go to the chateau when we are in France. And obviously, I haven’t been out of the country much.”

Hermione is distracted by information on all sides of her. She grabs a book - red leather, embossed, tucks it under her arm. Then she grabs her husband without thinking, threading her arm through his, and they walk across the great empty floor. 

“Is this the first time you’ve been out of the country since Azkaban?”

“No,” he says, and that’s that. 

“What happens to the house the rest of the time? There are so many people - it’s so clean - do you rent it out?”

Draco’s laugh echoes off the walls. “Don’t be ridiculous. The people work here. They’re from the village. They look after it.”

“Someone comes in and cleans this whole place, every day?”

“If you ever want to pop in, it will be ready for you.”

“That wasn’t what I was asking.”

“Well, now you know it will be. Why are you sitting down there?”

Hermione had paused by one of the two, slightly uncomfortable looking chairs. Most of the furniture in the cottage is obviously antique, though it is also mostly worn and well-repaired, appearing sturdy, comfortable. These were something that Hermione imagined more in place in the actual Malfoy chateau. 

“I’m going to read.”

“Why here? Those things look dreadful. Come to the pool.”

“I can’t take this book to the pool,” she says, aghast. “Don’t be silly.”

“Hermione,” he rolls his eyes. “The blinds are only down because it is used so little. I’m sure if you come out to the pool for an afternoon that book isn’t going to disintegrate.”

She allows herself to be pulled back towards the door, worrying her lip. “Don’t you have preservation techniques -”

“Haven’t got round to bringing someone in. There aren’t that many manuscript experts in the wizarding world, and I can hardly do something like that all by myself - NO, you are not allowed.”

“I’m sure I could get the hang -”

“You’re supposed to be resting.”

“Why? This is a f-” he muffles her with a hand across her mouth. She rolls her eyes at him. Then she licks his hand. 

“Eurgh.” 

“What if I want to spend my real honeymoon recataloguing books,” she says, once she is freed. 

“Too late. You aren’t allowed.” He picks her up again.

“Can you stop manhandling me.”

“Why? It’s so easy. I might throw you in the pool even with the book. We’ve probably got another one. They aren’t even that rare - full sets come up at auction all the time.” He keeps up an infuriating stream of chatter all the way to the pool, while she wriggles and begs him not to throw her in. 

He doesn’t throw her in. She does bug him every now and then, asking for various translations of some of the more archaic French, to the point that he takes the book from her and says he’s going to just read it. She defers - she wants to know the French, too, so she can improve. He then counters by saying he’ll read a passage in French before going back and translating it, which she finally agrees to. They aren’t even halfway down the first section before she falls asleep. Draco watches her, her mouth slightly open, her hair drying all wrong in the sun. He smiles to himself, carefully marking the page they reached. And then he goes for a swim.

Chapter Text

They stay for a week, and when it is over Hermione wishes she could do it all over again. Strangely, despite the size of the place, her and Draco have spent most of it together, in a companionable sort of silence, or making idle small talk, or having him read and translate the contents of his library for her. She has taken to practising on the staff, too, and now there is a running joke among them about the new Mrs Malfoy popping up to ask you questions on natural philosophy in stilted and overly formal French, when you actually are just trying to polish the floors. They are nearly all magical, she discovers, though one of the maids is a squib. Draco told her this normally, and she tried not to ask him so many questions about what he and his family thought about that, before or after. They seem to like him, at least. Draco particularly gets on well with Jean-Claude, the aged rose gardener who dislikes everyone in the household but dotes on Heka. 

It is Heka, actually, who is holding up their departure. Hermione knows how he feels. With the sixth sense that cats have, Heka has realised they were packing the night before (by the servants, of course, because Malfoys don’t pack themselves), and had promptly disappeared. They are driving back, too, and the later it gets, the more stressed Hermione becomes. 

She casts animalia revelio over and over again, and eventually manages to extricate him from underneath a particularly dense shrubbery bush, his tail twitching angrily, a dead mouse half-disembowelled at his feet. She sighs, tells Draco that he’s probably going to throw up again. The cat is maneuvered into the wicker basket of doom, and they finally are able to leave. 

The sky, which has been threateningly oppressive all day with great, rolling grey clouds, finally opens as they leave, and fittingly it starts to rain. Hermione watches the trickles move down the window moodily. The radio is on, the hosts chatter in French. It is still in the car besides that, wine shoved into the extended trunk - a couple of cases of the local rosé that she liked so much. She tells herself not to fall asleep, though she is at peace. A strange sensation. To be at peace, even under the circumstances.

“That was a big sigh,” he says, after she thinks about returning to work.

“I don’t know if I want to go back,” she admits. “I - this has been really lovely.” She isn’t looking at him when she admits it. She blinks, something wet on her face. “Oh. I think the window is leaking.” He sighs. 

“Mine has been, too.” She looks at him finally, realises the entire side of his arm is soaked. 

“Why didn’t you say something sooner!”

“I thought you were asleep,” he says, as though this makes sense. 

“Let me fix it.” She brings out her wand to re-seal the windows. And then the car breaks down. 

The charm, upon making contact with whatever enchantments must also be on the car, explodes. The window breaks, the engine turns off, and Hermione is forcibly shunted out of the door as the car suddenly halts, on a mercifully empty French road. Her first thought is one of panic, blinding, sudden concern that Draco and Heka will have been hurt. The cat miaows, still in his basket, now in the footwell, and annoyed at the stop. Rain falls on her head. Draco is staring at her, his mouth gaping and open and gasping, completely unharmed. He can’t speak, only hyperventilate, searching around for words and shaking. 

“Are you okay,” he manages, finally. 

“You stupid, fucking prick. I told you, I told you to be careful with the car!”

“I told you that I got a specialist to look at it!” His relief is like hers - suddenly filled with fury. “Why did you charm the car in the first place!”

“Why did you insist on expanding it!”

“We needed more boot space!”

“We needed working windows! We needed to not take the fucking cat on our honeymoon! And now we’re stranded in the middle of nowhere with a car that doesn’t work and a car we can’t risk getting towed because who knows what is going to happen, and you have fucked everything up!” 

“Don’t be a dick to the cat!” He shouts it so loud it would have echoed along the empty road were it not for the rain. They both seemed to realise it at once, the absurdity. Hermione can’t tell if she is crying or laughing. It is probably a bit of both. It probably isn’t the cat’s feelings that are hurt. 

“We’re not so far,” she says. 

“Please get back in the car. You’re getting wet.” Hermione realises that she is, and casts a weather-repelling charm alongside a warming one, because she has started to shiver. Thunder suddenly rumbles, one of those summer storms that don’t usually arrive until August, sudden and violent and freeing. Lightning cracks. 

“I don’t want to get back in the car,” she admits. “What if I’m ejected again?” 

Draco considers, then climbs out and comes to stand next to her. She has picked up the cat, who couldn’t care less as long as he isn’t getting rained on. They stare at the vehicle. It is beautiful and useless on the side of the road. The door Hermione was ejected out of is hanging off slightly. 

“Oh dear,” she says, looking at it. Draco turns away from her, when he pushes his hair off his forehead she sees his hand is shaking. “Right,” she says, sliding into problem solving mode. “We’re not too far - why don’t I apparrate back to the house and see if anyone can come and tow the car? Then I’ll come back and bring some food. It might be a few hours, so -”

“I’ll go,” he says. Hermione has never been a particularly tactful person, so she says; 

“You look too shaken up to apparrate, Draco.” 

It is incendiary. 

“Shaken up,” he roars. She stands there, waiting for it to pass. “You nearly died. You could have died. What if the car was moving! What if you - what - what - imagine how it would look! If I killed the fucking Golden Girl!” 

He can barely get the words out. 

“Is that all you care about,” she asks, wishing she wasn’t hurt by this. “How it looks ?”

“Isn’t that the whole point!” 

She doesn’t have an answer because he is right. They stand in the quiet, he is pinching the bridge of his nose and she is ignoring him, watching the water puddle on the fabric top of the car. She lets her mind drift, wishes she was at home. Not in their beautiful Hampstead mansion, but in her horrid decrepit flat. She misses the noise, the surroundings, the chaos, the fact that even though it was miserable, her life was hers. 

“I’ll go to the house. I’ll bring some jumpers or something back with me, too. Yours is wet.” 

She shrugs, waits for him to go. He hesitates a moment, then cracks away. She checks on Heka, who is utterly unconcerned, and then she stares at the trees. They are all the same, uniform and spaced out perfectly straight and they are very beautiful, the rain is warm on her skin though the wind is cold. And she watches Draco reappear and search for her, his eyes a little wild until they fall on her, and then the wrinkles at the corners ease. 

He is holding a duffel bag, and offers it to her. There are warm jumpers in there, dry ones, which are made from real wool and smell of cedar and faded lavendar. She strips off her soaked top without caring that she is flashing him - he’s seen it all before anyway - and pulls the jumper on. Then she regrets it, because the wool is itchy. 

“Is there a softening charm for this,” she asks, scratching. He just shrugs, slightly red along the top of his cheeks. 

“Jean Claude is coming. He’ll be here soon - there’s someone in town who he thinks can help. And then we’ll have to drive back in the Renault.”

Hermione doesn’t know what the Renault is, but Draco is clearly displeased. She decides she likes it. And when the two of them are rattling their way through the countryside, achingly slowly, with every bump in the road making itself apparent, she has to remind herself of it constantly. 

“Thank goodness they have a car,” she remarks, over the sound of the radio. Draco switched it on when it became clear they weren’t going to speak to each other. Hermione has been nibbling on the end of the baguette Jean Claude also thought to bring, along with a steaming thermos of tea, a nip of brandy for her for the chill, and an entire picnic in the back seat next to Heka, who is yowling because he can smell the saucisson. 

“Marie can’t apparrate,” he says, attempting to change gear. “For fucks -” it keeps sticking. Compared to the Mercedes, which was, despite its age, an incredibly comfortable ride, this is as decrepit as it looks from the outside. 

“You need to pump the clutch. That’s what Jean -”

“What the fuck does that mean!”

“You pump it -”

“What does pump it mean, Granger!” 

“Well, it's what he said -”

They start to shout, again. She’s exhausted, Draco looks like he might have a permanent eye twitch, neither of them can work out what Jean Claude meant by ‘pump the clutch’. She wants to cry. It’s still raining outside, they are so, so far from home. 

“I’m not fucking doing this anymore!” He announces eventually, and Hermione’s stomach bottoms out in - relief? Fear? - before she realises that he means driving back to England. They turn off for a small Bed and Breakfast signposted off the road, the car jumping and stalling the entire time. “Sam will pick us up in the morning. I’m not fucking driving anywhere ever again.” 

Sam is summoned from England. Hermione approaches the desk and asks, in her better French, if they have a room for the night. The old woman replies in English, the proprietors are muggles. She regards the cat carrier with suspicion, before Hermione, blushing the whole time, says she will pay double for the cat. 

They are taken to the best room, which is serviceable and once upon a time would have seemed to Hermione luxurious. It is clean, at least. Small. Heka refuses to come out of his basket, and Hermione lets Draco have the first shower. Breakfast, they are told, is at eight. They must look pathetic, bedraggled, furious. The sheets feel scratchy to her, the blankets old and motheaten. She takes out one of her cashmere jumpers from the hold all - Marie had packed their things for them and she has interspersed lavender throughout, and Hermione’s eyes prick. 

“What’s wrong,” Draco snaps, irritated at the crying as he comes out of the bathroom, steam billowing behind him. 

“Marie packed my clothes so nicely,” she tells him, wiping away the tears. 

He pauses. “Shower’s free.” 

It is as Hermione is about to climb into the shower that her eyes widen. She cannot remember the last time she had her period. 

Chapter Text

She’s not pregnant. She casts the charm in the bathroom immediately and when it flashes red, sinks to the floor in relief. She cannot believe she has been so stupid. She is meant to be the Brightest Witch of her Age, for Merlin’s sake, and she’s weeping and possibly getting knocked up by her forced-husband and former enemy. What is wrong with her?! 

Draco knocks on the door after a while. 

“Are you alright?”

“Yep,” she calls over the running water. “Yeah, all good!” Her voice is squeaky and not at all ‘all good’, but he doesn’t push it any further. She finishes washing her hair - the water has now run cold. Hermione wants to laugh. She has become so accustomed to limitless hot showers that she has forgotten most places don’t just…have that. Especially not muggle abodes. She thinks she probably deserves to shiver, and doesn’t cast a charm to fix it. 

The towels have just the right amount of scratch to them. She buffs her skin all over, and then moisturises with the lotion she brought from the cottage, which one of the maids apparently makes in her spare time. It's thick and smells like honey, and when she is finished with her ablutions, hair dried, teeth brushed and flossed and skin gleaming, she realises that she looks well. No longer pinched, or tired, but well. She glows. And though she wishes she were above such things, it does make her feel better. 

When she emerges, ready to climb into bed, Draco is reading. He glances up.

“Alright?”

“Fine,” she says, and this time she means it. She clambers in next to him, the cat leaps up to play in between, she picks up her book. She ignores how domestic this is. “I thought I was pregnant but it turns out I’m not.” 

For Draco, who has been suffering ever since he thought he had killed her accidentally, this is a step too far. He puts the book down. Chokes a bit more. 

“Grang - Hermione -”

“Don’t worry. I’m just late. Probably because of the stress. It’s fine. We should just be more careful if we end up sleeping together again, I can’t remember if either of us cast the charm.” More emptiness, as he tries to reach some form of equilibrium. She takes pity on him. “There’s a flask of brandy in my bag if you need,” she says. “Jean Claude gave me one of your re-filling ones.” 

He takes the brandy, sits in the chair by the window. 

“Don’t worry Draco,” she reassures from a distance. “It took me by surprise. It is fine.” 

“Merlin’s left ball,” he mutters to himself. “Don’t fucking spring something like that on me again.” 

She thinks about making a joke and then decides not to. “Will you translate this for me,” she asks. She has, under much insistence from him and the rest of the staff, left the cottage with a rather large number of books on magical theology. “I don’t understand it.”

Her olive branch works. Draco drinks brandy in bed with her, reading her the French and English, pointing out interesting linguistic difficulties. Hermione wants to ask him more questions about value and virtue systems in relation to the magical worldview, how they might differ from Christian or Jewish, for instance, but she finds herself falling asleep once more. 

She expects, after the day they had, to sink into a deep and refreshing slumber. That does not happen. The mattress is uncomfortable - she keeps rolling into Draco because it dips in the middle. He also, it appears, cannot sleep, because he is huffing to himself in the dark and keeps pushing her away. 

“Your hair is going up my nose, Granger,” he murmurs sleepily, when the sky outside is still dark. 

“I can’t help it,” she replies, equally tired. The cat is also displeased at his surroundings, and is taking it out on both of them. He wants to sleep on Draco’s actual face. He wants to eat and play with her hair. He wants to kick both of them. 

She can feel every bump in the bed. The sheets are too scratchy, the blanket too heavy, but then it slides off and she’s too cold. 

“I’m so tired,” she whimpers, as Draco pulls the blanket over them both for the six millionth time. “Why can’t I sleep.”

“We’re staying in a shithole,” he murmurs into his pillow, which is too thin and hard by itself, but to stack two makes them too high and hard. “This place is the fucking worst.” 

Hermione doesn’t want to agree. She doesn’t want to feel like the princess and the pea. Her diamond earring snags and rips a small hole in the pillowcase. She lies there, watching the edges of the sky tinge grey, because the curtains let every bit of light in. She listens to the birdsong as it starts. Listens to Draco’s uneven breathing. To Heka’s purr, finally at rest. And she thinks that she hates being rich, because now she can’t be normal. 

They rise early. The coffee is shit, according to Draco’s grimace. The bread a little stale, surprising for France. 

“How did you sleep,” they are asked. 

“Amazing,” Hermione lies. “Thank you so much.” 

Hermione forgets that she has to pack her own suitcase, and ends up having to throw it all in her overnight bag, and then it can’t close properly. Her and Malfoy squabble over using magic to pack even though they are in a muggle hotel. Heka is sulky because the ancient beds go all the way down to the floor, and he can’t hide underneath them. He makes claw marks along the side, and then Hermione relents and allows the use of magic to fix it. 

Sam arrives by 10. The crunch of the gravel underneath his tires sounds like a beacon, and Hermione is slightly perturbed by how relieved she feels that he is here. They’ve only been living together for - what, just over a month? Draco carries their bags downstairs while Hermione takes the cat carrier. The dark shadows under his eyes from their sleepless night make him look a bit handsome, and she tries to tune this out. The last time she thought he looked good he danced with her and kissed her hand and made her feel foolish. It’s confusing. 

Draco is informing them that someone will be along shortly to pick up the Renault, and he pays in cash, bringing out an enormous wodge that makes everyone's eyes bug a little bit. Sam guides Hermione to the sleek black town car waiting for them. 

“Did you have a nice trip, Mr Malfoy, Mrs Malfoy?” 

“It was lovely,” Hermione says, as their bags are being loaded by hand into the trunk. “Thank you.” 

“You both look well,” he tells her, smiling so the edges of his eyes crinkle. Draco takes her hand, ushering her into the car. Hermione wants to moan as she sinks into the plush leather seats. 

Sam has brought coffee - good coffee. Hermione thinks whatever he is paid, they ought to double it. There are snacks, too. Heka is not allowed out of the carrier, but under the soothing hum of an engine which requires no clutch-pumping, he is lulled to sleep. 

“I think I’m a snob now,” Hermione says sadly, as she watches the French countryside slip away from them through tinted windows. “I don’t think I can ever sleep in a bed like that again.” 

Draco doesn’t reply. His eyes are already closed. She smiles to herself, removes the coffee from his hand carefully, so it doesn’t tip over the seats. Sam winks at her in the rearview mirror, and then pulls up the barrier in between the front and back seats. 

“It’ll make it darker, Mrs Malfoy. You should get some rest, too.” 

She does.

Chapter Text

“How was it!” 

Hermione returns to work on the Monday. Tilly has been buzzing to see her, to bombard her with questions. 

“Great,” Hermione says. She spent yesterday apart from him, her new husband, once they had returned to the house, and she is feeling strangely melancholy. It was only a week. But she has grown accustomed to him being there whenever she turns her head. “I did a lot of sleeping,” she finishes. Tilly blushes, and then Hermione blushes, and then tries to stammer out something about not being like that, but then - it should be like that if this were normal, and then she just shuts herself in her office and writes a long letter to Ginny, with all the details. 

Hermione’s floo goes soon after she’s sent it - Ginny herself is calling. 

“Drinks? You seem -”

“When? I have to work late - got tons to catch up on and -”

“Oh, Hermione PLEASE! I’ve barely seen you. And we still haven't discussed the wedding and -”

“Okay. Drinks. Tonight?”

“Perfect. Let’s go to that fancy bar you took me to. The muggle one.”

“I think I can get away by 7.”

“You’re on.” 

Hermione really does have a mountain of work to catch up on, but beyond that mountain there is new, unpleasant work. Invites to various galas have suddenly poured in during the past week. Normally, Hermione gets invited to things as a war hero, the odd opening, that sort of thing. Given the time that has elapsed since the final battle - seven years now - these had been dwindling. And they were never, ever, on fragranced, embossed card. 

Hermione holds one gingerly, a little uneasy in case it bursts into flames. She is muggleborn, after all, and though people might pretend they don’t think ‘like that’ any more, she personally isn’t so sure one battle is enough to undo years of simmering hate. She calls Tilly in. 

“When did these all start arriving?”

“After the wedding,” Tilly coos. “They look so fancy. Once the pictures came out -”

“Pictures?”

Hermione realises she never did see the press that Draco had so artfully arranged. Tilly gapes. 

“Oh my gosh - I have to show you.” 

While Hermione and Draco had been sleeping and swimming in the French countryside, Tilly and her flatmates had been taking every opportunity to digest each tiny aspect of her wedding. Tilly, naturally, had been invited. She had spent many a sleepless night panicking about what to wear, and then spent most of the day walking around gawking, trying not to draw attention to herself. Hermione barely noticed this, considering the general upheavals, and would have been quite surprised to hear Tilly’s account of the day. 

“The way they looked at each other,” she sighed that evening, as she emerged into their home. The other girls had been waiting up eagerly. Tilly had been given a bottle of champagne to take with her, and a floral centrepiece from the table, which filled their entire flat with a fragrant scent. In the marquee it had seemed tasteful, elegant. In their tiny flat it was enormous. They didn’t have a table big enough to place the vase. Which was also horribly expensive. Tily had looked it up the next day. 

“It was so romantic. You could just tell they were so, so in love. They seemed so embarrassed about it - kept glancing at each other when the other was looking the other way, oh my gosh. If a man ever stares at me like that you have to tell me because I was swooning the whole time. They just didn’t seem real, you know. It was fantasy.” 

“Did he do a speech?”

“It was short but beautiful. I cried. Just like, how he knew he didn’t deserve her but would never take for granted that she said yes. Oh - I’m welling up again.” They cooed, as Tilly took them through all the details she could remember, which was difficult because she had been drinking since midday. “There was a band - so many flowers - Narcissa Malfoy is beautiful but she’s so scary, I don’t know how Hermione does it - she sent her a venus fly trap, did I tell you that? Harry Potter was there AND Ron Weasley and the three of them all danced together and it was wild, imagine going to school with them, must have been such a rush just seeing them in the corridors. And then Hermione looked beautiful, she looked like a muggle film star or something. She had an honest to goodness tiara and it was shaped like waves and the dress was incredible -” the florals, the marquee, the band, the flooring in the marquee (real wood!) - all were dissected that night. And then the following day, when the Witch Weekly spread came out, and Tilly’s descriptions were realised in print. 

It is this that she shows to Hermione. Hermione watches herself smile and flutter her eyelashes and turn back to Draco - watches herself uncomfortably. She doesn’t look sad, but she does appear shy. Bashful. A blushing fucking bride. She wonders if she always looks at him like that, and really, really hopes she doesn’t. 

She also notes small things about herself that she wishes she didn’t have to see. The way her shoulders curve inwards - she straightens them. The fact that her stomach wasn’t perfectly flat - when she turns in one of the photos it pouches out a bit - does it? Is that bad? Are people noticing that? Hermione is. She wishes she wasn’t, but she is. And then next to the pureblood women - Narcissa, Pansy, the Greengrass sisters - all of whom have detailed breakdowns of their looks - Hermione looks shabby. Not shabby, obviously - she’s in a tiara and a massive dress. But those women carry off their robes easily, whereas she looks like she is pretending to be something she isn’t. 

Maybe that is all her - Tilly certainly doesn’t think so, and is uncharacteristically unprofessional in her enthusiasm for the whole thing. Hermione thanks her, and tells her about the cottage which is actually a mansion, and that Draco insisted on taking the cat, and the disastrous journey back. When she weaves that charming version, it feels very close to the truth. She needs to talk to Ginny. 

Ginny is there before her. Hermione notices things she had always overlooked - Ginny’s hair isn’t brushed at the back. Her sweater is a bit misshapen. She hates herself for picking this up. But when her friend holds her arms up joyously and loudly squeals, she is still a little bit embarrassed they are being so loud. Then she is pulled into a hug, a proper one, and the ugly feeling dissipates away. Ginny is not like the other perfect women in the paper, and Ginny is real. Ginny is happy. Which is more than could be said for Hermione. 

They order drinks. 

“Tell me everything. You are glowing. Have you just been shagging non stop? God, you actually look so good Hermione. How was it? Where did you go? What’s the sex like?”

“There is no sex,” Hermione says, wishing she had at least one more drink in her before they got down to this. “Remember? It’s a fake -”

“But you shagged after the hen and said it was great,” Ginny says, perplexed. “I just assumed that you would have continued to shag.”

“I remember explicitly saying it would not happen again.”

“Well, yeah. But it’s not like I believed that. I mean, you already said you fancied him -”

“I did not ,” Hermione replies forcefully. “When did I say that?”

“Didn’t you? I thought you had,” Ginny says airily. Hermione just stares at her. 

“I said I hated him.”

“Right,” Ginny replies, as though these are the same thing. “Oh, come on. Don’t look at me like that. He is fit.”

“I don’t care.”

“Aha! So you think he’s fit!”

“I don’t - I’m not - I don’t like him, okay. There’s a difference between acknowledging the way someone looks and then - You can admit someone is good looking without fancying them. That’s just - just - having eyes. Or appreciating physical beauty. It’s like going to a gallery. I like looking at art, I don’t fancy art.”

“You think Draco is art?”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying,” Hermione says, flustered. “I mean, he’s fine. He’s nice to look at,” she finishes. Ginny tries not to laugh. 

“Why can’t you fancy him? He’s your husband.”

“Not really.”

“Legally.”

“But not, emotionally. I don’t fancy him and I don’t want to fancy him. I wanted to sleep with him, and I did, and we haven’t since. We haven’t even kissed since that night, and that’s probably for the best, because I don’t want this to become any more complicated than it needs to be.”

“ No kissing?”

“None. One at the wedding, obviously, but even afterwards. We had a sort of dance and I suppose - I don’t know.”

Ginny picks over the crumbs of information Hermione has inadvertently scattered, and decides which one she wants to know about first. 

“What sort of dance?”

“An intimate one,” Hermione admits. “Everyone else had gone. He played the music again, it was just the two of us, and at the end he looked at me and - I - it felt so real.” This is why she needs her friends. Because she has held that in for a week, and she needs to say it out loud, as mortifying as it is. “It felt real, Ginny. He looked at me like it was real, and I think I probably looked the same.”

Ginny just stares at her friend, chin propped on one hand. “Did you want it to be real,” she asks gently.

“I think I did.” Hermione twists the napkin between her fingers. “And then I felt so stupid because he just kissed my hand and went to bed. And that was my wedding night. Oh - I keep crying, it’s so embarrassing. I honestly thought I was pregnant the other day.” Hermione wipes her eyes. Ginny is contemplative. 

“Are you?”

“What? Oh - not pregnant. Thank goodness. I got my period this morning. But I’m exhausted and weepy all the time. It’s annoying. This isn’t me , you know?”

“You haven’t had time to stop,” Ginny points out. “Yes, the war. But then your career, and then all the money stuff. Hermione - I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the first time you actually have some space to process things instead of just hurtling around from one thing to the next.”

“I’m crying because I’m no longer poor,” Hermione asks, archly. She is not convinced, but Ginny is warming up to her theory. 

“I mean, think about it! When was the last time you really stopped and took stock of your life? You haven’t been able to. Every single spare bit of your brain went into thinking about paying rent or something,” she waves off the past few years of cumulative stress effortlessly. “You’ve been obsessed with survival for so long, that now you don’t have to be, it’s all catching up with you.”

“So I’m just going to walk around crying for what? Days? Weeks? I have things to do! I have a hearing coming up that I’m not at all prepared for, not to mention people now keep inviting me to philanthropy things - Ginny honestly. The number of invites - how do people fit all this in? I have a job! I can’t go to a luncheon for three hours in the middle of the day?!”

“That is those people's jobs, though,” Ginny points out. “All they do is go to galas and eat fancy food and say they raise money but really they just snipe about the latest robe fashions or something. I don’t know - you’re rich now. What do you talk about?”

“Philosophy,” Hermione replies. “I’ve gotten very into French philosophy.”

“Oh bugger off,” Ginny tells her. “Now, are we going to get actually drunk, or am I paying?”

Chapter Text

Hermione has to go back to the office to floo home because her and Ginny both get too drunk to apparrate. She clatters inelegantly into the front parlour at half past eleven. Draco is there immediately. 

“There you are.”

“What’s wrong,” she asks, straightening up, trying to not be so visibly drunk, and failing. “How was your day, dear,” she says, giggling a bit. Ginny did make some funny points about Malfoy being handsome and she does actually think that he is. Which is funny because it's also so silly. Imagine! Handsome Malfoy!

“Where have you been!” 

It filters through that Draco does not look happy to see her. 

“With Ginny,” Hermione replies, because of course she has been with Ginny. Where else would she be? “What’s wrong with that? Oh - am I not allowed Friends now!”

“I didn’t know where you were. I thought you’d run off. Or - I don’t know! I thought something happened!”

Hermione frowns at him, and then he holds her arm because she is listing over a little bit. 

“You worry too much,” she says. “I was with Ginny. And if you ever try to control me, I will hex your balls off. You can’t! I’m independant!” He seems to be wrestling with whether or not he should be annoyed. “I’m very good at magic, Malfoy,” she informs him, waggling a finger. “I can look after myself! I’m independent!”

“So you said,” he says, and she is too drunk to notice that his shoulders have relaxed. “I know you are, Hermione.”

“So stop trying to control me.” She starts to cry again. “Oh my God,” she says, except it comes out sounding like all one word. “Can you believe I’m crying so much? It’s actually because I’m not poor and so all my stress has room to bubble over.” She waves her hands around, approximating a bubbling over gesture, and the floo powder is smashed onto the floor. “Whoops.” She stares at the green scattered across the rug forlornly, and then Draco is pulling her gently towards the kitchen. “I don’t want to go there,” she tells him. “I’m tired. I wanna go to bed.”

“Let’s eat first, alright,” he sighs. “Come on. Did you have dinner with Ginny?”

“No,” she rolls her eyes and Draco has to yank her away from the wall she lists into. “We had crisps. And cocktails. And then she told me that she thinks Harry is going to propose but that is actually a secret. And she also thinks I fancy you but that’s a secret too.” Draco is smiling, she smiles too because she likes it when he does that. “It’s actually just because you look nice in swimming trunks,” she tells him. “I definitely don’t fancy you.”

“Alright, Hermione. Come on. What do you want? We have pasta - some leftover salad I think -”

Hermione blinks as the kitchen lights come on, and sees a full meal laid out on the island. 

“Did you have a party?”

“No, I - “ Draco gives a big sigh. “I thought we’d have dinner. But I didn’t realise you were out. Come on. What do you want.”

“This is so nice!” Hermione is crying again. “Why didn’t you just owl me!”

“I -” Draco falters in the face of her logic. “I don’t know,” he says. “Sit down. Come on - no - sit down properly -” Hermione is listing off to the side again, but that is only partly because she’s drunk, and partly because she likes it when he puts his arms around her to keep her upright. She likes the way he smells so much, so she sniffs. “Did you just smell me, Granger?” He’s flustered and amused all at the same time. 

“You smell very nice and expensive and clean. What do you do all day Draco? What is that?”

“It’s a spicy carrot rigatoni - you’ll like it.”

Hermione does like it. He feeds her and the whole thing is very funny, which she keeps telling him. When he asks what is so funny about it, she refuses to let him know, which makes the whole thing funnier. She finishes the bowl - all of it. Then she announces that she is going to bed and abruptly stands up, steadier on her feet now. “Are you going to come,” she asks. “We can have sex if you want to?” 

Draco chokes on air. 

“You’re - maybe some other time, Hermione.”

“I knew it,” she says sadly. “I knew you hated me. You know - this would be really difficult for me if you weren’t just a painting. Did you ever think about how lucky that is!” and then Draco watches her, slightly agog, as she heads up the stairs. 

Hermione wakes in the middle of the night to the pitch black and an unending thirst. Someone has placed a carafe of water by the bed, so she chugs it. Her heart is racing - she has no idea why or how she got so drunk. But she also can’t remember if she paid her rent, and she has the nagging feeling she has forgotten and in her dream her landlord was sending her letters, and her heart keeps racing, until she realises that she is in bed with Draco Malfoy because she married him, purely so she wouldn’t have to worry about things like that ever again. She takes a deep breath in, letting it out slowly. She keeps very still, because she doesn’t want to wake up her sleeping husband next to her. Who she is fairly sure she told she fancied. Hermione tries to blot that out, because she will never be able to fall back asleep again if she doesn’t. Though her mind is, and always has been, powerful, it fails in this regard. And it feels like when she finally does manage to slip back into unconsciousness, a gentle but firm hand is shaking her awake all over again. 

“Hermione.” He is close to her, she can feel the warmth of his body. “I’m sorry - you need 

to wake up if you’re going to the office. Hermione?” 

“Hnhhh.”

“Are you alive?”

She assesses this. She does not feel great, but it is mainly exhaustion. And a headache. A little bit of nausea. It is all terrible and wrong. 

“I got you a coffee. Do you want the potion before or after?”

“Potion?”

“Hangover one - do you prefer to have it on an empty stomach?”

Hermione finally opens her eyes. He is crouching next to her, appearing genuinely concerned, with a mug in one hand and a vial in the other. She stares at the vial. 

“What’s wrong? Do you want me to flavour it?”

“Wha - no,” she mumbles, and unsticks herself from the pillow, pulling herself upwards. “I just didn’t know we had some in the house.”

“Of course we do,” he says, still treading softly around her. “I’m afraid it’s store bought - I usually prefer to make my own but I just haven’t had time.” This, apparently, is a source of great annoyance for him, because his mouth is tight with self-directed frustration. “They’re not as good as mine.” She would tease him about his arrogance but it’s said so factually that she believes he is probably right. “Here.” 

Store-bought potions were one of the first things Hermione cut out when the money situation started to get really bad. The up-pricing just wasn’t worth it. And then, when she ran out of time to brew them, because she would spend all hours in the office trying to argue with the Wizengamot and have it constantly fail because she was too poor to take someone out for lunch and too stupid not to realise that is what she should have been spending her money on, Hermione just ended up going without. No potions at all. 

She thought the hangover potion from the night after they slept together might have been a one-off, but the way Draco says it, they have a whole room, stocked with this kind of thing. 

There is a tightness in her chest. The kind brought on by the realisation of everything she missed out on over the past few years. The kind that has been making her cry so often. Maybe Ginny is right. 

“Hermione?” 

“I’ll have the potion first,” she says, taking and swigging the thing, and then waiting for it to take effect. She closes her eyes, knows he is still watching her. “I don’t want to talk about last night,” she tells him. He snorts. 

“We do need to talk about safety -”

“Draco, I was with my best friend, having a drink.”

“You couldn’t even apparrate home -”

“Considering I am still in my mid-twenties, that is not an unusual occurrence. Plenty of people go out way more than I do.”

“No, but you’re a target even more now -”

“I’ve been a target my whole life -”

“What if someone kidnaps you and holds you for ransom.”

“This is not a nice conversation to have with someone who is hungover.”

“The potion works quickly. I’m serious. Please just call Sam next time. Or a cab - why didn’t you get a cab?!”

“Easier to floo than drive through London. Besides, I might have been sick. And then I’d be fined -”

“We can afford a fine. Next time, you call Sam first. Or me.”

“I don’t have a phone, I’m a witch,” she points out. “And it’s weird that you do have one.”

“Muggle rehabilitation programme,” he points out back. 

“You are not normally this annoying so early in the morning,” she complains, finally swinging her legs over the side of the bed, reaching for the coffee. Last night she put on the green night dress again, clearly, because her sensible and sweet cotton pyjamas are nowhere to be found. He glances over her, tips of his cheeks red again. 

“You are not normally so drunk on a weeknight,” he says, his attention elsewhere. 

“Do not tell me what to do,” she warns.

“You said that last night. You said other -”

“This conversation is over.” His laughter follows her to the shower, and she promises herself that she is never going to drink again.

Chapter Text

They fall into a routine quickly after the honeymoon. Hermione goes to work, Draco does whatever he does all day. She has become used to fresh flowers rotating through her office with alarming rapidity, even if the previous bouquet hasn’t died. She gives the old ones to Tilly, who has also been the recipient of a strange but steady supply of presents that Hermione is sent but doesn’t want. Lipsticks, hair products that won’t work for her, an entire silverware set one time, which Hermione refused to touch until it was triple checked for curses. When she complains about the stream of gifts, Draco points out that she is Mrs Malfoy now, and people want her favour. 

When she considers this, she is even more confused as to why he married her. Why does he need her if this was his reality before? Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe her name really has brought up the Malfoy one again. The thought makes her feel a little sick. 

May quickly turns to June, and then Draco informs her one night over dinner - they have taken to eating their meals together in the dining room, with proper napkins and knives and forks and very often a pudding or two - that it is his birthday next week, and so he has made dinner reservations for them at a popular restaurant with his friends. 

Hermione blanches, and because she is embarrassed to be so obviously caught out, to have forgotten such a key part of this deception, she lies. 

“Okay. Well, I’ve also made birthday plans for you.”

She has no idea why she says that, but she does. And he, inexplicably, blushes. 

“Sure, Granger.” It is so childish and carefully excited, even as he pretends not to care. So flustered he has forgotten he can’t call her that anymore. She nods. 

“Yes. I hope you’re free that weekend.”

“I was going to see mother, but if -” That settles it. Hermione will do anything to avoid Narcissa. 

“I’m so sorry,” she says, not sorry at all. “But we’ll be away the whole time. Perhaps you can see her the week after.” And then perhaps Hermione can work late every day. 

The next day she decides who is best placed to help her with her problem. Her proposals are currently with the Wizengamot again, a new vote will be coming at some point on whether creatures deserve to be categorised as applicable for living wage, which would have serious consequences for how they are defined legally. So while she waits, she has time to actually put some thought into Draco’s first and only birthday as her husband. 

What does she want out of it? To prove to him that she had done something thoughtful, and wasn’t just floating through this new life, desperately scrabbling to get used to it. To win, even though she isn’t sure what at. Neither of them have brought up the fact that she half admitted to fancying him, which she doesn’t, of course, but still. 

What did rich wizards do for their birthdays? He has organised a dinner, so she can’t do that. He can buy himself literally whatever he wants, and does, frequently. The cat statue, which Heka still hates, being front of mind. She can’t get him anything rare because the only ancient wizarding auction house she knows of is Borkin and Burkes, and that obviously won’t do. 

Hermione thinks perhaps she should get him something muggle - but what? The car is being repaired anyway. They have enough houses. She doesn’t even know what the limit is on her credit card. What did rich muggles like to do for their birthdays? That, too, is slightly perplexing. All Hermione is ever given is books. 

She stares out her fake window, tapping her quill against her lip. She has all the money in the world. She doesn’t know why this is so hard. 

She tries a new tactic. What does Draco even like? That, too, quickly becomes tricky. He likes nice food and drink, but that isn’t necessarily special. She thinks he liked their honeymoon. She blushes as she remembers him wanting an arrangement so he could go down on her again, but she doesn’t want to do that for a present, because it makes her feel even cheaper than she does. Well, it also excites her a little, but she did say it was a group activity they were doing, and she certainly won’t be able to have an orgasm under the watchful eye of Pansy Parkinson, for example. She is getting distracted. What kind of activities does Draco like? 

Driving - she contemplates organising race car driving, before shelving that as she doesn’t know whether his friends have also taken lessons. She lists other muggle rich person activities - Ascot, though maybe they’ll think it's barbaric. Cannes - do they like films? Hermione isn’t sure you can just buy tickets, and that might be a bit boring anyway if it's just talks and galas. St Tropez, that's a rich person place. 

Then she sits up, inspiration striking her. She hopes to goodness there isn’t a limit on the card. Because Hermione is going to rent a yacht. 

She needs to hire an assistant, she thinks as she leaves instructions for Tilly, because she can’t believe she is leaving work early to go and do this. She also isn’t even sure where to go. So she owls Draco to say she needs Sam to pick her up. 

Have you sorted out a phone yet? Sam will be outside in 10 .

She crumples up the parchment and doesn’t bother replying, because she’ll get round to it at some point, but she also likes being able to go into muggle London and be uncontactable. And when Sam glides up to the pavement, looking a bit bemused about being summoned, she tells him. 

“I’m renting a yacht for Draco’s birthday. Except I don’t know how to do that. Any suggestions?”

“I believe I’m aware of a company, Madam.”

“Excellent.”

They drive to South Kensington, the houses growing bigger, the trees seeming greener, and the streets getting quieter as they go. Sam pulls up outside a red brick building, she forgets she’s supposed to wait for her door to open and lets herself out. 

“Do you need to er - pay for parking,” she asks as Sam is half out of the car, crestfallen at having failed in his mission to stop her from doing anything for herself. 

“I’ll be fine,” he reassures her. She wonders if she can ask him to come in with her, and wishes she had owled Ginny. And then she tells herself that she is a grown up, and thank goodness she is wearing one of her muggle office dresses that day, and rings the bell.

Someone comes to let her in, slightly bemused. Hermione awkwardly says that she is looking to rent a yacht for her husband’s birthday, and she is ushered up the spiral staircase, into the main office space. It is all dark wood and worn carpets, and she keeps picking up on things she just would not have noticed before, like how they really ought to replace the rugs, and that the paint is scuffed ever so slightly around the light switch. 

“This is Mrs -”

She nearly says Granger, and stutters over her new last name. “Malfoy,” she finally manages. “I’m Mrs Malfoy. I’m looking to rent a yacht for my husband’s birthday. It’s a bit last minute though - we need something for this weekend.” 

The front desk woman looks at the man who came to pick her up, and Hermione doesn’t miss the slightly dubious glance they exchange. So she pushes her hair out of her eyes even though it is perfectly in place already, and flashes her obnoxious ring so that it catches the light. Suddenly, everyone is very happy to help her. 

She is ushered into a seat, her bag is offered to be taken from her but she refuses. Refreshments are proffered but they are also refused, Hermione does have to get back to the office even if she has slipped out in the middle of the day to sort this out. Also because she has decided that they are idiots, and she wants to get out of there as soon as possible.

Arrangements are made. Hermione opts for the largest yacht available, purely because if she has to share quarters with Parkinson she doesn’t want to be cramped. She doesn’t even know if Pansy is still a bully, to be fair, but she isn’t taking the risk. She turns down offers to sort their transfer out, saying they will meet them in Cannes. Hermione makes a mental note to book portkeys for the lot of them,and also invite them in the first place. Whoops. She crosses her fingers underneath her skirts as she presents her credit card, but it all goes through smoothly. 

About forty minutes later Hermione emerges, blinking into the sunlight to see Sam. She has just spent nearly half a million pounds, and no one has even tried to stop her.

Chapter Text

“Do you know who Draco has booked dinner for this week?” She asks, as they are being driven back to the office. There is a box in the car, which Sam has told her is her new phone. She is ignoring it. 

“Yes Madam - yourself, of course. Pansy Parkinson, Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini, and the two Greengrass sisters. I believe he invited Mr Goyle, too, though he was not available.”

“Lovely,” Hermione says, trying to decide whether or not she can also not invite Goyle to the weekend, and thinking she can probably avoid it. “Thanks. Can we go back to the office please? Also - how do I get things delivered to the house?”

“I’m - sorry?”

“Things seem to keep just turning up,” she says, blushing furiously. “And I need to sort some clothes but I don’t have time to go shopping and -”

“Leave it with me, Mrs Malfoy,” he says, understanding. “I’ll make sure someone is sent up to help you.” 

“Thanks,” she says. 

“Mr Malfoy did ask for your phone to be programmed -”

“Oh, I’ll sort that out later,” she says, cutting him off. “Don’t worry.” Sam does appear worried in the rearview mirror, so Hermione stares out the window instead. 

Tilly has been manning the fort excellently, and Hermione manages a whole hour of uninterrupted work before her husband arrives, looking annoyed. 

“Oh,” is all Tilly says, before he is leaning against the door and crossing his arms. He’s wearing wizarding robes - smart ones. She frowns at them. 

“Why are you in robes?”

“I’ve heard you want to hire someone.”

“What?”

“Sam said you wanted to hire someone. Also that you refused to open your phone -”

“Sam is a snitch,” Hermione mutters. “Will you please refrain from stalking me? It grates.” Sensing an argument, Draco closes the door. Hermione rolls her eyes at Tilly, who is hovering just beyond them. 

“I’m not stalking you. You sent me an owl, I set you up with a phone so you can call Sam yourself. You don’t. And then you disappear into London and I get a call from the credit card company -”

“It’s for your birthday,” she says quickly. 

“And also that you want to take on more staff. I just want to make sure there’s not someone at the house already who can assist you. Hiring takes time.”

“I need some clothes for the weekend,” she blurts out. “And I don’t have time to go shopping. And I don't need to hire someone. And what staff do we already have? I’ve never seen anyone in the house.”

“They’re paid not to be seen.”

“Are -”

“All human,” he says. “None of the former Manor elves wanted to work for us any more. The few that did didn’t want salaries. I know, Hermione. You don’t need to look like that. I did try.”

Hermione stares at him levelly. “I’m sure you did,” she says after a beat. “Well, I just need someone to help get me some clothes. Obviously I’d ask the store but I need someone to bring them to me here because I can’t miss any more work. And I can’t say anything more because this is supposed to be a surprise, and I suppose the bank has ruined it.” She is pouting, which is silly because obviously this isn’t a big deal and she doesn’t even like him that much, but she’s still annoyed. She had to speak to morons for forty minutes after all, morons who kept asking her things like ‘what kind of champagne did they want’ and ‘was it a special occasion’. (Bollinger, and yes). 

“They didn’t say anything that gave it away.” She can tell he’s amused even if he doesn’t want to be. “But can you please set up your phone? I don’t want to have to keep coming down here to ask. Wizarding communication is not at all useful -”

Hermione snorts. “One programme later and all of a sudden you're the number one fan of muggle technology. I’m fine, Draco. They don’t even work in the Ministry. The wards,” she explains. 

“I would still feel better about you going out and about in muggle London -”

“Is that what this is about? Your concern over muggle London being unsafe?” Her voice is whip sharp. “Do you think it's full of hooligans or something, Draco? Do you think muggles are prone to violence?”

“I’m just saying, London is dangerous, and you might be at risk.” His voice is controlled, but she knows she is annoying him. Which suits her just fine, because he is being overbearing and prejudiced, however he is trying to dress it up. 

“I’m busy, and I have a four pm.”

“You don’t.”

“Are you stalking my calendar?” He is silent for a minute. Hermione stares at him. “Are you fucking stalking my calendar?” He doesn’t answer, but regards her warily. Guiltily. She grabs her wand. “Get out of my office or I will hex you out of it. I don’t want to hear another word about the phone, and I want however you are keeping tabs on my calendar to stop, right now.”

“Don’t over-”

He can’t even finish the sentence before she propels him outward. He crashes, ever so slightly, into the wall opposite. Tilly gives a very theatrical gasp, which really makes the whole thing seem more dramatic than it needs to be, Hermione thinks. 

“I will see you later,” she says, standing behind her desk. “And we are going to have a serious discussion about this.” 

“You are completely fucking nuts,” he tells her. She raises an eyebrow, conscious of the audience. 

“And you’re completely fucking stupid if you think you can get away with this kind of behaviour. Now leave.” 

Later that evening, Tilly returns to her flat. It is filled with various bouquets in various levels of decay. There are priceless vases cluttering each surface, the silverware set (that is real silver) lies unwashed on the side, because none of them know a charm to wash actual silver and none of them have had time to look one up. 

“Draco turned up to the office again today.” She announces, to much excitement. “And Hermione fired him into the wall.” 

This is a pronouncement that requires wine, and so the ‘no midweek drinking’ ban is lifted and great mugs are poured for everyone, along with various questions of ‘how?!’ ‘Why?!’ ‘Did you see it happen?!’ 

Tilly starts at the beginning. 

“Hermione went out randomly in the middle of the day.” (This is accepted as strange behaviour, because Hermione is generally glued to her desk between the hours of 8 and 7). “Then she comes back around 3 or 4 and it’s all fine. We work for - probably an hour? Hour and fifteen? And then Draco suddenly shows up with no warning.”

“What was the vibe,” asks Mia. “Was he doing a romantic surprise? Did he have flowers?”

“Empty handed, and looked pissed,” Tilly informs them. “They do a bit of small talk and then Hermione closes the door. But get this - she rolls her eyes at me before she does. And then, obviously she’s silenced her door so I can’t hear anything, but then about 15 minutes later BAM!” The girls all jump, “Draco is slammed back against the corridor wall.”

“No!” They seem to all say as one. 

“I know,” she agrees. “I gasped. And then Hermione is all ‘don’t try to control me again’ and then Draco is all pissed and he’s like you’re mad and then he leaves and Hermione just stands there, cool as a cucumber as though nothing has happened, and asks if I’ve heard anything from Abbott’s office! Can you believe!”

They agree that they can’t believe. Hermione Granger losing control is not something any of them have ever really contemplated. And now it has happened twice. 

“She must really love him,” Mia says. “To be so passionate.”

“Is that passionate though? Should you want to hex your husband into a wall?” 

The conversation descends into what is and isn’t healthy. Future, imaginary relationships are split. Obviously, if Draco had hexed Hermione it would be inexcusable. The fact that Hermione has hexed Draco is seen by Mia as hot, but the others as equally questionable behaviour. They stay up all night gossiping, and when Tilly arrives at work the next day she hopes to hell her boss can’t tell she is hungover.

Chapter Text

Tilly stares at Pansy Parkinson. The woman has just strolled in, carrying several large, white shopping bags. She is wearing perfectly tailored trousers, and a sleeveless silky top that drapes off her frame perfectly, two large, heavy gold earrings perfectly placed in her ears and her hair pulled back into a chic bun at the nape of her neck. That is perfect. Tilly knows for a fact if she ever tried that hairstyle she’d look like a gnome, but it suits Pansy…perfectly. She has short, dark red nails, and pointed heels, and is holding her sunglasses in one hand, arching a perfect eyebrow and looking Tilly up and down. 

“I’m here to see Granger,” she says, clearly unconcerned about Hermione’s new marital status. Hermione opens the door, her hair slightly wild. 

“Pansy?!”

“Draco sent me.”

The two women stare at each other in silence. Hermione has been looking better recently, but in the face of Pansy’s elegance, Tilly finds herself shocked at how shabby she appears. Maybe not shabby, she self-corrects guiltily. Bohemian? It doesn’t matter, because some silent agreement is reached and Pansy walks towards Tilly’s boss. 

“Would you like anything to drink,” she offers, suddenly remembering she is supposed to be helpful. 

“I’ll take a sparkling water,” Pansy announces. Tilly nods eagerly, stomach sinking. Where is she going to get sparkling water in the Ministry? 

Hermione closes the door behind Pansy. 

“Nice girl,” Pansy says. “Hogwarts alum?”

“Yes,” Hermione retreats to her desk as Pansy lays down the bags. 

“Don’t look so scared Granger. I don’t bite.”

“Have you been sent to spy on me, or for punishment?” The conversation they were meant to have together was not particularly reassuring for either party, and Draco ended up going to bed early, stomping huffily up the stairs as Hermione sniped at him over his calendar surveillance.

“You are charming.”

“Answer the question.”

“Spying, I think. Though you do need clothes and I do have excellent taste. Who has been dressing you?”

“Um - someone. Allegra? Harvey Nichols.”

“Right. Well, you can fire here.”

“Charming,” Hermione parrots. Pansy gives her a cool, efficient smile. 

“You need clothes , Granger. Proper clothes. You are Mrs Malfoy, now, which means you need to be dressed . Properly. So. What is this weekend’s agenda? Draco mentioned something about it being hot?”

“You’re invited. Actually, can you let Draco’s other friends know? I’ve booked a muggle yacht for his birthday.” 

This actually does succeed in stumping Pansy. She freezes, in the middle of conjuring a clothing rail. Then she gathers herself together. 

“Well, well, well.”

“Well? What is that supposed to mean?”

“You surprise me, that’s all. I didn’t realise it was reciprocated.”

“What’s reciprocated?”

“The liking , Granger,” Pansy rolls her eyes. “I thought you were meant to be bright? Anyway. I suppose some of this stuff will do, Draco didn’t know exactly what you needed clothes for -”

“It’s supposed to be a surprise,” she says quickly, still blushing because Pansy said something about liking and she wants to refute it but she obviously can’t, but does that mean Draco actually likes her, or does it mean that he’s just been pretending to Pansy as well? 

“Eurgh,” Pansy replies. “Please stop being so -” she just waves a hand. Hermione really is red, she can feel it, the burning. She envisages the ocean they are soon to be floating on. 

“Can we get on with this,” she says instead. “I’ve a busy afternoon.” 

“Suit yourself.” 

Pansy, it seems, is very good at shopping. She whizzes Hermione through the various options that might be classed as suitable yacht attire. All of them are sleek but not completely monochromatic, as though Pansy genuinely has considered what Hermione would actually wear herself. Aside from the string bikinis she unveils which are miniscule. Hermione wants to refuse to wear them. Refusing Pansy, it turns out, is near impossible. 

Various coloured kaftans are presented. Simple gold jewellery. A dress for the evening that will look nice with a tan. Some heeled sandals that Hermione is pretty sure she won’t be able to walk in. All of it looks expensive, but all of it looks like it her .  

“Is this your job,” Hermione asks, as she selects what gauzy scarf she wants, because they are ‘such a versatile summer piece’. 

“I suppose I’ve got to do something,” Pansy answers. “Though obviously I’m not…paid for it.” she wrinkles her nose, as though working for money is pedestrian. “Mother thinks young women should have hobbies.” 

“That’s depressing,” Hermione says. Pansy is blunt, which means that Hermione is able to say what she thinks without worrying about how it is going to come out. “You could really set this up as a business.” 

Pansy offers her a delicate little snort and says nothing more about it. 

“You should start trying this on but I suppose there isn’t really room,” Pansy says, looking around, a little moue of a frown gracing her perfect alabaster forehead. “And has your assistant died or something?"

Hermione was just thinking the same thing, Tilly has been an awfully long time. “Maybe she’s having trouble tracking down sparkling water,” she suggests. “We usually just use the tap.” 

Pansy gapes at her. “The tap? What tap? From where?”

“There’s a break room down the hall,” Hermione tells her. What is weird about this? “With a kettle and stuff.” 

Pansy stares at her for a long time. Hermione stares right back. She knows she is new to this and knows she is still not quite holding it all together, but she is not going to let Pansy Parkinson walk into her office and make her feel inferior. 

“Okay,” Pansy says, relenting. “Okay. I get it. You’re normal. You’re a normal person who isn’t the next heir to the Malfoy line or the inheritor of billions of galleons. Sure. But seriously, Granger. Do you know how this works?” 

“I have figured out how to use my credit card,” Hermione says, drily.

“No. Have you figured out how this works. Being Mrs Malfoy? If I knew you better I’d say you’re floundering.”

“Because I drink tap water,” Hermione replies, unimpressed.

“It’s the whole thing. You have to understand that being married to Draco is not just about money. You’re a Malfoy. That means you have a responsibility. A duty. To do things -”

“The old-fashioned way?” Hermione’s temper frays. “Why? Because purity always conquers? Is that it? Tell me, Pansy. How do you think, exactly, a mudblood like me can uphold that sort of motto?” 

Pansy is stumped again. She gathers herself quickly though, and then as if a sheet of ice has melted from in front of her, actually smiles. 

“Okay,” she concedes. “Okay. That’s - well. I thought you’d been looking a bit beaten down by it all.”

“I’m just busy,” Hermione says, red again though this time from annoyance. “I’m busy and Draco is stalking me and sending his minions to spy on me when for the first time in my life I finally have the resources to create change, and instead I’m being bogged down by fucking yacht dress codes and luncheon invites!” 

“You know that’s deliberate,” Pansy offers with a shrug. “Everyone has their place, and that includes the uber wealthy. If you’re kept busy by nonsense then you never have enough time to think properly.”

“Hence why you’re doing whatever this is,” Hermione points out drily. 

“Exactly,” Pansy says with a nasty smile. “Imagine what I would do if I were allowed to think with my whole brain.” 

Hermione considers her, and feels, surprisingly, pity. “That’s one of the most depressing things I’ve ever heard.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Pansy says. “I’ll just go for a long, long lunch after this and forget about all of that silly ambition.” 

Pansy leaves before Tilly manages to return, slightly out of breath with a warmed plastic bottle of sparkling water. She appears crestfallen in the face of her failure, and Hermione looks at her assistant properly. She thinks about Draco’s discussion of ‘staff,’ of Pansy’s gilded prison, of the fact that despite the enormous sums of money she has suddenly inherited, all she has done is book a yacht. 

“Do you know where my husband is,” Hermione asks Tilly, hoping that the spying goes both ways.

“I’m so sorry Hermione,” Tilly says, clearly buckling under the shame of two mistakes. “But he did say to check whether you had set up your phone -”

Hermione rolls her eyes aggressively. “Never mind.” 

She locks herself in her study, making plans all afternoon. Hell will freeze over, she tells herself, before she starts using that fucking machine.

Chapter Text

Cannes is hot and busy and not nearly as nice as Hermione expected it to be, filled with people so densely that they can barely make their way to the harbour. Hermione is anxious, and she wishes she was not. She is anxious because she doesn’t know what Draco is thinking. She is anxious because what if his friends (already on the boat, to surprise him), hate Cannes also, and think that Hermione is an idiot, and then she is anxious because she hates that she wants to please them all when she should not. If they don’t like to mix with muggles, then it is their problem, and not hers, and she will not be apologetic about her background. 

Not that this is her background, she reminds herself. The cameras are flashing and Draco is holding her bag for her and everywhere she looks there is some collection of beautiful people doing beautiful things, with perfectly pedicured toes peeking from bejewelled sandals. Around them all are people who look like Hermione, or how Hermione used to look - trainers, all black, fatigued expressions. Ear pieces, sheens of sweat, shopping baskets, all signs of a life that involves doing things, not having things done to or for them. Hermione wonders if they know she is one of them, or if her own brightly printed dress is enough to disguise her among the other nought point one percent. She still has her honeymoon tan, and she doesn’t have to carry anything because her weekend bag is slung over Draco’s shoulder (his on the other side), and so she can wear her flip flops with her own pedicured toes peeking out. She got them done last night - had to pay a lot of money to get someone to come to the house because since her new project she’s barely had time to breathe, let alone beautify herself for the weekend. 

The project, she decides, is her anchor among this madness. Time moves differently now she is wealthy, slowly and then all at once, with the days going by in a sort of hazy blur. She knows for a fact that her life before was harder, but she sometimes struggles to remember how she fit it all in. Now her working day is buttressed by other things, like workout classes or evening pedicures, or research on European manuscript specialists so she can make sure that the Malfoy ‘cottage’ library is properly preserved. And that doesn’t even begin to include the mountain of books that have turned up for their library, books she has barely had time to open. She had to leave them at home, too, because she was scared the salt air would damage them and Draco was, as always, utterly cavalier about the whole thing. 

He knows they are in Cannes but it isn’t until they see the vessel, a great, hulking, enormous ship that stops passersby and forces them to point, that he guesses. 

“What have you done,” he asks, though he is grinning, and sounds slightly thrilled. 

“Were superyachts in the muggle courses you took?”

She knows they weren’t, and he laughs, giddily. And then suddenly Theo and Blaise are jumping out of nowhere and spraying champagne into Draco’s face, cheering and whooping and bedecked with streamers and garlands that Hermione has to double check are definitely not magic, the way they stick to him. Her pleas for muggle-only have, it turns out, been listened to. 

She is given champagne-sticky cheek kisses by the two of them, and then her and Draco’s bags are taken off them by a woman in a uniform and they are being ushered up and Draco has his hand on her again, grinning still like a child, as the spectators start to wave off from the harbour. 

The noise dims once they properly step onboard the boat, the Greengrass sisters and Pansy are extended across loungers in the shade of the awning. They raise lazy hands as introductions are made and engines begin rumbling and then Draco is dragging her around on their tour and peering at everything, opening cupboards, remarking upon the space, looking out windows and goggling at the gym, the jacuzzi, the watersports area with jetskis and other inflatable toys that they are promised can come out once they reach their floating spot and then he really is excited, the boys all are. 

When it is just the two of them, alone in their rooms, his enthusiasm doesn’t dip either. One of the crew has framed a photo of Heka, which Hermione sent them. He spots it immediately, laughing and holding it, then shakes the frame once. 

“It’s muggle,” she says. 

“Oh, of course.” He blushes. “How did -”

“I sent it to them.”

This causes another blush. A smile, a bit shy. Hermione suddenly feels awkward. 

“Well, um. Happy birthday.”

“This is - this is a really good surprise,” he tells her. She hates his sincerity, it makes her want to curl her toes into the thick, cream carpets. “Thank you.” 

She tries to make light of it. “Well, you know. I did want to avoid a birthday dinner with your mother.”

He snorts, then looks at the photo again. 

“I’m - yeah. It’s -”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“Not bad for a fake wife.” 

“I’m always the best,” she jokes with a shrug. 

“As if I could forget.”

She hesitates. 

“Do - do they know?”

“No,” he says, understanding instantly. “They don’t.”

“Pansy made a strange comment the other day.”

He rolls his eyes. “I’d ignore her.” She watches him for another moment, but he seems unconcerned. 

“Alright,” she says. He puts the picture back on his side of the bed - somehow naturally on the left side, as they have always slept together. Then he crosses to her, picks up her hand and runs his fingers over the bands. 

“I’m serious,” he says. “This is really kind of you, Hermione.” He holds her gaze as he says it, as he sometimes does when they are pretending together, that same kind of familiarity she has gotten used to performing in public. Except no one is watching them. They haven’t touched, kissed, done anything untoward in almost a month. She suddenly feels hot despite the air conditioning, her lower stomach tightens. And then he kisses her cheek, stepping towards her, smelling like he always does. 

His face hovers next to hers for a second. Her hand is still in his, his fingers on her rings, his chest brushing hers, the two of them attached but not at all. She doesn’t want to breathe to break the spell, but then he goes to move and -

She tightens her fingers on his and he stills. She glances up, his pupils are wide. Hers probably are too. She kisses him. 

It’s soft and she lingers. She tries to tell herself, her lips still on his, that she doesn’t know why she’s done that, except she knows exactly why. It is because he smiled when he saw the boat and laughed with his friends like he is young and carefree and is happy to be there with her, and is genuinely, truly, grateful for the silly surprise she has spent far too much money on, and all those things make her want to kiss him, over and over again. 

He keeps hold of one of her hands, but then the other edges tentatively around her waist. He is hesitant, much more so than the first time they did this, and she thinks about all the times she has told him she hates him and regrets sleeping with him and wishes she was never in this position in the first place. And she does wish she wasn’t in this position. But the other things. She isn’t so sure any more. 

His mouth opens, then, and he licks once along her lower lip, and then when she opens in response he bites gently down, so that she huffs out in pleasure. He grows less nervous, she removes her hand from his and places it on his chest, fisting the always-soft material of his shirt and holding him to her. One of his hands goes to the nape of her neck, holding her at the base of her hairline, and then she finds herself pressing against him and she tells herself it is because  she has no control over herself at all. 

He tastes like faded toothpaste, a slight salty tang along his lips - perhaps the sea breeze, perhaps the faint perspiration from the midday Mediterranean sun. Tiny, invisible stubble slightly scraping at her upper lip. Soft clothes with a hard body underneath, sweat-tinged and sun bleached. It isn’t fierce, necessarily. It’s lazy and exploratory and truthful, and both of them are too nervous to step towards the bed or move towards the door and stop this, so perhaps it is for the best or the worst that it crashes open. 

“Come on! We’re about to start moving! Oooh. Hot.” Theo says, bottle of champagne in hand. This one is different to the earlier one, by the excited light in his eyes Hermione wonders just how much of their weekend supply he has already got through. 

Draco and her jolt apart like they have been electrocuted, but he keeps his hand on her waist, ducking his head back to the nape of her neck. 

“Fuck off, Nott,” he mumbles into her skin. She is surprised by the intimacy, before she glances down and realises he is using her as a human shield, his hard on clear through his shorts. 

“I dunno,” Nott says, in no rush at all. “I’ve always had a bit of a thing about watching.”

“Fuck off.”

“Eh. I suppose this isn’t going to be that kind of party.”

Hermione squeaks a laugh. They hear Blaise from the top deck shouting at them to hurry up, Hermione has not heard any of the women speak. Theo hovers around both of them, ushering them out of the room, Draco clinging to Hermione tightly, as if he is afraid she is going to come to her senses if he stops touching her. 

Upstairs a line of staff are waiting to greet them - captains and maids and stews and other things that all have strange names. Theo is already flirting with one of the stews, who looks barely old enough to be out of school, highlighted hair glinting in the sun. Blaise is leaning over the railing, engaged in serious discussions about engines which are cut short for the need of focus, something essential in navigating the enormous ship from the harbour. Pansy and the Greengrasses are in the exact same position, new drinks in their hands. Hermione stays by Draco’s side, as he looks around, still seeming shellshocked. 

“Okay,” she asks, quietly. He looks down at her, smiles. Properly, like he did before. Then he lets go of her hand, moving his arm to her shoulder and pulling her even closer, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. 

“More than okay,” he says. 

“Stop being so disgusting,” Pansy says, as one of the stew’s hands out drinks to the both of them. “I can’t bear newlyweds.” 

“Well,” Hermione says, not able to pull herself from his side. “Happy birthday, Draco.” 

“Happy birthday!”

Chapter Text

The yacht is so big Hermione almost forgets they are at sea. Drinks are poured, the ocean remarked upon, excited hands pointing out at various sights; the other lights coming on as the sun starts to set, the way the sky purples and oranges around them, the smell of the food as their first dinner is made. The outdoor dining table is decorated - banners, streamers, confetti. Hermione had not asked any of the staff to do that, but they have made such a fuss it makes her flushed, and Draco’s evident delight at being spoiled fills her with a warm feeling of accomplishment, even though she doesn’t feel like she deserves any credit for it. 

“Cracking idea Granger,” Blaise says, slapping her on the back. “Bloody brilliant boat.” 

“Thanks,” she says, still a little unsure at her place among them, these strange creatures who are both of her world and not. They all debate whether or not they should change for dinner - Pansy and the Greengrasses want to, whereas the boys think it's a waste of time. Theo announces he didn’t even bring a bag, anticipating spending three days straight in his swimming trunks, and Pansy asks nastily if he enjoys having a rash. 

The Greengrasses Hermione is most unnerved around. They are very quiet, preferring mostly to talk to each other in whispers that somehow also guffaw at the same time. They are beautiful, of course. Long and lean, thinner than Hermione really knew a person could be, but with sheets of glossy hair. They are similar in appearance, obviously would make anyone stop and stare if they walked past them in the street. But there is something about them, a sort of meanness in their eyes that makes her brace herself for impact, any time she feels one of their attentions turn to her. This, inevitably, sets off another round of whispering. Neither one of them has done anything, of course. She is not outwardly being made to feel uncomfortable. 

She wonders how long they will wait once Draco and her are divorced. The thought makes her want to push them into the ocean. 

Draco on the other hand is the most transformed she has seen him. He is light and laughing and charming, flirting with all of them, including her, with a kind of carelessness, the way that she might have expected him to act in the Slytherin common room, had their teen years not been marred by evil. He keeps one hand on her at all time, often leaning across her to reach for things - pack of cards (‘teach us some Muggle games Granger’, ‘you can’t say muggle, we need a code word’ ‘and that’s Mrs Malfoy to you, Nott,’), bottle to top them up, sunglasses that he definitely doesn’t need to put on - all under the pretence of being close to her, of kissing the side of her neck and cheek in ways that she doesn’t even have to fake squeal at. 

“I like this colour,” he says, grabbing one of her feet as she readjusts herself on the padded sofa they are all sitting round, discarded cards spread out on the glass table top, because snap isn’t as fun without magic. He is staring, a little smile on his face, his fingers seeming much larger than her white-painted toes. 

“Apparently it's a good colour for summer,” Hermione says, mystified that this is now her life - discussing toenail polish colours on a yacht in the South of France, with her husband Draco Malfoy. “Looks nice with a tan.”

“Mmm.”

“Oh fuck off,” Pansy says, elbowing Draco from the other side. “I swear to Merlin. God. Buddha. Whatever. I’m going to push you overboard if you keep being so unbearably sweet.” 

“Is that sweet,” Theo muses, frowning as he tips the empty bottle into his glass. “I know this is fun but I do miss being able to just summon another bottle. I have to get up. I have to STAND. Can you believe it? I don’t think Draco darling wanting to chew on his wife’s toes is sweet, necessarily…”

“Can I get you anything?” The tanned young stew appears. Theo thanks Merlin loudly, then quickly covers it up by inventing a religion. Hermione realises that her main concern was them upholding pure blood ideology, when it should have been maintaining the Statute of Secrecy under the influence of alcohol. The offer of cocktails is enthusiastically accepted. 

“I don’t know why you were so concerned about keeping the secret in front of all the muggles,” Astoria says, falling over the words with excitement. She has clearly been waiting for the waitstaff to leave them alone, and Hermione stiffens, knows something is coming but is unable to voice how or why. “Her hair is obviously bewitched to be as enormous as possible!” 

Daphne gives a horrid little laugh, one that is high and piercing. Hermione flushes. But even though she knows she is an adult and successful, more successful, actually, than every single person around this table, she has been made to feel small again. Blaise gives a little snort, but the rest of them are sat, in stony silence. Theo, says gently, 

“Oh, come now Tori.”

“What,” Astoria demands, perplexed as to why her remark, honed to receive a laugh, has actually received nothing. “What?”

“Little mean,” Theo says, which actually makes Hermione feel worse. Her hair is big. It's frizzy and out of control and the salt water has made the curls expand and grow more defined, and she hates that she is being made to feel bad about it. She likes her hair. The kissing and the outfit and the tan and the toenails - Hermione had felt nice about herself. And now she doesn’t. 

“It wasn’t mean!” Astoria is saying, making everything worse. “I was just stating a fact! You don’t think it was mean, do you Granger? You know I was just being silly.” 

Hermione is stunned to have been addressed directly, and stares at Astoria, who is both simpering and daring her to say something. To call her out. And yet it is Draco who leaps to her defence first. 

“Her name is Hermione,” he says coolly. “Or you can call her Mrs fucking Malfoy.” There is an uncomfortable pause. 

“To Mrs fucking Malfoy,” Blaise says, raising a drink and smoothing it over. 

“So protective,” Astoria rolls her eyes good naturedly. “No one can take a joke anymore.” The conversation moves on. Except Hermione’s fuzzy glow has disappeared, and now she is not on a brand new adventure. Now she is just in the middle of the ocean in the dark, wondering why there wasn’t an even bigger boat she could have rented. 

She is quiet the rest of the evening, even though they have fun. That is even worse, because then she starts to feel guilty too that she is ruining this, the carefree silliness. She doesn’t know why she can’t. It wasn’t even that big of a deal. Harry and Ron make jokes about her hair all the time, and she normally laughs at those. 

Astoria is different though. She wanted to hurt. Hermione knows this, even though there is no concrete evidence beyond her own intuition. She can’t word it. She knows Draco probably thinks she’s being ridiculous. She tries to rally, to dance around after dinner and have more drinks, to be more fun. As soon as the first person yawns, Hermione slips off to bed. 

She is awoken much later, the dark stirring. It is her husband, drunk, unsteady a little. He realises he has woken her and falls onto the bed. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, except he is making rather a lot of noise. Hermione laughs despite herself. “I didn’t want to wake you up!” 

“It’s okay,” she murmurs, burrowing into the bed clothes. Draco blinks at her, she turns the side light on. “Do you need anything?”

He stares at her, glassy-eyed and slack jawed for a bit. 

“Draco,” she asks, amused. He grins. 

“You are so pretty.” 

She blushes, of course. It’s not the first compliment he has paid her. But it is the first time she has seen him drunk. 

“Did you stay up late? What time is it?”

“Boys cocktail club,” he slurs, trying to take his shirt off and missing a button or two. “We banished the girls. After they were cunts to you.”

She doesn’t expect the swear, the word sounding harsh and proper in his cut-glass accent. 

“Pansy has been nice to me,” Hermione says, because it’s true. 

“Yeah,” Draco snorts. “The others. Wish they weren’t here. That's like what I did you know?”

“Um ?” Hermione isn’t quite sure. 

“I told them. The boys. The microaggressions. Fuck,” he yanks his shirt open, breaking it without caring. “I think about that all the time, Hermione. You look so pretty, and I fucked it up.” 

Her heart is beating fast. “It’s fine though,” she lies.

“Nope,” he says, standing and yanking his shorts down, and then she is staring at her naked husband for the first time in a long time, and she tries not to ogle but it is…large. “Not good enough. Not for you. I need to do my teeth.” He strides to the bathroom. “I know you’re looking at my arse by the way,” he says, making her laugh as he reaches the door to the ensuite, because he’s right. “S’alright. I do it to you all the time.” 

Hermione is scared of what she will say when he comes back. So when he’s finished, his breath skating over her minty and fresh, she pretends to be asleep. He kisses her on her cheek, rearranging her so she is tucked into his side. And she tries to slow her heart, but it’s him who’s breathing evens out first.

Chapter Text

She wakes up early, Draco still asleep next to her. He has moved in the night and is now diagonally sprawled across the mattress, one arm reaching to flop slightly over the edge of the bed, and snoring lightly. She lies there for a moment, finding it oddly peaceful. She is warm. If she concentrates she can feel the gentle sway of the ocean beneath them. It is quiet. She decides that when she emerges it will be a perfect day. 

She gets up, thinking of searching out some hangover remedies for Draco, because he has done this for her more than enough times already. She wonders if he has brought any secret potions with them, and then decides against rifling through his bag to check. Still, coffee would be good. Fruit juice. She pads out to check. 

It is another brilliant, blue skied day. One of the stews is already up at the bar, and asks if she can get her anything. To her surprise, the women are already having breakfast. She asks what the time is. Maybe she didn’t wake so early after all. 

The three of them turn to look at her, and Hermione feels a bit silly about her sheer little night clothes. 

“Good morning,” Pansy says. The Greengrasses ignore her. 

“Morning Pansy,” Hermione replies, deciding that she is not going to be cowed by them. “Morning Daphne, Astoria. Did you all sleep okay?”

“Marvellously,” Pansy drawls, taking a sip of her coffee. “Do you know, I think I like the idea of living on a boat. The rocking is rather soothing.” 

“I thought so too,” Hermione replies politely. And then, because the other two have not said anything, not even a whisper to each other, she turns to them. “I have no idea what Draco said to you after I went to bed, and I don’t particularly care. You don’t have to like me, but you do have to make sure that the rest of this trip is nice. It is his birthday. And I don’t care to be made to feel uncomfortable for the weekend, especially after I personally invited you.” 

“Where’s the birthday boy!” Theo arrives, looking rather upbeat and already holding what Hermione is sure is a cocktail. 

“In bed,” she says, smiling. Everything is normal again, she will make it so. “I was just going to take him a coffee.”

“Coffee!” Theo frowns. “Take him one of these instead. What do they say? Gemma! What did you say this was?” 

“Hair of the dog, Theo,” Gemma says, appearing out of nowhere with a coffee, which she hands to Hermione. “Would you like one as well, Mrs Malfoy?” 

“Oh,” she says, as Daphne and Astoria shift. “Why not.”  

Draco is stirring when she comes back through. 

“Hey,” she says softly, taking care to make sure the three different drinks she is juggling don’t clink too hard on the glass of the nightstand. One water (fizzy), one coffee (strong and black), and one bloody mary, because Theo insisted. Then she stands back, and wonders when she started caring. She tries to ignore the rising panic within her. She cannot care. They’ve barely been married a month and she cannot now care, not when there is still so much further to go. 

She doesn’t care, she tells herself. Just as today will be a perfect day, she also will not care. 

He opens his eyes, spies the beverages, and smiles so genuinely she flees to the bathroom. 

Her heart is hammering. She stares in the mirror. She looks normal. She doesn’t feel normal. She feels like she - she feels like she likes him. Likes him, likes him. The thought makes her want to throw up. Her stomach clenches, she might just do that. She likes her husband, Draco Malfoy, who bullied her at school and watched her endure great amounts of pain and indirectly contributed to a lot of the evil she spent a good while vanquishing, and then forced her to marry him and she likes him. 

Listing it out doesn’t make it easier. It just makes it truthful. Her brain is split in two. It can acknowledge the pain and the memories. At the same time it appears to be shrugging at her. 

Like, yeah. We like him. 

“Alright?” He is speaking to her from the next room, asking if she’s okay. She’s not, not at all. What is she supposed to do? How is she supposed to act? Why did she have to realise this now?!

“Yeah,” she says, splashing water on her face and then coming back through, trying to be normal. She is suddenly very aware of her hands. What is she supposed to do with them? Can he tell that she likes him because of the way she is holding them? Do you hold your hands or do they hang? Why are hers very hot? 

Maybe she can just stop liking him, she thinks, as she stares at him, topless, gleaming in the sun, sparkling in the reflections from the water that are bouncing through the blinds. He is tousled, his shoulder muscles bunching as he rubs a hand over his face, hair sticking up slightly which should look silly but actually - 

She is gawping. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she finds her voice. She needs to get over this. Admitting he was attractive was one thing, having dirty hate sex was fine, but liking him is…an impossibility. “How are you? Hungover?”

“I’ve felt better,” his voice is gravelly from sleep. “Thank you for these.”

“Whatever,” she mutters, yanking her bikini from where she took it off last night, wishing she had not listened to Pansy because why is it so SMALL, “I’m going up for breakfast.”

He looks a bit confused in the face of her personality change, which she doesn’t care about because she needs distance, and some food. Maybe she’s hungry. Maybe she just is hungry, and doesn’t like him at all. 

The deckhands start setting up the inflatables once breakfast has finished. The boys are excited about this, even Hermione allows herself to consider it might be fun. She is ignoring the Greengrasses, who are ignoring her, but who aren’t, at least, openly hostile. It is a fine enough solution, one Hermione can withstand for another 24 hours without feeling like she wants to die. And Draco is continuously next to her, despite her attempts to avoid him. She can’t be too obvious, because of course she can’t, but she also can’t be too close to him. She’s now worried about her toes, whether they are strange. He looked at them yesterday! She’s never had someone look at her toes before. What if he thought they were strange? What are toes supposed to look like? 

Similar, constant thoughts plague her. Is her armpit weird in the bikini? Should she be wearing more clothing? Less? Is he looking at her differently? Does he look at her too much or a normal amount? What is a normal amount to be looking at someone? Is she looking too much? Oh god, has she just been staring this whole time?! Does everyone, Draco included, know?!

 She would, normally, have a drink. But she definitely doesn’t want to get drunk, because what if she - horror upon horrors - confesses? She admitted he was attractive the last time she was drunk, she cannot be trusted at all.

“You sure you don’t want anything?” This is said to her directly by him, his eye contract sincere and concerned, just as it has been for a while really, at least since the wedding. Apart from when they argued about the car breaking down but even that…

“I’ll just stick to water for now,” she says firmly, shoving sunglasses on to hide her face. Thank goodness they are so enormous. She had told Pansy she looked like a bug, and now she is grateful the woman insisted on them because it ‘finished the look’. 

“Alright,” he says with a shrug. The movement brushes his arm against hers. His skin is soft and warm, he has arm muscles because that is normal and not a thing she needs to stare at. 

“Looking a bit red, Hermione,” Theo says, chucking her a bottle. “Make sure you’ve got some of this on.”

“Yes,” Hermione grabs it. “Thanks, yes does everyone have suncream on!” 

Her voice is loud and shrill. Pansy rolls her eyes. 

“Yes mother,” she says, and people laugh. 

“Do my back will you,” Draco asks, as she is massaging the cream into her face. 

“Yeah,” she says, in a very normal way. “Course.” 

She smears suncream into Draco’s back rapidly, making short movements that are not enough to rub the cream in. He twists when she says she is finished, and frowns. 

“I don’t think you got the bottom bits. And I know what a stickler you are…” he drifts off playfully, winking at her. Winking! She giggles despite herself. And then she rubs suncream into her husband’s lower back and regrets every single knut she spent. She might have had a life, one not spent liking her husband, if she hadn’t been so irresponsible. 

The inflatables are ready, she greets this news like it is air, gulping it down. They all move to inspect them - a giant inflatable slide all the way off the side of the yacht. There are inflatable sofas that can be pulled along by speedboat, rubber rings too. Music is pumping, everyone is having a good time. Before they reach the edge, Draco pulls her back, his arm on her upper arm, forcing her to tilt her head upwards to meet his now-sunglassed gaze. 

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

He pauses for a moment. 

“No reason,” he says eventually. Then he drops a kiss onto her lips, casually. It freezes her in place. “Be careful Mrs Malfoy,” he murmurs against her. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.” 

Hermione fantasises about hitting her head on an underwater rock. Maybe if she was concussed she could cure herself of this affliction. Of this sudden need for him. Maybe she’d die, and that would probably be easier to deal with. 

“I will,” she says breathily instead. Oh God, she thinks to herself, as they all prepare to start the day. Oh God, oh God, oh God.

Chapter Text

The boys, who had been full of bravado for going down the slide, jostle each other at the top. Hermione watches them, hands on her hips. 

“I thought you were gonna go down first.”

“You first, mate. I’m the birthday boy, I can’t die -”

“You won’t die,” the deckhand reassures them. “It’s perfectly safe.”

“Yeah, see Theo. You first.”

“Nah - Blaise said he was going to-”

“I will but I’m going to finish my drink first -”

“Bollocks, you’re just scared -”

“I’m scared? You’re scared -”

“I’ll do it!”

Hermione is sick of listening to them flutter about like birds, and still hopeful about the possibility of erasing her morning realisations. How hard would she have to hit the water, she wonders, to effectively do that? 

“No,” Draco is frowning. “Blaise will go first.”

“I don’t need Blaise to go first,” she rolls her eyes, relieved that she can still be annoyed at him, even though there’s a part of her that is whispering ‘he really doesn’t want you to get hurt.’ 

“Wow, thanks for setting me up as a sacrifice,” Blaise mutters. Hermione smiles at him apologetically. 

“Draco, move out the way.”

“I don’t want you to go first.”

“I don’t care,” she points out, her heart hammering. She does care, she wants to do a little dance, she wants to prove how brilliant she is at going down inflatable water slides, she wants him to tell her he adores her and kiss her and - 

She stops herself. 

“Is it safe?” She asks the guy, who’s name she really ought to remember.

“Of course,” he is nonplussed, because yes, while it is a very big boat, and the slide is steep, it still is just an inflatable and they are professionals so…

Hermione seizes upon Draco’s distraction, as he twists to peer over the side of the boat. Before he can stop her, she dives head first onto the slide, right underneath his arm. 

His yell follows her down, covered by her squeal. The water on the slide comes from the ocean, it's salty and cold and perfect, it’s steeper, faster than she realised, she’s screaming and laughing and then plunging head first into the blissful cool. 

She emerges a minute later, treading water, buoyed by the salt. 

“Hermione!”

“It’s amazing!” She calls, meaning it, laughing and splashing as she waves her arms. “Come on! Stop being such scaredy cats!” 

She swims backwards, out of the deposit zone, still breathless and laughing to herself. The adrenaline has worked, she feels herself once more, she feels alive and happy and desperate to do it all over again. 

Theo squeals the whole way down. 

“Oh my MERLIN,” he shouts when he emerges, splashing over to her. “Fucking hell Granger. That was -”

“So good right,” she gushes. She thinks maybe her and Theo are friendly, she thinks that maybe this is the best holiday she’s ever been on. “Let’s do it again.”

“Yes!” 

They swim for the boat, scampering up the stairs in a cautious hop-run, dripping all over the decks and giggling. They make it up to see Blaise explode into the sea, Draco standing there looking very put out.

“Go on,” Hermione pushes, giddy and reckless. “Or I’m going to go again and you’ll miss your turn.” 

“I don’t -”

“No pushing -” the man tries to say, but Draco has grabbed onto Hermione and she purposefully makes them both fall onto the slide even though that is dangerous and then they are both travelling down and he is screaming and she is laughing and faintly, very faintly, she can hear ‘One at a time!’ 

She supposes they are lucky that a stray knee or something doesn’t actually hit her in the head. When they emerge from underwater Draco is furious, and the whole thing is perfect. 

“Wasn’t that so good!”

“You have a death wish!”

“Let’s do it again!”

“Let’s fucking not.”

“Draco,” she pouts, realising too late that she's swum up to him, that she’s flirting with him, looking up at him and pleading. “Draco,” she repeats, watching him falter, thinking that maybe he does like her too. “Pleeeease.”

“You are in so much trouble,” he mutters, and she starts to swim for the lower deck because she knows she isn’t. “So much trouble Hermione!” he shouts. 

“Only if you catch me!” 

The rest of the day passes in a blur. She feels high from it - the sun, the games. Draco reapplies her suncream and she tries not to focus on how quickly his larger hands cover her back, the way they slide underneath the straps of her swimwear. The boys are fun, she likes spending time with Pansy, the other girls spend most of their time stretching, pouting, and strutting up and down the decks trying to catch everyone else's attention, and failing. Hermione tries to not be so obviously smug about the way they are being ignored. 

The adrenaline, too, feels good. It feels good to be out of her comfort zone in this way, physically and flying through the air, that split second of fear before she hits the water and it’s all okay, the way she likes to watch Draco’s face contort as she once again flings herself off the side of the boat. 

She’s missed it, she realises. The danger, the feeling. Her life had shrunk so quickly after the war. As Hermione floats on her back, the azure sky stretching above her, the last in the water before they change for dinner, she finally feels like she might be coming back to herself. That she can admit something was lost, before. And she doesn’t need a yacht to be that way, but she has a purpose and she has friends and she has the opportunity to do all she wants to do, and the money to do it with. 

Draco is emerging from the shower when she finally returns, wrapped in a towel. He has gotten a little flush on his cheeks, possibly a bit burned on his back, but otherwise doesn’t look too bad. He rolls his eyes when he sees her. 

“You’re like a suicidal mermaid.”

She bursts out laughing.

“It was fine.”

“Absolutely not. I’ve aged.” 

“Imagine the headlines,” she teases, because she wants to hear him say that they’re not the only reason he was worried. 

“Don’t even joke about that,” he calls, not saying anything else. She puts the shower on, still too buzzed from the day to truly be sad. She washes her hair methodically, even that not managing to dent her good mood. Maybe, actually, she doesn’t like him that badly. Maybe they’re just friends, and actually, Hermione just likes yachts. She laughs to herself. 

She decides to let her hair dry naturally, it being far too hot to use a hairdryer and her not wanting to bring her wand out, just in case. So she twists it so the curls stick, and rubs on some aftersun, a little bronzer, a glossy lip. She is halfway through her beautifying regime before she realises that this is new, the fact that suddenly it is second nature to rub a little body oil across her upper chest. It does make her look better, though. She has caught the sun today, but it looks nice on her and she feels good and even if the Greengrass sisters say something horrid and soul crushing, she doesn’t think it is going to matter. 

Dinner is a rowdy affair, all of them buzzing from the day. They drink, they play games, Draco flirts with her and she flirts with him back. He tries to make cocktails - all the stews are appalled that none of the men know how to mix a drink, so they start a class. Hermione thinks everything they make is somehow disgusting, and they all laugh about it, and then the stars are up and she can see every one, and the music is on, and people are dancing, and Draco grabs her hand, whisking her around the deck to a smooth song she thinks maybe her dad used to play when she grew up.

It all fades into the background, as it always seems to do with him. She tells herself she’s just dancing because she has to look like a couple in front of everyone else, but when she peels her head from his shoulder, she realises that everyone else has gone to bed. 

“Stay up with me,” he says, easy and open and fun and flirty and like the boy he was supposed to be. 

“I’m so tired,” she tries to say, because she isn’t, but she’s scared of what will happen if this continues. 

“Come on,” he murmurs, staring at her. “I’ll make you an espresso martini.”

“Absolutely not,” she says quickly and they laugh. “I’ll make us gin and tonics.”

“Deal.”

They take the drinks to the hot tub on the top deck, sit on the edges, their feet dangling in the water. She pulls her dress up to not get it wet, he’s sitting closer than he needs to be, they hold their drinks with two hands each, as if they are scared letting go will mean they hold onto each other instead. 

“I’ve had the best weekend,” he says softly. It’s not quiet, the slap of the waves against the side of the boat and the clink of the metal and the anchor make too much noise for it to be quiet. But it is peaceful. 

“Same,” she says, because it’s true. “I’m really glad I spent all your money renting this boat.”

He chuckles. “Your money too.” 

“I still don’t understand how it works,” she admits. “Will you please tell me? When we get back - I want you to explain it to me. Properly.” 

She doesn’t like admitting her ignorance, but it is time to move past that. He rolls his eyes. 

“I’ll consider showing you the office.”

“I get to find out what you do all day?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe!” she removes one of her hands from the gin, gives him a little push. This is a mistake, because then her hand is free and his suddenly is too, and then they are touching, as they both knew they would. His hand is on hers, once again playing with her engagement and wedding ring. She stares at them. 

“Maybe I’ll let you come and see.”

“Why are you so cagey about it,” she asks, genuinely perplexed. “I still just think you waft around the house all day.”

He snorts.

“Not quite. It’s boring though.”

“I want to know,” she says simply.

“You always want to know.”

“Duh,” she rolls her eyes this time. “Didn’t you get that? Number one know-it-all, sitting right next to you.” 

“Insufferable,” he says, his voice soft. She knows he is looking at her and she can’t meet his gaze. Funny how leaping into the air with nothing to catch her feels so freeing, whereas this elicits genuine fear. 

“Yeah,” she says, lamely. It falls quiet between the two of them again. 

“Think we should put a boat in the backgarden?” 

She laughs again. Her gin is finished, so now she doesn’t have anything to do with her other hand, and it wants to touch him. She glances up, he’s already looking. 

“I don’t think I did a good job on your suncream.” Her voice is soft even though it shouldn’t be. 

“I suppose you have to have a flaw somewhere in there,” he replies, and this time there is no one around to hear the compliment, just like there was no one in the room when they kissed. 

“Just one,” she jokes, because it couldn’t be further from the truth. His glance falls to her lips. He wants to kiss her again. She knows this. He moves in. And she closes the gap. 

Once again it’s soft, exploratory. Kind. Her heart is hammering and her stomach is filled with those birds she used to conjure when she was lonely, and she doesn’t feel lonely anymore. She feels beautiful and wanted, and he pulls her even closer, his hands chilled from the condensation on the glass, trailing cold patterns over her shoulders, arms, back, over the part of her neck, and then she can’t quite tell how it happens, but she slips and falls into the hottub. 

“You arse,” she says, half laughing, half shocked, her dress, her very expensive dress, swimming around her. He laughs too, and then promptly jumps in, soaking himself, and grabbing her arms again. 

“Come back,” he says, and then he’s kissing her again. She stops thinking about the ruined dress and he’s less cautious now, so is she, they are panting and pressing against each other and she suddenly knows that she is going to sleep with him again, and this time she won’t hate him at all. 

He presses kisses against her neck, she wraps her sodden legs round his waist, rubbing against him because he’s hard again and she knows she can reach down and touch it, play with it, do whatever she wants because right now he wants her. 

“Let’s go,” she says, breathless. “Let’s go to the room.”

“Yeah,” he asks, nervous and wanting. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” she agrees, and then neither of them need to say anything else. 

Maybe it is because they are on holiday, maybe none of this is real. Maybe it doesn’t matter. They are together, and under the anonymity of the night, the past between them dissolves into something sweet and special. She sinks onto him, his back pressed against the headboard, not taking his mouth off her heated skin. He thinks her tan lines are sexy, whispers that in her ear. She admits he looks hot in swim trunks, and he merely huffs out a laugh as she reaches behind her to caress his balls, sinks a hand to stroke between his legs and clenching around him. 

“Charm,” she gasps out suddenly, remembering. 

“After. No one will know.” He runs his nose along the juncture of her neck and shoulder, breathing her in, she shudders as his thumb presses into her clitoris. 

“Yes.”

And then the only sounds are their breaths, are the silent echoes of their desire moving in time with the boat. She comes, muffling it into his shoulder, letting herself bite into the muscles there as he cradles her, and then he is flexing into her and she realises how tender this is.

“What are we doing,” he asks, reading her mind, panting, still chasing his own release, his hands now on her hips and helping lift her, helping her move on top of him. 

“I don’t know,” she lies, after a moment. She wants to say it. To say it's real to her. But she can’t, she can’t bear to move past that swooping, awful insecurity. She can’t admit it. 

“I don’t know either,” he says, and perhaps that is good enough. She teeters on the edge of the truth. She kisses him instead, again, and he moans into her mouth, both of them holding each other. 

Afterwards he finds his wand in his bag, and they cast the charm, feeling oddly like they are breaking the rules, softly chanting the words, hiding it thoroughly again afterwards, and he asks if she wants anything, a towel, a glass of water. She shakes her head against the pillow, and they eventually fall asleep, only the tips of pinky fingers touching, as though to go beyond that might upset this fragile thing between them, this shared not-saying of truth, safe only among ships.

Chapter Text

“I can’t go back to normal life.”

“Cheers, Granger. Was a great weekend.”

“It’s -”

“If we call her by her married name you don’t have the satisfaction of correcting us, Draco,” Pansy says, as goodbyes are chaotically exchanged. It will be rather odd, Hermione reflects when they finally come through the floo, back into their empty house, not to be surrounded by other people. She has gotten used to the chaos, even with the Greengrasses. They had left earlier, a relief to avoid seeing them off. 

Draco and her are now alone, and there is no reason to act coupley anymore. The cat, at least, is thrilled, running immediately over to Draco as soon as he sets foot through the floo. 

“He prefers you,” Hermione says, trying not to sound put out by this.

“That’s because I spoil him,” Draco replies, rubbing the cat vigorously and making him flop all over the floor. Draco coos a string of unrecognisable nicknames, Heka becomes Hugie, Heckle, Heckler, He-Man, endless variations thereof, Hermione rolls her eyes and decides to go to the library to read. 

Hermione arranges drinks with Ginny that evening, once again needing her. She feels briefly guilty for how much time Hermione’s problems have taken up, resolving to ask Ginny first about her life. She also feels guilty for neglecting both Harry and Ron, who have dealt with her new relationship (fake, not that they know), with admirable patience, and rather surprising restraint. Not that they necessarily need the gory details, but still. Narcissa’s Venus Fly Trap is swaying menacingly on the desk, she gives it a pat before she leaves for the day. Not to the bar, after last time she has learned her lesson. Ginny is cooking them both dinner, and she will absolutely, definitely, eat before she gets too drunk. 

Grimmauld Place is much transformed, though edges still remain. Harry and Ginny have tried to modernise where they can, on budgets and with limited time, and the result is cosier than it was even as headquarters for the Order. She was surprised when Harry moved in, actually, thinking perhaps he might want to find somewhere without the ghost of Sirius, but he just shrugged, and said it was nice to feel at home. 

Kreacher still hates her, which is why Ginny is cooking, but she was raised by Molly Weasley and so Hermione doesn’t mind one bit. There’s a glossy mag underneath the paper on the pitted table, surprising, because Ginny doesn’t usually go in for that sort of thing. 

“Witch Weekly,” Hermione asks, seeing the flash of the title. “Ugh. Why that?”

Hermione has a grudge against the magazine after they made her sound ‘frivolous’ during a post-war interview. Yes, she occasionally liked to read a romance novel or two, and yes, her ‘bedside stack’ was one of the quickfire interview questions she was happy to speak about, but no, that did not mean her accomplishments ought to have been reduced under the disgustingly needy headline: Golden Girl saves the world - now she’s looking for her Prince Charming!

“Oh,” Ginny says, hiding it underneath the paper. “People at work were talking, so I thought I’d buy a copy.” 

Hermione stares at her friend. 

“What do you mean, talking?” 

“Having a conversation, Hermione,” Ginny replies, placing an enormous spag bol in front of her. “Cheese?”

“Yes. Are you hiding something?”

“Wouldn’t be doing a very good job if I was,” Ginny jokes. Hermione starts to eat, asks about Ginny’s life, what has been going on with her. Ginny is overly enthusiastic about some new training she’s introducing to the team that has been inspired by her recent foray into muggle football. Ginny is normally enthusiastic about her latest ideas to bring the abysmal Chudley Cannons up to par, and passionate about being scouted for a better team as a result. But usually, she filters out details for Hermione, and usually, she doesn’t seem quite so desperate to have the subject changed. 

Hermione tries to ignore it. During the meal, Ginny, studiously absentmindedly, floats the magazine and paper over to the bin. 

Hermione is quicker. The magazine is summoned, Ginny can’t even say ‘ignore it’, before Hermione sees what her friend had tried to keep from her. 

She’s on the front page. Jumping off the boat. She’s half curled in a ball, her stomach is pouching, her hair enormous and frizzy, it looks bad, half drowned-rat half poodle, her legs look wobbly and dimpled, the way she had felt versus the way she looks - she can’t quite believe it. And then, to make matters worse, a headline suggesting a new heir to the Malfoy line might be on its way.

“Please don’t look,” Ginny says. “They’re just -”

But she does look. She flicks through the four page spread, where red, flashing arrows throb next to images of her bending over, crouching down, running, moving, even one where she’s just standing, a literal drink in her hand, all pointing at her stomach. It’s not perfectly flat, but -

Hermione wishes she didn’t care. She wants, so fiercely, to not care. But it's her body and it looks terrible and next to the Greengrass sisters, who are in the back of all of the images looking like washboards, like supermodels, and the boys who are muscled and attractive and even Pansy, blurry and in all black in the background, she’s just in the middle of them, some fat little gnome. 

And the worst part of all of it was that she had thought it was real. She had thought she liked him. But there they are, spread across the magazine, her body, attrition in the war he is waging against the public, and he hadn’t told her. He’d lied, and she had thought it was real, and it wasn’t. None of it was. 

“Hermione,” Ginny says softly, “I’m so sorry. Please don’t cry. Not over this. You’re so much better -”

“I liked him,” she manages, her voice cracking. “I thought I liked him. And I know that it isn’t real but I thought maybe it was. And then he did this.” 

Ginny gathers her up, Hermione sobs, she can’t quite get full sentences out, or explain why it hurts so much because she shouldn't care but she does, it's just her body, her literal organs, but they are offensive to her now and she can’t bear that he made her feel like that all over again, the frizzy, ugly mudblood. 

“I look so fat,” she says instead. 

“You don’t. You look normal, Hermione. You look like you’re having the best time.”

“So why did you hide it from me!” She argues back. Ginny sighs, struggles. 

“The arrows were unnecessary,” she says instead. “I didn't want you to think -”

“I can’t believe he would do this,” she wails, and then Harry comes home. 

“Hermi - oh,” he says, eyes widening. “What’s wrong?” Ginny jerks her chin to the magazine, and Harry is appalled. 

“I can’t believe this - don’t you have some sort of right to privacy? I mean, you’re on a boat, Hermione (bloody big boat by the way), how could they just -”

“He called them,” she wails. “He did this on purpose!”

“What,” Harry says, stupidly. “Why?”

“Because it’s all fake,” she sobs. “Except I didn’t - I thought,” she doesn’t think she’s ever been this hysterical in front of them, and isn't surprised that Harry is both enraged and also terrified, at sea in the face of so many tears, Hermione is at sea within them. 

“I’m going to kill him,” he manages. 

“I can’t do it anymore. I’m calling the whole thing off.”

Neither Ginny or Harry ask the sensible question: can you? But Harry is looking at Ginny, mouthing things to her, things like ‘did you know?’ and when Ginny grimaces, Harry gapes at her, shocked that she has managed to keep this secret. 

Hermione is put to bed in the spare bedroom. She is tucked up, unable to return home, unable to be around them anymore. And then Harry, heart heavy, turns to his girlfriend. They argue in the kitchen, keeping their voices low. Ginny, under Hermione’s instruction, had been the one to tell Harry and Ron about their nuptials. But because Ginny knows her boyfriend and her brother, she may have told a teeny tiny lie about the true nature of their relationship, and she is now having to experience this falsehood biting her in the arse.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“She had already said yes.”

“Ginny, in no way should she have been allowed -”

“She’s a grown woman, Harry, I’m not going to forbid her -”

“You know we were worried about her and you didn’t say anything!"

“You have no idea the trouble she was in -”

“Because you didn’t tell us!”

“I didn’t know! Honestly, what was I supposed to do?” 

“I can’t believe - that fucking bastard.”

“She really likes him,” Ginny warns. “It’s not just that she married him. But she likes him now, too. It’s bad.”

“How bad?”

“Difficult to tell. She’s only just admitted it. But look at these pictures I mean -”

She’s staring up at him, even blurry and from a distance they look entwined, romantic. Harry watches as the magazine Malfoy pushes a bit of Hermione’s hair back, and she leans against his chest.

“Merlin’s balls.”

“I know.”

“And this was meant to be fake? He’s a fucking callous bastard -” 

Kreacher snaps into appearance, interrupting them. 

“Lord Malfoy’s human servant is outside,” he sneers. Ginny and Harry both exchange confused glances. They have no idea who this man is. And so they do the natural thing - they both peer out through the enchanted letterbox. 

A man is standing outside a sleek black car with blacked out windows. He’s in a suit. Ginny thinks she recognises him, wonders if it is the same man who picked Hermione up that first time from Harvey Nicks, but he has such an anonymous face she can’t be sure. They continue their whispers. 

“Does Malfoy have a driver!?”

“I - maybe? It might be a different person. They all look the same!”

“What do we do?”

“When did he arrive?”

“Should we talk to him?”

“He looks like he’s got a gun.”

“Do you think he’s muggle? Or wizard? I can’t tell.”

“I don’t know if he’d have a muggle driver. Surely that’s illegal -”

“Malfoy, though, isn’t it. I bet he’d break the rules for something stupid like this. Little prick. I hope he’s in there so I can fucking pummel him.” 

Ginny sighs. Harry had testified at the trial on behalf of Malfoy, but seems only too happy to return to his hatred. Ginny has to admit, it is warranted. 

“I can’t believe it,” she murmurs, staring at the driver. “I really - I don’t know. I actually thought he was into her,” she says, sadly. Harry snorts right into her ear. 

“That’s because he’s a nasty snake bastard. You stay here Gin, I’m going to have a word with this man.” 

Ginny follows Harry out, because she doesn’t trust her boyfriend’s rage. It's been a while since he threw a strop, she honestly thought he’d grown out of it. She wonders if something is wrong with her if she finds it a bit sexy, him puffing up to this random man. 

“Who are you?”

“Mr Potter. A pleasure. I work for Malfoy's.” Sam’s hand is ignored.

“Is he in there?” 

“Mr Malfoy? No, sir. He’s at home.”

“Well, you can go and tell him that Hermione is staying right here, and if he wants to come and get her, he’s going to have to come through me.” 

Sam eyes up the bespectacled man in front of him, the red headed woman behind. He can’t believe he’s being threatened by the Harry Potter. 

“Very good, sir,” he says, getting into the car. At the time, working for Draco Malfoy was merely the only job that paid well and required little in terms of further qualifications. It was going to be a temporary thing. But with Hermione Malfoy, trips to France, and now meeting wizarding heroes, he finds it is much more fun than he anticipated.

Chapter Text

Draco doesn’t even bother driving across London. He apparates to the square outside Grimmauld Place with a crack, placing far too much on the expectation that it will be quiet and dark. Kreacher is gleeful as he informs them that the Lord Malfoy himself has arrived, and Harry wrenches open the door, revealing its location finally to the boy who in another world might have inherited it, his old enemy, and currently the number one person Harry wishes to hurt most in the world. 

“You fucking liar,” he says, and then he punches him. 

Draco, not expecting a physical attack clearly, staggers back. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Potter,” he spits his name like the old days, covering his mouth with his hand, dabbing disbelievingly at the blood there. 

“You broke her heart,” Harry says. Might not be true, but he’s never seen Hermione like that before and the intricacies of whether or not they like each other and in which ways they do or don’t, are currently beyond him. “You lied to all of us, and you broke her heart.”

“What are you talking about,” Draco hisses. “You’ve kidnapped my fucking wife!”

“She doesn’t want to see you,” Harry says, confident despite not asking Hermione. “She doesn’t ever want to see you again.”

Draco is still mystified. 

“Why?” he says, stupidly. “Why not? What - I thought -”

“You thought,” Harry mocks him. “You fucking set her up!”

“You know?!” Draco says suddenly. “You know?! Not even my fucking mother knows!”

“Ginny told me.”

“Great! I’m so glad Ginny fucking Wealsey knows too. I suppose the whole world -”

“It doesn’t matter because you set her up! Don’t try and get out of this you. We saw the photos!”
This does succeed in taking the wind out of Draco’s sails a bit. 

“What photos?”

“Don’t play dumb.” 

Hermione is on the stairs suddenly, staring at them both. Draco’s hair is dishevelled, he’s still holding the side of his face, his lip looks a little split. 

“Leave,” she says. Attention moves to her immediately, Harry puffs his chest up even further. 

“Hermione -” Draco says, as Harry says over him “Don’t call her that. Don’t call her anything. Get. Out.” 

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re such a ferret -”

Harry speaks to him, Draco cannot take his eyes off her. 

“Hermione tell me what I did wrong. Please. I’ll make it - I’ll make it better. Whatever it is. What - you just -”

“Show him, Harry. Show him, and then I never want to see him again.” 

And then she stomps upstairs, Ginny waiting to hold her again. 

Harry accio’s the magazine from the kitchen. He forces Malfoy backwards, whose wild eyes make him feel a little nervous, he checks his wand, holding it out. 

“Leave,” he spits. He throws Witch Weekly onto the top step. And when Draco looks down to see what has caused this whole palaver, Harry slams the door in his face. 

Hermione takes off sick the following day. Tilly, who has also seen the magazine, the suggestion that her boss is pregnant, the awful intrusive photos, wonders if it's true and she has morning sickness. Then she tries not to focus on it, or on the way that her stomach looks the same and isn’t flat either. Is she pregnant? Tilly disregards this brief panic. She hasn’t had sex in weeks. The girls make going out plans to remedy this, and they forget about Hermione, joyously leaping off the side of a yacht, freer than she had felt in years. 

Hermione wishes she could forget. Draco disappears, like she asked. The voice in her head that had murmured it wouldn’t be him, he wouldn’t have done this, is silenced in his absence. It seems to be a perfect indication that she was right. That he did do this on purpose. She doesn’t know why he doesn’t just admit it. Maybe it's because he wants to salvage this and maybe he doesn’t want to get caught and maybe he just wants to make sure she is contractually forced to remain in this marriage for a whole year. She tries to remember what was on the document she signed after their wedding - she had read it, but she was hardly looking for loopholes as she did. Was there a clause that might have prevented him from doing this? She doubts it. And then she cries all over again.

She’s sick of crying. Wonders when she’ll finally get a grip on herself. In one of her fits of rage, which are interspersed between the weepings, she writes to a mind healer to ask about making an appointment. She doesn’t know what she needs in terms of specialisms, but she is not going to let him win. She is not!

She contemplates writing to Pansy, then discards the idea. Pansy seemed at first to be an ally, but maybe she was in on it too. She can’t take the risk. She hates all of them. 

Theo, bizarrely, owls her. He’s cut out the only picture where the two of them are together, laughing, and he attaches it to a thank you card. From anyone else she might have thought it was nasty, but from Theo, he might very well just have thought it was a nice photo, and been missing the boat. That’s what he says, anyway. ‘Missing you and boat life, Mrs Malfoy! Kisses, xxx’ 

She hopes Draco is going to come back and beg for forgiveness but he doesn’t, and he doesn’t send anything either. No flowers, no jewels, no string of people doing useful things for her, no pictures of the cat. She wishes she didn’t want him almost as much as she wishes she hadn’t liked him in the first place.

She really had liked him. She really had thought it was real. 

She stays with the Weasley-Potters for a full week, working from her old room in the attic, steadily going through the proposal that she had put aside before they left for the weekend. In the face of this new development she doesn’t know if she can bear being married to him, but looking through her plans, the amount of money she needs, the difference she could make, she tells herself that if she can’t get out of this marriage, then she is going to get as much as she can out of it. 

And then it happens. 

Draco knocks on the door. She doesn’t know it’s him, because Kreacher doesn’t tell her anything, so she opens it. 

He seems surprised to see her, as surprised as she is. She tries to slam it shut, he sticks his foot in the door. There’s a crunching sound. 

“Um,” she says. 

“Five minutes,” he says, voice tight with pain. “Please.” 

She wavers. She wants to hear him out though. There’s no escaping it. 

“Fine. Five minutes.” 

He limps after her into the formal sitting room, which now houses a TV, and an old sofa that is comfortable rather than stylish, and a lot of photos from over the years. Draco is momentarily distracted by how they have covered the hideous old family tree tapestry, before he refocuses on her. His eyes are tired, he hasn’t slept. She swallows. He throws down a portfolio of papers onto the coffee table. 

“You’re divorcing me,” she says, staring at the legal documents, her voice flat.

“No,” he says. 

“Then what do you want,” she snaps.

“I don’t want anything,” he replies, angry. “This is for you.”

“What is it.” She’s tired of games. 

“The Greengrass’s heads on a platter,” he says.

Chapter Text

Hermione is sitting in the Grimmauld Place sitting room, staring at the pile of documents presented to her, and not quite knowing what is going on. 

“You can ruin them.”

“What?” 

Draco is staring at her like she is supposed to understand, but she can’t. 

“Its their fault,” he says, not gently at all. “Astoria. Daphne. They called the paper, they sent an owl first thing after I told them off for being dicks to you.” 

She doesn’t doubt him. She probably should, but the way he looks - she knows he is telling the truth. And then other things click into place, namely their strutting up and down the deck, the fact that they are in the background of every single one of the images, looking perfect. She feels a slight sting of embarrassment that she didn’t even consider them in the first place.   

“They left early to approve the photos, they picked the worst ones, they planted stories you were pregnant, they did all of it,” he is saying.

“Why?”

“They hate you and they want me to realise I should have married one of them.”

“It’s so -” 

“It's stupid, Hermione.” He interrupts before she can point out that this isn’t a real marriage. “They’re stupid. Don’t expect some sort of great, grand master plan. It took less than a day to find out who was responsible,” he says, his voice bitter.

“So why -” why did you take so long is what she wants to say, but colour floods into her face. 

“I couldn't just tell you,” he says, his voice still hard but in a way that almost thrills her. He kneels at her feet. “I couldn’t just tell you, Hermione. I had to give you a way to ruin them.” 

“Ruin them?”

“They ruined your weekend,” he says, as though this makes complete sense. “So now you get to ruin their lives.”

She laughs. “Don’t be silly.”

“I’m not being silly,” he says. And he’s not. His eyes are alight, mean. He looks tired but he’s also enjoying this, she realises. “Here,” he hands the papers directly to her. “Take it.”

She takes the portfolio. It’s heavy. “What is it?”

“The Greengrasses make their money through a specific type of cauldron sealant. The precise recipe is a secret. Or was.” He shrugs. “Now we have it.” 

“You can’t -” she doesn’t understand. “You can’t just do that,” she says.

“Of course I can.” He’s calm about this. They sit for a minute in silence before she can phrase her next questions. 

“How,” she asks, her heart thundering. “Draco - this is - this is not necessary.”

“I think it is very necessary.”

She pauses, stares at the papers, flicks through them a little bit. Though she knows little about cauldron sealants, she cannot deny that there are documents here that are very old. “Did you steal these?”

“Does it matter?”

Hermione just gapes at him. His jaw is still tight, he’s bracing himself, she realises. For what, she does not know. 

“How - why - what - what?”

“It would be easy to do,” Draco says, shrugging a bit. Then he sits properly at her feet, leaning against the sofa, stretching his leg out. She tries not to notice him flex his foot experimentally. “We would use their recipe to flood the market with cheaper, identical products and bankrupt them. It might take some time, but less than you probably consider. Once they had no money they’d be socially outcast, forced to sell their ancestral pile, and probably end up miserable and alone in the kind of hovel you were staying in, and they would never, ever hurt you again.” 

Hermione still just sits there, eyes a little wide. It’s horrid. Her heart beats fast. 

“Surely that wouldn’t just…ruin them. I mean, centuries of invest-”

“Ah.” He interrupts, seems invigorated by the fact that she has not outright refused to allow him to proceed. “Many of the old pureblood families actually have very slow moving investments. The bulk of their money is in things like land, or gold, which in the wizarding world is relatively stable. We don’t have a particularly fast-growing economy,” he frowns as he says this, though not at her. “So yes, leaking this recipe would cause lots of damage to their financial standing - enough to panic them at first, which would then lead them to making worse decisions. They’d try to save face, naturally. They’d spend their money badly. They’d be destitute within the next ten years - Alocyius isn’t particularly imaginative, and I doubt he’d be able to rescue the family from ruin. Especially if we really pressed, hard. Now, if you wanted something more dramatic,” he says, speaking with his hands, almost smiling, a nasty little glint in his eye that Hermione thinks she ought to hate much more than she does. 

“We could set up a series of shell companies and use them to buy up seats on their manufacturing board, for one. And then - bam! We reveal we own the majority of the company and pull the rug out from underneath them. That might be fun, especially if they are already feeling squeezed by new, competitive products,” his smile breaks through, cold and cruel. “Or we could just float false information about them, panic the existing board members and force them to drop their stock. Riskier, but probably quicker.”

“How -”

“We’d plant stories, that sort of thing. There is actually quite a nice sort of poetic justice in it,” he admits, considering this new plan. Hermione stares at him. 

“What if the newspapers don't accept the stories,” she says, a bit weak.

“Then we’ll buy them and make them,” he replies, as though it is simple.

“You can’t just…buy newspapers,” she stutters, and Draco looks at her, raising one eyebrow. 

“Why? Because of the expense? I don’t think you understand, Hermione,” he laughs. “We can do whatever we want.” 

“This cannot be legal.”

He shrugs. “It isn’t illegal,” he says. “It's morally probably fairly reprehensible. But wizarding legislation is far behind muggle. Because the goblins have been in control of the banks for so long, and you know first hand how wizards treat creatures, legislation of financial markets hasn’t yet caught up. There’s nothing to stop us from doing this, aside from our own consciousness.” 

“So it’s not illegal, it's just extraordinarily immoral.”

“Yes,” he says, completely unconcerned. 

“You went to prison.”

“I did.”

“You’re supposed to be rehabilitated,” she points out. 

“I am. I’m actually taking a lot of inspiration from muggles on this one,” he says, smiling like this is some sort of joke. “Your old titans of industry had some good ideas.” She stares at him some more. He is not the man she thought she knew, and she isn’t sure why that is so shocking to her. She knew he could be nasty, years of bullying attested to that. But she did not realise that he could be so…driven with it. That he could hone his anger into this, creative and unyielding and thorough. She has never given much thought to what it might feel to have someone’s eyes ‘burn’, but this is what they seem to do. The silver in them is ice, cold and furious. “I know this is wrong,” he tells her, and just like that very first time at the restaurant, Hermione is hypnotized. “I know it is. But do you want to be right, Hermione. Or do you want to punish them?”

She catches her breath. “Do we really need to,” she says, because she feels like she can’t just give in to this. She is supposed to be a good person. 

“No,” this is clearly distasteful because he breaks his eye contact with her to roll his. “We don’t have to. But I want to. I want to ruin their lives.”

“Why,” she breathes.

“I want to send a message,” he tells her. “No one touches you. You might not be that kind of person, Hermione, but I am. You were - ” he looks away, back towards the tattered and fraying Black Family Tapestry. “You were distraught. They made you feel like that.” 

“It's because I thought it was you,” she says, and then immediately regrets how revealing that sentence is. There is a beat. 

“I would never have called the paparazzi without telling you first.”

“I didn’t know that,” she points out. 

“I am telling you now. I will never do anything like that without telling you first. Hermione - I didn’t even know where we were going. How the hell was I supposed to arrange all of that when it was a surprise?”

“I…don’t know,” she says, quietly. Ashamed. Again.  

“I promise you,” he seems to catch on to her shift and speaks softly. “I promise you, I will always tell you. Okay?”

“Okay,” she nods. 

“You didn’t come home for a week,” he murmurs. “A week, Hermione. I went to your office and Tilly said you hadn’t been in -”

“I worked from here,” she says quickly.

“I hate that,” he admits. “I want to - please, Hermione. Let me ruin them. Let us ruin them, together.” 

She is tempted. And wishes she doesn’t like him quite so much. She did the whole time she wasn’t home, the whole time she was angry and furious and missing him and wishing it hadn’t been him and liking him, despite it all. 

“I…am okay with them feeling like they can’t get away with this,” she says carefully, instead. “But I don’t - Draco. Ruining someone financially just because you’re angry - I get that this is a game to you. But it wasn’t for me. And it isn’t for a lot of people, either. That building was full. We all were struggling. And that’s only one place -” she stops again, unable to word it. The pain and the camaraderie and the fact that maybe to Draco making someone poor is funny, is revenge, but to her it was… 

“This is not a game to me,” he tells her, and her lips twist, knowing that she has not been able to express what she wants to, knowing he is misunderstanding her reticence. That no matter how much he wants to help he still doesn’t know what it was like. 

“I don’t mean that. Maybe more that - I don’t know. It just - I don’t want to make anyone else feel like that. I don’t want anyone to have to struggle in that way. Even if they deserve it.” 

There is a moment of dissatisfied silence from both of them. 

“Fine,” he mutters eventually. 

“We can still - I don’t know. We can still do something. Just something more…”

“Psychological?” 

Hermione startles into laughter, his eagerness making her giggle. It’s been a long week, and the laughing is rusty and surprising. And then he’s joining in, both of them carefully chuckling together. He exhales, and she sees the weight of it leave his body, too. “Okay,” he says, resting his head against the sofa. “Fine. We’ll come up with some other way to torment them. I might still look into this cauldron thing, though. Could be interesting.”

“Draco.”

“What? That’s just healthy competition.” 

“Not if you’ve stolen their recipe.”

“You don’t need to worry about how I got my hands on it.”

He winks at her, and her mouth drops a little. Then he chuckles again, scrubbing a hand over his face. She wants to slide down onto the floor next to him. He is close, sitting at her feet. She could easily do it, easily reach for him. Seek comfort in his body. 

“How’s Heka,” she asks instead. 

“He misses you.”

“I doubt that,” she says, knowing the cat’s violent preference. Draco turns his head on its side so he can look at her, a smirk threatening the corner of his mouth. His hand loops itself round her ankle. 

“He really does,” Draco says. “Will you come home?”

Chapter Text

Heka seems keen to stick to her side, a surprise. 

“Told you he missed you,” Draco says, as she smiles softly. They sit in the kitchen, the cat tumbling between them. She doesn’t look at him when she says, 

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?” The surprise in his voice breaks her concentration on the cat. 

“I thought it was you,” she admits. Heka bites the pad of her hand, which makes her flinch, so Draco leans across, extracting him easily. 

“I’m angry at them, Hermione,” he says carelessly. “Not you. I can see why you thought the way you did. And I knew you would hear me out. Eventually.” 

She snorts. He smirks a little at her. She feels oddly childish, silly, giggly all of a sudden. She knows the two of them probably need to have some sort of conversation about the past week or so. She needs to go into the office, she needs to finally go to his office, she needs to face this thing between them that isn’t clear but it is careful, she needs to decide what to do with her life, whether or not she has been limiting herself.

She had tried to put together a philanthropic programme that would genuinely make a difference, split the funding between the core causes she cares most about - medical research, creature rights, muggleborn education. But after the casual way in which he pronounced his desire to ruin another family, purely because their two daughters had been mean to her - she realises she needs to dream bigger. She really doesn’t have a handle on what it is, what it means to be Mrs Malfoy. Pansy had been right. And she has been floundering. She has lost who she was - the girl who trapped Skeeter in a jar, the one who cursed Marietta Edgecombe - where was she? That girl had wanted things and got them. And somehow, Hermione had stopped wanting. She had been mouldering behind a desk, waiting for things to get better, wondering why they weren’t without making any proper change for herself. She got stuck under the weight of her life, and while she was trying to stay afloat, the world spun away from her. 

“Do you want to come in tomorrow,” Draco asks, as he gets up and releases the stasis charm on some food on the counter. There’s a lot, she notices. Dishes all stocked in the fridge, plenty of fresh fruit, more than usual. 

“To the office?”

“Yeah,” he says, handing her a plate. 

“I, um,” she falters a bit, then takes a deep breath. “I’m actually going to see a Mind Healer,” she says, looking at him. His eyes widen in surprise, then crinkle, as he…smiles? 

“Really?”

“Yeah,” she says, unsure about his reaction. 

“I think that’s a great idea.”

“So you think I’m crazy,” she can’t help but say. He chuckles. 

“No, Hermione. I just think you’ve been dealing with a lot for a long time. I think it's a good idea to go and talk to someone who can help you.” 

She has so many questions, once again. 

“What?” He asks. 

“Well, what do you mean I’ve been dealing with a lot,” she asks. She has been, of course. But she wants to know how acutely Draco is tuned into her internal upheaval. 

“Lot of career stuff, the marriage, your parents,” he points out. “You went through a war. Even I saw a Mind Healer. And I was in prison. If this is the first time you’re going then yeah, I think you’ve been dealing with a lot, for a long time.”

“We don’t ever talk about it,” she blurts out. “We don’t talk about it, Draco. You act like you’re fine, but we don’t talk about it.”

“About what,” he asks. “I am fine.”

“I want to talk about The Manor,” she says. 

His expression, which had been open and playful shutters, his hands clench his eating utensils. His pupils dilate, breath comes quicker. Lips thin. He becomes, in an instant, his father’s son. “We don’t talk about it,” she says more gently. She has to talk about it. She cannot reconcile her feelings for him without this.

“I want to move on,” he says.

“I can’t.” The words fill the kitchen. “I want to move on, too,” she says after a beat. “I really - I do. But I can’t until we talk about it.” 

“Well,” he struggles, shuts down. “Well, maybe after.” 

He leaves, she finishes dinner alone. Why did she do that? She doesn’t know. She hadn’t planned to have that conversation. She wasn’t sure why she’d brought up that night now. She had honestly hoped, maybe, that they’d do…something together. 

And after what? She has been struggling, and he has been pretending everything is fine, but Hermione can’t ignore the small signs forever. The mystery around his daily life. The fact that he never tells her anything, his desire to control her, to know where she is, the very one-way nature of all of it. The fact that whenever they are in public they rent out entire places, the fact that she actually doesn’t see him interact with people other than his few friends or staff, the fact that his life is so limited and centres around, to be honest, the cat. 

She isn’t okay. But neither is he. 

And still, she sighs, as she pushes away her half-eaten dinner, another thing from her previous life that’s new, not finishing meals. As she pushes away her dinner, she still… 

She doesn’t even know any more. So she goes to the library, and loses herself among the books. She’s woken, a while later. He’s trying not to jostle her, so she pretends to still be asleep. He carries her to bed, tucks her in, still in her clothes. Her heart squeezes so tightly she thinks she might cry. Again. 

Tilly is thrilled to see her back in the office, although Hermione notes she looks tired. When she spies the can of full fat Coke on her desk she feels oddly relieved the girl is clearly hungover and not been suffering under Hermione’s neglect. 

Her office feels oddly still, strange. She takes a deep breath as she stares, the overflowing in-tray, the thriving venus fly-trap, the restful enormous windows she didn’t ask for and probably doesn’t deserve. 

And then Hermione sits down, and gets to work. 

She finds the Mind Healer’s door easily. It is black, glossy. Discreet. There is a plaque outside quietly announcing Dr Diya Edwards, Clinical Psychologist, Psychotherapist and Mindfulness Practitioner. She could have taken the floo but she wanted to walk, clear her head a little. Draco is somewhere probably seething about the fact she isn’t on her phone, and she finds herself smiling as she thinks about it. 

Dr Edwards is another perfectly polished woman, but there is more than a glint of intelligence when she takes Hermione in, and Hermione, for the first time, relaxes into the leather chair in her office. There is a very well-placed box of tissues next to her, some anonymous abstract art on the wall, a plant that sways slightly in an invisible breeze. She wonders idly what it is. 

“Well, Ms Granger. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Hermione starts at her old name, then blushes. 

“Thank you for making the time to see me.” 

They sit in polite silence, somewhere a clock ticks. 

“It is unusual, of course, for us to know more about our clients before we’ve met them,” she says smiling. “I want to reassure you that everything you do and say here will remain confidential, and that of course we are here to help you.”

“Thank you,” Hermione says, twisting her fingers into the fabric of her skirt slightly. She doesn’t know what else to say.

“I’m here as an intermediary,” Dr Edwards explains. “Your letter was understandably vague, and so before we get started I was wondering if you might be able to be a bit more specific around your therapy goals. What are you hoping to get out of this experience?”

“To stop crying,” Hermione blurts out. Then she goes red again. Dr Edwards smiles warmly. 

“No, no, don’t apologise. Lots of people find it easier at first to focus on a physical goal. Is the crying happening a lot?”

“Yes,” Hermione says. 

“More than usual?”

“Yes,” she repeats again. Then admits; “I haven’t cried since all the funerals. After the war, I mean. And then - well. I got married. And it’s like ever since then I’ve been crying a lot.”

Dr Edwards cocks her head, smiling calmly. “Okay,” she stretches the syllables out, not unkindly. “It sounds like you have been navigating a lot of big life changes.” 

She doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s in the kindness in her eyes, maybe it’s the sense that Dr Edwards really means what she’s saying. Hermione tears up. 

“Sorry,” she mutters. 

“Please, don’t apologise. It is a perfectly normal response. Now, aside from the fact that you wish to stop crying. Is this the first time you have been in therapy? What about after the war? What did you focus on then?”

“This is the first time,” Hermione says. Dr Edwards’ eyebrows rise, and she is surprised clearly. Hermione cringes. 

“Really?” She asks gently. “May I inquire as to why now, and not before? We don’t have to talk about it yet, but it would be helpful to have a sense of what has changed between then and now.”

“Well,” Hermione takes a deep breath. “There was so much happening and I didn’t really - I suppose I didn’t have time. And then. I’m. I actually just couldn’t afford it.” 

“You were in financial difficulty?” Hermione can only nod, as she shakes and tries to hold the tears in. “And this has changed with your marriage?” She nods again. “Okay.” Dr Edwards makes some gentle notes. “Thank you for being honest with me, Hermione. I appreciate your candour. Financial issues are nothing to be ashamed of.” 

Hermione can’t hold back any more. She sobs herself deeper into the leather chair, as Dr Edwards gently starts to get her to admit to it all.

Chapter Text

Sam stands next to the car, Hermione nearly trips down the stairs as she sees him. 

“Oh,” she exclaims. 

“Mrs Malfoy,” he says, with a little bow, opening her door. “How are you?”

She has spent the last hour crying, unable to stop once she had started, and so she is stained and wrung out and sensitive. But there is a sense of accomplishment underneath it all, even as she half dreads next week’s session already.

“I was going to walk back,” she says instead. 

“That’s okay,” Sam says, still holding the door open. Hermione’s mouth tightens, and she senses Draco’s hand in this. “Would you like me to drive you around a bit, before heading home?”

The concession is thoughtful, Hermione finds she doesn’t need it.

“No. Let’s just go. Thanks.” 

“Hello?” She clatters through the front door, throws off shoes, dumps bag and keys onto the side table, shakes out her curls which were starting to feel heavy against the back of her neck. Her feet tread familiar paths to the kitchen, seeking him out, and she finds him where she does most evenings, leaning up against the island, reading the newspaper. He glances up as she enters, smiles at her as though yesterday didn’t happen. 

“Hey,” he says easily, flipping the paper closed. “How did it go?”

“Good,” Hermione says, even though she doesn’t even know where to begin explaining it. He doesn’t press her, and she is grateful. 

“Glass of wine?”

“Oh,” she blinks. “Sure. Yeah, that would be nice.”

He goes to the fridge, asking her if she wants to eat outside tonight, they agree the weather has been lovely. They listen to the evening birdsong and they sip their wine and pick over salads and talk about nothing, and Hermione makes plans to visit the office tomorrow, and she teases him about what he does all day, and then she offers to wash up because she knows he cooked. No, he professes, this actually was still all done by the chef, he can’t take any credit, the closest he comes to cooking is potioneering, and then they discuss that for a while, brewing and techniques and their mutual interests, and then the sun sets and Hermione looks over their garden, and her hair blows a little bit in the late night breeze. And he’s looking at her again, and she can’t breathe, and it shouldn’t be like this. But it is. 

There’s a tiny leaf in her hair. He picks it out, lingering by her. They know, then. She moves, he moves. It doesn’t seem to matter, they are closer than they were before, the edges of their arms grazing against each other. And Hermione wonders if it will always feel this terrifying, this unknown. She cannot fathom a world where to be close to him is familiar, and she isn’t sure she wants one. 

She is still afraid to look at him, to see whatever is there. It no longer feels like a farce. It is harder to voice it out loud. The hope. The horrid, awful hope, all surrounded by their reality, by the feeling that this is wrong, that she shouldn’t, couldn’t, mustn’t fall. She is or she has, the timing and the tense don’t matter so much. Not when she is there, next to him. 

“I’m glad you’re home.” 

“I missed it.” 

He shifts, she looks. They are facing one another, leaning their heads on the edges of the chairs, as close to lying down opposite each other as they can come, and when did their hands entangle? She doesn’t remember that, but they are, and thank goodness, because otherwise the gap between might be too painful to bridge. 

She takes him in. She allows herself to take him in - not through half-glances or stolen moments, but she lets herself look at him. His eyes really are gray, silvery, it's quite mesmerising, shot through maybe with blue when they were at sea but in the dim light, resolutely silver. Aquiline nose, the pointiness of his chin she always remembered has been balanced somewhat by age, the fact he has filled out since he was a child, the blurred remnants of Azkaban on his neck, and lower, where an even uglier scar lies on his arm. He doesn’t hide it from her, she realises, and she thinks she likes that. That he doesn’t try to paper over what they were to each other before, even if he cannot talk about it now. An eyebrow hair is dislodged, she reaches out and smoothes it back into place with the tip of her finger, and his eyes close, and then she is letting her finger trail down the centre of his face, smoothing out the small frown line between his eyebrows, running over the cupids bow of his lip, lingering over them until he pouts and kisses them. 

They kiss in the garden, the soft sounds of the city at night their backdrop, the hard bite of the wrought iron garden furniture their stage, and then she is in his lap and they don’t have to pretend anymore, at least physically. She is pulled into him, her legs extending over his, his arms holding her against him and the soft pull of his lips on hers keeps her there more fiercely than any marriage contract could. His hands find her hair of course, digging into the curls, becoming more insistent as she finds herself moving against him. Her skirt is bunching awkwardly, hampering the way she can thrust against him, so he shoves it up, hands smoothing over her backside, replacing the slightly cool bite of evening air with the warmth of his palms. 

She is shameless as she gasps into his mouth, feeling him tease her as his fingers trace the creases of her hips, edging ever-closer to the lace at the apex of her thighs. He runs a hand along the band of her underwear, teasing slow strokes up and down until she wants to beg him to touch her. And strange as their relationship is, as confusing and tentative and stilted, here, at least, they understand each other perfectly.

“More,” she whimpers, rocking against him, tensing and writhing and wanting.

“I know,” he says, not moving closer.

“Draco,” she begs, and she feels, not sees, his smile as he bites down on the pad of her lip. 

“I know,” he says again. “Be patient.” She huffs, he kisses her again, demanding. She tries to grind down on him, he stops her. “Open your eyes.” She tightens them more. “Open them, Hermione,” he urges. Her lips roll against themselves as she pulls back from the kiss, opening her eyes reluctantly, not wanting the intimacy of this. “Good,” he says, and she exhales shakily as his hand dips underneath the satin and lace. His finger traces the seam of her, her eyes flutter close again and the pressure is lost. “No. Open. I want to watch you.” 

“Draco,” she says, shy. “I can’t.”

“Yes you can.” His voice is stern, his pupils large in the dusk. “Show me. Show off for me, Hermione.” His finger returns, ever-so-slightly, just so she can press against him as she needs to.

She watches him watch her, and there is nothing in his gaze that suggests this is strange, this is wrong. Only a clear, burning approval. 

“Keep going.” She lets her body continue, unable now to look away even though she might want to. “You’ve been hiding, haven’t you?”

She whimpers a yes. “I know. I know, baby. Not any more. Show off for me like you used to. Like you used to thrust that little hand in the air and beg for approval, always wanting to get the answer right, always wanting to be seen,” she can’t bear it, leans forward to rest her head on his shoulder but he is unyielding, and pulls her back up. “No. Do it. I want to watch you come, Hermione. I fucking love watching you come. Show off for me.” She wants his approval. She wants to be that person again, her legs start to tremble with the effort. “Take your time,” he murmurs, his breath coming faster, his eyes a little glassy as she really starts to move. “You look so fucking good like this. Take as long as you need.” 

“I want you inside me,” she says, wanting to flinch away from it, wanting to stay in this with him, this admitting of desires without telling him the most crucial one. “I need to - I need to feel you in me.” 

“Good,” he says, sliding one finger inside her, shifting his arm so it's his thumb now pressed against her clitoris. “Like that?”

“More,” she says.

“Of course you want more, don’t you baby?” She nods, he’s losing control now, his fingers moving more erratically, thrusting against her from underneath. “Let me see you take it.” He edges the second one in, twisting his fingers, opening them, stretching her out all while she moves on top of him. 

“Like that?”

“Yes. God, yes.”

Her head tips back, but he stops, forcing her to look back at him and moan.

“No, you don’t. You look at me.” She gasps at it, moves her hands to the chair behind him, leaning forwards. He captures her mouth in a kiss, a sloppy, messy one, with teeth and tongues and all the while keeps his eyes on her, and she truly knows she is ruined, she is a mess, and he wants all of it. His spare hand breaks open her shirt, tugs down her bra. His mouth stays on her, just like his eyes, moving until he is kissing and licking and biting at her breasts. She gasps, wants it just like that and so he holds still, waiting for her to come. 

She does, her cries echoing around the garden, very possibly overheard by anyone walking past, very possibly the last thing she can think about as her orgasm shudders through her and she is brought back to life. 

His spare hand goes to his trousers and he’s unbuckling while the tremors still rush through her, and then he replaces the fingers inside of her with his cock, impaling her suddenly, desperately, and the stretch of him within her makes her squeeze even tighter around him. 

“Fuck.” He holds her still as she continues to shake, letting his head collapse into the crook of her shoulder, his hands flexing around her waist. “Fuck.”

“Eyes open,” she manages to tease, and he lets out one, gruff laugh. She tries to flex, he stops her. 

“I’m going to come in five seconds if you don’t slow down.”  She decides she wants to make him unravel as much as he unravels her. So she removes her arms from his neck, placing them on the chair instead. And slowly, she starts to move upwards, feeling the full length of him slide out of her. The feeling, the intensity, the closeness, is exquisite. She fantasises she can feel every vein and ridge on him, and when she reaches the top of his cock she lingers, pulsing around the tip of it. 

“Hermione,” his jaw falls open. 

“Eyes on me,” she replies, and he tries to laugh, or maybe it's just another gasp as she does it again and again. Small, little movements, just bouncing on the tip of his cock, right where she knows he likes to be touched. “Hermione,” he warns, as she pulses down a fraction, then up, then down a fraction deeper. “Please,” he begs, but she isn’t listening to him. She moves faster, watching him stare at where they are joined, at him struggle not to thrust, not to do anything that is going to make this end sooner than he wants it to. He whimpers. “Please,” he begs again.

“What,” she asks, innocently, focusing on the tip of his cock inside her, as he clenches his hands on her, as he tries so, so hard not to lose control.

“If you don’t -” he breaks off, hands tightening. “Granger - fuck!” 

She can feel it, him coming inside her, the flex of his cock, the way his hips jump and the tendons on his neck stand out as he clenches his jaw, tips his head back and fills her. His hands are tight on her, tight and desperate. In the aftermath they sit like that, her head against his neck, their hearts beating in mirroring rhythms. 

“Right,” he says eventually, as she laughs. “Right.”

It is not strange to her, and perhaps it should be. “Pay back,” she replies easily, and then yawns aggresively. The sex, the therapy, the wine. All of it has a soporific effect.

“You’re knackered.”

“What an astute observation,” she murmurs. She meant it to be meaner but she really is tired, tired and soft and floppy. 

“Come on,” he says, soft, too, soft and kind to her. “Bed.”

“Carry me,” she says. He sighs. Vanishes his trousers, so he doesn’t trip over them, and then carries her through the house, ridiculously clothed in a shirt and socks and shoes, and keeping hold of her all the while. He undresses her this time, sliding her into that green nightgown again. 

“You good?”

“Mm,” is all she can manage. Heka leaps onto the bed, making biscuits on the pillow between them. “He’s going to keep us up all night,” she murmurs.

“No,” Draco says, yawning too. “He’s a good boy.” 

Hermione makes a sort of sleep-drenched snort, falls asleep. Is woken at 3am to the cat racing around the room, of course. She doesn’t mind.

Chapter Text

She’s in Marylebone, an ostensibly muggle area, though the building in front of her is tangy with wards, the muggle eyes skating over it instantly, the force of focusing on it for herself, admittedly, a little difficult. The notice-me-nots are layered, and ancient, but there is another brass plaque to ground herself. 

Malfoy Capital Llc. 

She’s never heard of it. 

The door opens. Black and white marble flooring. Staircase, it looks like a home, or a hotel. It smells like their home, which is…surprising. There are flowers everywhere. A young man at a desk, whose eyes widen when he sees her. There are several clocks behind him on the wall, and he nearly knocks over one of the bouquets on his way to help her with the door. 

“Mrs Malfoy!”

She thinks, horribly, that he might bow. She really does not want him to bow. He comes to a halt in front of her and sticks his hand out. She is subjected to an extremely vigorous handshake. There is the touch of a bow over it. 

“Hi, um, is my husband -”

“Mr Malfoy is upstairs,” the young man says. “He mentioned you were coming in - it’s such a - it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Hermione is faintly bemused by this…enthusiasm. 

“Of course,” she finds herself muttering, then shakes herself and smiles. “Thank you very much.”

The young man beams at her. He is still holding her hand. 

“Should I wait -”

“Oh,” he abruptly lets go, blushes. “Um - yes - I’ll just call up - sorry - take a seat - can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee? Water? Something stronger? Not that we drink in the day haha - no, um - well - um -” 

“Hermione.” 

She looks up, relieved to have something to focus on other than the man’s obsequiousness. And there he is, Mr Malfoy himself, coming down the stairs with a jog in his step. His hair is slightly tousled so she knows he has been running his hands through it. The suit, muggle again, unbuttoned, the tie still on but slightly askew, a more casual trouser today, one definitely made from a lighter material than he tends to wear to the office. 

“Is it a bad time,” she asks, taking in his relaxed attire.

“Of course not,” he says as he strides towards her, ignoring the young man entirely. He pulls her towards him, kisses her. On the mouth. Quite passionately too, and she is blushing when he finally lets her go. “Casual Fridays,” he grins, and kisses her again, briefly. “Come. Let me show you the office. You’ve met Stu -” Stu blushes and waves and she is pulled around Draco and pushed up the stairs, his lower hand not hovering over her anymore, but resting in the small of her back. He kisses her, again. “Love the dress.”

“Pansy,” she says, in explanation. “It might be a bit black.”

“You look perfect,” he says, ushering her along a cream corridor. “We have the whole building, but we’re only on the first two floors. For now,” he explains. “We’re setting up the third - been expanding a bit recently but it should work - here we go.”

There are wards they’ve gone through and doors and then Hermione is standing on an open floor, desks with panels for privacy round them, and about twenty people, mainly men, a few women, all in various casual suits, many on - muggle phones. 

There’s a large screen on one of the walls with the muggle news on. There are stacks of papers, owls flying literally in and out through one of the windows. There are goblins, Hermione realises, as one moves out from behind the barrier, and then she blinks again because the goblin is a) young, and b) female. 

She’s also swearing. 

“I’ll hex your fucking balls off if you try that again, Timmonds.”

Timmonds, another young, human man with a twitchy eye and a dishevelled-looking shirt laughs. “Blood in the water Merjak. I can fucking smell it.”

“Stop fucking and blinding when you’re in the presence of a lady.”

“Yeah, Timmonds,” Merjak sneers. “I’m a fucking lady.”

“Not talking about you,” the third man says, leaning against a desk and aware, naturally, that his boss and wife have just arrived. He nods towards them. Heads turn. The frantic, nervous buzz drops. The testosterone seems to bottom out. And Hermione finds herself once again, the subject of…fawning. 

“Mrs Malfoy,” voices murmur, shaking her hand one by one, pressing in on her. Hermione isn’t unused, necessarily, to this kind of attention. It just isn’t usually in these kinds of environments, and it certainly isn’t usually because of her husband. Who is still holding her, who she can tell is experiencing some sort of masculine ecstasy at her being received in such a manner because she can practically taste the satisfaction rolling off him.

“Right,” Malfoy says, pulling her away after a bit. “I’m showing Hermione around. Sentence on what you’re all working on - Timmonds, you start.”

Hermione is instantly inundated in terminology. Wealth and Asset Management, Private Equity. Someone is the muggle investment liaison, hence the phones, Merjak is building out their Goblin Consultancy, though she isn’t quite sure what that is, someone else is focusing entirely on sports investment, another on the family office offering, which also makes no sense to her, and then Percy Weasley is striding through the doors, categorically not dressed for ‘casual Fridays’. 

“Hermione,” he says easily. “Pleasure to see you. Timmonds - take these. You need to get ahead of this legislation or we’re all fucked.” 

Someone rings a bell. 

“Weasley said the f-word!”

Percy sighs. He looks tired, but there is nothing strained in the fact that the three of them are standing there. 

“All okay?” Draco asks, mildly. 

“Under control.”

“You sure?”

“It’s good enough.”

“Alright. Blame Hermione anyway.”

“It is, probably, her fault.”

“I - what -?” Her head is flicking back and forth, failing to keep up with the half-conversation they are having. It’s not a pleasant feeling. 

“Come on,” Draco says, pulling her away from the chaos. “I’ll show you the second floor. Lunch has been laid out -”

“Free lunch!”

“Not for you, you ghouls,” Draco says, laughing. “For my wife. And everyone needs to get a serious handle on the language. Hermione works for the fucking government. They do things properly there.” 

There is a series of goodnatured booing, which Hermione is fairly certain is started by the goblin, and then she is taken away, back into insulated, carpeted corridors, and up onto the second floor.

Chapter Text

The second floor is where the bigger offices are, meeting rooms, that sort of thing. It’s deserted. Draco takes advantage of the emptiness, the fact he is holding her anyway, and pushes her up against the wall. She is soon gasping into his mouth, both at the pleasure of it, the way he is pressed against her, pouring himself into her, and the surprise. She barely has a moment to look around before he is tipping her head up and pressing his mouth to hers, encouraging her to open for him, which she does, running his spare hand down until he is pulling her dress up, or trying to. 

“Draco,” she gasps, as he flexes into her, the height of her heels bringing her to the perfect level for his cock to brush against her clit. “What -”

“Lunch,” he says, and drops to his knees. 

The dress is pushed up, knickers pulled down and off, and then one of her legs is flung over his shoulder and he wastes no time in pleasuring her. 

“Someone - oh - might come - ah - in.”

He pauses for the briefest moment, locking the door with his wand, and smirks up at her. 

“Better?” Hair is more tousled now, her arousal across his chin, triumphant certainly in his gaze.

“Oh my god,” is all she can say, and he takes that as the invitation it is. 

She, eventually, is sprawled out across the floor, carpet too soft to burn, hands fisting in his hair and full disregard for the fact that he may have locked but her certainly didn’t silence it, as her orgasm rolls through her. 

“Oh my god,” she manages to whimper afterwards, as he leans back, kneels over her, still smirking. Her hair, the careful twist she had managed to achieve herself this morning, is ruined. “Um.”

“There actually is lunch,” he says, as she stares at the tent in the front of his trousers.

“Do you -”

“Later,” he promises, and she thinks she might melt. Later! “We actually can’t stay locked in here forever.”

“Right,” she says on an exhale, tries to come back to earth. “Fuck. I can’t - this is your office!”

“I know,” he says, and he sounds so satisfied she wants to hit him. 

“You’re such a prick,” she laughs.

“I know,” he says again, helping her up. Then he kisses her, slower and less urgent, still lingering, the taste of her still on his mouth. “Come on. Let me show you my personal office. I promise there’s sandwiches.”

He opens the door to an enormous corner office, real windows looking out over London. A large desk sits on an angle in front of one of them, behind it -

“Do you take the cat to work, Draco?!” 

Heka snoozes on the top of a normal-looking cat tree. 

“Of course,” he says, like everyone takes their cat to work. “He gets lonely at home all day.”

“Uh huh,” she replies. She looks at him, he is already looking at her, innocently. 

“Lunch?”

Food is released from its stasis charm, the smell of it wakes the cat, who meows at Hermione and then jumps onto Draco’s lap. He starts eating with gusto, telling her about the restaurant that delivers, the local places round here he likes, chatting, generally, about his routine. She tries to take it all in but she has so many questions now her brain is no longer stuck on him eating her out on the carpet - well, it gets a bit stuck when the memory springs into her mind again - that it is difficult to concentrate at all. 

“You have goblins working for you,” she starts with. 

“Of course,” he says, as though this is obvious. “I always knew it would make sense, especially if we’re trying to move into banking eventualy, I mean - one bank for the entire wizarding population? You know? There are so many opportunities -”

“What exactly is this, though,” she interrupts. “What is Malfoy Capital? Did you start this? Have you always had this?”

“I founded it,” he says, satisfied once more. “Malfoy Capital exists as the global investment arm of the Malfoy Family capital. It’s essentially a family office - we manage and use my funds in order to invest in things and make more money. It’s quite simple.”

“Why,” she asks, mystified. 

“To make more money,” he repeats. “Our investments weren’t really doing anything before - they were old, in pretty musty and static vehicles. Not much growth, not as much growth as there should be. I learnt so much from muggle financing that I just saw an opportunity. Eventually we’ll bring on board other families' assets and expand even further, become the number one investment fund in the wizarding world, but for the moment we’re still growing. And there’s a lot that needs to happen before that -”

It's like he was on the boat - free and passionate and excited, telling her these things. 

“Is that why you want to go after the Greengrasses?”
“What? No - that genuinely is just revenge.” 

“If you’re building a company then surely, I mean, shouldn’t you be focusing on that and not buying up their shares or whatever? Don’t you need the money?”

“Hermione, our AUM is three billion,” he laughs, he’s already finished his sandwich, even with the talking. He picks a stray bit of salami off the plate, and feeds it to Heka. “We can take on the fucking Greengrasses.”

“What’s an AUM?” She feels small, stupid.

“Assets Under Management,” he says, glancing up at her and smirking. She can’t help but be a little bit overwhelmed by this stranger in front of her, this cocky, smug, arrogant man who just made her come so hard she screamed his name for everyone to hear. “We measure in Galleons, of course. If you wanted the muggle figure that would probably be -” he trails off, doing sums in his head. “I don’t know. Somewhere around 15. We’re floating around a 1-5 exchange rate.” 

Hermione blinks. 

“You have fifteen billion pounds.” 

“Malfoy Capital does,” he corrects. 

“But that’s you.”

“Sort of. My personal worth is much lower, only about 50 million.”

Hermione looks at him. 

“So I’d walk away with half of that, not half of the business.”

“Correct,” he says calmly, though not looking at her when he answers. The cat is, apparently, very diverting. Hermione wants to shake him. “Your allowance comes out of that. Though if you do want to reinvest, we’d welcome you.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, stuttering. “My allowance?”

“Of course,” he finally looks at her. Both of them are clearly confused at the other’s confusion. It does not calm Hermione down. “You can’t - Hermione. You were completely bankrupt. You spent half a million on a yacht. For a weekend! Don’t take this the wrong way but you aren’t exactly the most fiscally responsible. Percy and I thought that an allowance -”

“Oh Percy and you thought, did you! Have you been discussing all this with Percy, then? All my failings? Every embarrassing thing I did wrong!”

“It’s not like that.”

“It feels a lot like that!”

She doesn’t want to cry again, but she obviously is choking back the tears because the idea that Percy Weasley, a man she respected, looked up to until the war has known all the things she has failed at just - it compounds the humiliation. 

“Don’t cry, please, Hermione, baby, I’m sorry. It’s not like that. I promise. It’s to protect you, it’s to look after you, to make sure you never get stuck again, I swear,” he peppers his words of reassurance with kisses, and she hates how well it works, how soothing it is to be held by him, to have him make everything go away, to just let him take control and take over and maybe she does need an allowance, maybe she does need someone to tell her what to do, and maybe that someone is him. 

“I don’t like you talking about it with other people,” she says, calmer. “I don’t - Draco. I can’t - I don’t think you understand how embarrassing this is for me.” He freezes around her. “How utterly ashamed I am that I’m in this position. I’m so -” she looks up, his eyes are tight, concerned, “I’m mortified,” she manages to say. “That I ended up here. That I was so ignorant. That I’m still so ignorant.” He nods, smoothing a hand across her cheek. “I don’t like not knowing things,” she says quietly. 

“I know,” he says, managing to be both sincere and smiling. “I’m sorry,” he says, returning to seriousness. “I didn’t think of it like that. It’s just - it’s numbers, you know? It’s not personal to me.”

“It’s extremely personal to me.”

They pause. 

“I understand,” he says after a moment. She doesn’t know if he does, but she lets it go. 

“Is that what you said was my fault,” she asks in a small voice.

“What? When?”

“Downstairs. Something was my fault.”

“Oh,” he chuckles. “No. Let me call Percy in and we’ll explain. Nothing is your fault. I promise.” He kisses her again, sweetly. It is all sweet, intoxicating, mesmerising. The money, the orgasms, even the food was so good it was slightly overwhelming. 

Draco goes to call in Percy, and Hermione’s brain tries to fight against the soporific pull to let him take over. She tries to hold onto what she knows: her money is not her own, and he’s deliberately keeping most of his wealth from her. She doesn’t need that much money. But the principle… he smiles at her, she smiles back. The principle makes her stomach drop. 

Chapter Text

“So, it actually works perfectly,” Percy finishes saying. Draco is behind his desk, Percy standing next to him, Hermione opposite. The cat plays on the floor. In his pinstripe suit and horn-rimmed glasses, Percy looks handsome, powerful, silhouetted against the window. And he has just possibly ruined everything. “Malfoy Capital Llc is going to build the future of the wizarding world.”

Hermione wants to cry, but she wants to hex them both more. Her arms are folded, she contemplates what might be the best way to do this. To stop them. There has been far too much weeping. 

“Right,” she says.

“Do you understand,” her stupid, fucking, patronising husband asks. 

“Yes,” she replies, clipped. “Very clearly, actually. Shall I recount?” Her voice is syrupy. The two men glance at each other, she doesn’t miss the way Draco inhales cautiously. “My legislation has a clause in it which offers incentives to employers to hire creatures, providing them with tax cuts and the like. You are planning on leveraging this incentive by employing vast numbers of creatures.”

“Exactly,” Draco says, frowning at her tone. 

“You’re using these creatures to expand Diagon Alley. They will build the houses and the shops. They will be paid, by you. They won’t have anywhere to put this money, so you are going to provide them with a bank. A bank which, and correct me here if I’m wrong - but a bank which is set up by you as part? Of the family office?”

“Not quite - the bank is an offshoot of the family office. We’re using the Malfoy gold to fund it initially. The wizarding economy is a gold standard - we’re not looking to upset that, at least any time soon.” Draco eases into the explanation, Hermione does not care. 

“They won’t have anywhere to live while they work for you, so you are going to provide them with loans to buy housing. Loans which are outrageously priced - your interest rates are -”

“The interest rates will fall as soon as we start doing this. New labour influx is going to drive them down,” he argues quickly, trying to shut her down. To make her feel wrong.

“So what about the people who do it first? Who don’t have any choice?”

“I feel like you’re getting stuck on the details here, Hermione - we need to expand -”

“I’m not done,” she snaps. “Not only are you going to provide predatory mortgages to these creatures, most of whom have never banked before, so will have no real understanding of what it means to take out a loan, or to owe money to you, you’re also going to fund their businesses for this new Diagon Alley, all of which you also own, and can cut and slash and get rid of whenever suits you!”

“We’re funding innovation,” he says. “Hermione, I really don’t see what your problem with this -”

“You’re using them. And in the meantime,” she says, each word clipped and quiet, “you get to use my name and my work to hide all this underneath some faux banner of progressiveness.”

There is a strained sort of silence. 

“Percy, could you leave us,” Draco says. 

“No, Percy, stay,” Hermione counters. The two men share a look. “Stay, Percy,” she repeats. Percy hovers. “Given all the hours you’ve both spent gossiping about my finances, it appears you’ve forgotten who I am. You seem to be in need of a reminder.”

“Be reasonable, Hermione,” Draco, foolishly, says. Hermione smiles at him. 

“Oh, I will be.” 

The threat hangs in the air. 

“Before you approached me,” she continues, staring at him, fluttering in her stomach, “did you plan this?”

“I…don’t understand.” 

She snorts. 

“Did you know about my legislation attempts before you asked me to marry you? Was it part of the deal for you?” 

Draco hesitates. 

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think it matters.”

“It does matter, Draco, because I need to know. Did you plan on just manipulating me and this is a happy accident, or did you intend to manipulate hundreds of thousands of creatures through me from the beginning?”

“It’s not manipulation. It's what you want.”

“And it just so happens to open several loopholes for you to exploit?”

“They are, as you have so passionately argued, again and fucking again, already being exploited!” He’s angry, failing at holding it together. 

“I’ll catch up with you later,” Percy mutters, edging towards the door. Neither of them pay his exit any attention. 

“So this makes it better?!” Hermione says. “If you’re the one doing the exploiting?”

“I’m not -”

“You will be.”

“You clearly don’t understand.”

“No, you clearly don’t want to be called out for the truth! You are going to use my legislation to control the expansion of Diagon Alley, all of which you’re going to fund, force them to use your financial products including loans with incredibly predatory interest rates, make it unavoidable for them to use any other bank, and you expect me to be on board with this? Are you mad?”

“How many minutes before you hex me into a wall this time, Granger? Should we just get it over with?”

“You brought me here, seduced me so I would be distracted, told me I had an allowance, and then tried to hide the fact that you are about to undermine everything I have ever worked for! I think if anyone deserves to be hexed in this room, it is fucking you!”

“It is my fucking business! My office! And you are my wife!”

“I know! Your wife who isn’t going to get any of this in the divorce, because you’ve so cleverly hidden most of your fucking assets!”

“You don’t know anything about money! You would spend billions, billions on fucking Joe Bloggs on the street, any little urchin grubbing about, you would be ruined in years -”

“And so what!” She’s now standing, he is too, neither of them noticed when that happened and it probably doesn’t matter either. “So what, Draco. Who fucking cares what I do with the money. At least I’d be helping people.”

“I am helping people,” he insists.

“You’re using people! Just like you’re using me!” 

“That’s how things get built, Hermione! By using people’s strengths!”

“Do you even know what kind of implications this is going to have? How this will actually impact real people? You’re already filthy fucking rich! Why do you need more money!”

“You don’t know what I need,” he yells at her. 

“You don’t need anything,” she screams back. “That’s the point! You just want! And take!” Her wand is out, she’s jabbing at him as if she would a knife or a finger, and sparks fly. 

“How are you so blind as to how this is going to help so many people?!”

“How are you so blind as to how this is going to ruin ten times as many people as it helps! Or does that just not matter to you?”

“Look - let’s just - let’s calm down, Hermione. Don’t make this into a big deal,” he says, trying to breathe, taking a step back. “ We can talk it over some more, but don’t - let’s just keep a clear head. This is business. It’s not personal. It’s not about that. Once your legislation passes then anyone could do this too. I’m just the first one to the post. Would you rather someone else, someone worse exploit this? This is an opportunity. A great opportunity. People who don’t have anything can make something of themselves. Look at Merjak - she’d never in a million years be able to earn what she does now, you know? We’re changing lives here.”

Hermione listens to his little speech, and then snorts. God, she can barely see she wants to hurt him so badly. But he is right. She is emotional. She does care. And she is done letting that overwhelm her. She smooths the front of her dress down. Her wand is chucked onto the top of her bag. 

“Where are Merjak’s earnings currently going?”

“Into a trust that I’ve set up. She’ll have access once your legislation passes. You see? This is for good, Hermione.” 

“Very well.” He blinks in the face of her sudden calm, has the sense at least to look unnerved by it. “I want Pansy in my office this afternoon. I want Percy Monday morning, first thing. And if I don’t receive an anonymous donation by the end of next week in order for my department to expand, then I'm taking all of this to the press, whatever is in that marriage contract.”

“What -”

“I don’t know why you have questions,” she says, starting to enjoy this, actually. To enjoy watching him flounder, watching him try to read her, watching him fail at it. “I think I’ve been perfectly clear.”

The office between them expands, seemingly dragging them apart, the tension between them building, or rebuilding, the wall that had only just fallen. 

“Are you coming home, later?” He asks. She contemplates leaving briefly. She hates that she doesn’t want to.

“Oh, I’ll be there,” she says lightly. “Though I have to work late.”

“Hermione -”

“Pansy, Percy, and the donation.” 

She stalks out. 

Rage, that is what this is. The idea that she has been - that he has tried to outmaneuver her, that he thought he could. That he thought he could get one over her?! Her?!

She has been weak and distracted and sad and she is never going to feel like that again, she vows to herself as she strides towards the exit, her heels making furious little clicks. He is going to rue the day he thought he could win against her. 

There’s the sound of running behind her, she grips her wand, ready to actually hex her husband into the wall. 

“Mrs Malfoy!”

Not her husband. One of the employees - Sam? James? Toddlington or whatever the fuck it was? 

“Yes,” she says, trying not to snap. She stops, he skids along the marble floor next to her.

“I’m so, I’m so sorry for doing this but I’m - I’m just such a big fan,” he garbles, the words spilling out of his mouth embarrassed and clumsy. “Could you - would you mind if you signed this? Again, I’m so sorry -”

“Oh, yes,” she replies, taking the quill and parchment from him. “Of course.”

She autographs her name, sprawls it all over the paper. 

Hermione Granger.

Chapter Text

Hermione calls Tilly into her office as soon as she gets back. There’s another full-fat Coke on the desk. Hermione ignores this. 

“Pansy Parkinson is coming in shortly - get some sparkling waters. We’re going to be expanding in the next week. I need you to set up a meeting between myself and Mallory Whitman - include Hannah Abbott as well. Any administrative staff you know who are ambitious and focused - bring them in to meet me. I need an early morning meeting between myself and Percy Weasley. Set it up for 8am, Monday. Organise some breakfast too - if you get in touch with the house the chef can probably send some things through. Okay?”

“Yes,” Tilly murmurs, scribbling frantically. “Got it.”

“Great. We’re going to have to update the confidentiality clauses in the contracts, too, so I’ll need a meeting with the in-house legal department. Don’t be afraid to nag them if they’re slow on the response. It's going to be a busy few months, Tilly.”

“Of course, Hermione.”

“I’ll be in the office if you need me.”

“Yes.”

“And under absolutely no circumstances is my husband permitted to see me. I don’t care if you have to hex him yourself.”

“Noted.”

Tilly has only just returned from the shops, sweating through her hangover and looking less than her best, when Pansy appears. She takes in the poor girl in front of her.

“Red lipstick,” she says, staring at her sallow complexion. “It’s the only thing that will make you look like your life is together.”

“Water?” Is all Tilly manages to say.

“No, thanks,” Pansy says, sweeping on through. “Thanks for the offer. Granger, I believe I was summoned.”

“Come in,” Hermione says, and then the door mysteriously shuts again. Tilly vows to never drink again. 

Inside the office one of Hermione’s parchments is shredding itself. Pansy glances at it, before turning attention to the witch in front of her, crackling with barely constrained magical energy. Pansy cocks a glossy head to one side. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen Hermione this kind of angry before. She would never admit it, naturally. But it's rather galvanising. 

“Well?”

“I was at Malfoy Capital Llc for lunch,” Hermione says, sitting down. She takes out the charmed hair pin, moonstone, definitely a Malfoy piece, Pansy notes, and fluffs out her hair, repinning it effortlessly. Merlin, Pansy thinks. We’ve created a monster. “I found out what my darling husband is planning to do next.”

Pansy, who doesn’t know what the fuck is going on, blinks. “Okay.”

Hermione stares at her, and Pansy really is, ever so slightly, nervous. 

“I trust you saw the papers when we returned from holiday.” 

Pansy grimaces. The images had been unkind. And Hermione really had dressed well. It was a shame. As though someone had deliberately chosen the worst images possible to humiliate her. 

“I saw them.”

“The Greengrasses are responsible,” she says. Pansy considers this, is not necessarily surprised. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Draco, naturally, is furious.”

“I can imagine.”

“He’s going to ruin them,” she says baldly. Pansy’s anxiety ratchets up to ‘present’. 

“Is he,” she says. 

“It turns out I need Mr Greengrass’s help,” Hermione continues. “And I need you to set up a meeting between the two of us. It needs to be a secret.”

“Draco is one of my oldest friends,” she says carefully.

“I know,” Hermione says, mildly. “I am only going behind his back because he is so upset. I think it is best for all of us if he is taken out of the equation. You know how possessive he can be.”

Pansy is aware there is something she is missing. But she can’t work out what it is. “You want a private meeting with Mr Greengrass that Draco doesn’t know about,” she repeats. 

“He’ll know eventually,” she reassures. Pansy is not necessarily reassured. “I just - I don’t want to ruin his life over this,” Hermione admits, sighing. “I don’t think it's worth it. But you know what he’s like and - I don’t know. I just feel like I should do something. Warn him?”

Pansy hesitates. “You know that they wanted to ruin your relationship,” she says, knowing first hand exactly the kinds of things the sisters had said about her. “I know you’re an unbelievable do-gooder, Granger, but those pictures were hideous.”

“I know,” Hermione, sits back, softens somehow. “That’s also why I need your help.”

“Why?”

“I’m not going to financially cripple them,” Hermione says. “But I do need them to understand they can’t get away with that again.”

“You’re going to threaten them?”

“I am going to have a conversation with them. I thought it might be best if done on neutral ground,” she waves a hand to the mountain of calling cards and invites in the corner. “They should be reminded, naturally, that that kind of behaviour is not acceptable.”

You should demand their presence in your office, Pansy thinks to herself. Even Draco had sounded nervous over the phone. And he’d sent the car. 

“So you want to socially punish them, but prevent Draco from actually ruining them, with whatever madcap scheme he might cook up,” she clarifies. 

“Yes,” Hermione nods. “Something like that.” 

“And you definitely don’t want Draco to know,” she says, slowly. 

“I’ve been - look. I haven’t exactly been myself,” Hermione admits, and the wind comes out of her sails a little. “I’ve been struggling with a lot of things, and Draco has been picking up most, if not all, of the slack. I just want to take him a solution this time. Not more problems.”

Though she knows she probably ought not to, Pansy relents. “You are so obnoxiously obsessed with each other.” 

Hermione rolls her eyes and her snark. “Yes, well. It’s a little inconvenient sometimes.” 

Pansy snorts. “Fine. When do you want this meeting?”

“Next week, as soon as. Tilly!” The assistant is called in. “How’s my Monday looking?”

“There’s a gap around lunch -”

“Perfect. Monday lunch.”

Pansy sighs. “Monday lunch, then. I’ll owl you - Draco keeps moaning you don’t have a phone.”

“Wouldn’t work in here anyway,” Hermione says glibly. Then she scribbles something down. “Anyway. I suppose I’ll also need clothes -”

“Leave that with me. I’ll bring you some options. Let’s say Wednesday, once we’ve decided on the event,” this she directs to Tilly, who also scribbles that down. 

“Perfect. Thank you, Pansy.”

“I’m not even sure I want to do this,” Pansy says, narrowing her eyes. Hermione smiles, looks a bit bashful. She seems like she’s telling the truth, she seems a bit overwhelmed, a bit strange, but also… that energy when she first walked in. The anger, the power. Pansy realises she thought Hermione Granger was one person. Looking at the woman opposite her, she wonders if she has been underestimating her this whole time. 

“You look good,” she says, and Hermione smiles. 

“I feel good.” 

That, Pansy muses on her way out, was not reassuring. 

Chapter Text

In the face of a plan the edges of her anger are muted, or channelled perhaps, more effectively. He’s waiting for her at home, even though it’s late. In his study, she can tell by the flickering of the candlelight. She knocks softly, enters. 

She wants to laugh, to be honest, as she takes him in, in all his Byronic splendour. Glass of whisky, absentminded staring, desk full of papers, legs sprawled before him. He looks up as she reaches the threshold, as she leans her head against the frame, lingering in the doorway. 

“Hi,” she says, smirking slightly. “Long day?” He doesn’t answer. The slight smirk becomes pronounced, she can’t help it. “Oh, come on Draco,” she says, egging him on. Her blood is still thrumming, she wants him to fight. 

“You succeeded in whipping my staff into a frenzy,” he mutters. Hermione’s smirk widens. 

“Really? That’s why you’re cross?”

He shrugs, takes her in. 

“How was Pans?"

“Good. Helpful.” 

He frowns. “That does not make me feel better.”

“What could you possibly have to worry about,” she asks lightly. “I don’t know anything, remember?” 

“Hermione -”

“Oh, come on Draco. What do you have to be scared of?”

He crosses his arms, pouts. “You. I’d be a fool not to be.” 

She pauses, surprised, and then smiles. Properly. “That’s probably fair,” she allows. Tipping her head, giving him the point. He stares at her, hungry, needing, seeking. 

“I forgot,” he says, softly. He turns to the window, away from her. “How fearsome you are.” 

In the absence of his gaze, she looks instead at the way his hand holds the glass, the way it brackets the crystal. She crosses to him, taking it, sipping, leaning against his desk too. 

“I think I did, too.”

“It’s watertight, by the way.”

“What is?”

“The contract. You can’t divorce me earlier than a year.” 

Hermione blinks. Her eyes instantly fly to his, to find his gaze still resolutely not focused on her, still staring out the window to the back garden. The candlelight skims the edge of his nose, gilds the hair still-dislodged on his forehead. 

“I wasn’t planning to,” she tells him. He finally turns back to her, squaring his shoulders. 

“Oh?” It is a perfectly nonchalant ‘oh’, as though he has been practising. He reaches around her, she tries not to be excited by his proximity, she fails. A piece of parchment is slapped onto the table. Hermione sees her signature, and laughs.

“Did you confiscate my autograph?”

“Yes, Granger.”

“Your poor employees,” she murmurs, tracing her pen strokes. At one point the tip of the quill ripped into the parchment, its raised residue feels oddly soothing to rub her fingertip over. “You know, if you really want one you only have to ask.”

“I mean it, Hermione.” 

“I know,” she gives him, takes pity on him. “I was angry. Besides, that is who they actually want to autograph their things for them. No offence.”

“Offence very much taken.”

“Draco -”

“It’s rude.” 

She sighs, stares at her husband. 

“Is the only reason you’re upset because of the name? Seriously?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” 

There is more staring - Hermione at him, him at the window once more. Further silence. He doesn’t let her steal his whisky for another sip, so she waits for him to answer her with a dry throat. 

“I’m not upset,” he says. “Obviously I’m not. Why would I be? It’s just - you have to understand you’re in a position where when you do things like that people are going to question them. Everything is going to be put under a microscope.” 

“I’m not trying to get out of the contract, Draco,” she reassures, smiling to herself. Then she gives up stopping from wanting, and swings her legs onto the edge of his chair, nestled between his legs. She is still wearing her shoes, the points of them resting against the edge of his inner thighs. “I’m going to stop you and Percy,” she admits. “But I’m not trying to divorce you.” 

This, finally, succeeds in bringing his attention to her. A hand closes around her ankle.

“Excuse me?”

She shrugs. “I’m not letting you do this. At least, I’m not going to sit back and let you do this. But I'm not cutting this short because of your plans.” Red spreads along his cheekbones again. She follows it with her finger. “Does that turn you on?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Here,” she says, switching her finger over to his other cheek. “I think you go red here when you’re horny.”

He almost laughs, it is breathless, a giveaway. His lips part, she is sure her eyes are luminous in the dark, just like his. He shifts, moving his crotch closer to her feet, takes a breath in. 

“You’re not going to win,” he murmurs. He swallows, runs his hand slowly up the curve of her calf. “You can try, but you aren’t going to win.”

“I hope you continue to underestimate me,” she says, letting him slide his chair closer to her. 

“I can’t believe you’re going to fight me on this.” She watches him, his attention fixed on her legs. She never got back her knickers, and at the moment she feels extremely aware of her nakedness underneath her dress. She wonders whether he remembers. 

The tip of his tongue edges briefly along his lips, a flash of moisture, and he picks up her legs, opening them, placing one foot on either armrest. She leans back on her elbows, and lets her knees fall open. 

“You know you don’t know the first thing about any of this, Hermione.” He says it as he edges the hem of her dress up, agonisingly slowly. 

“I know,” she replies. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to learn.” 

His answer is a guttural exhalation.

“Fuck, you’re hot.” 

“I know,” she repeats. And she does know. Right then and there, she really knows. That he wants her, that he wants to stay with her, that he wants her to fight him even if he wants to win against her. She squirms, slightly, on the desktop. 

“Are you angry at me,” he asks. Then he swallows, as she lifts her hips up and he pushes the dress up to her waist, and he sees her. All of her. 

She grins, he’s staring, transfixed. He swallows again. And Hermione lifts one leg up, places her stiletto’ed foot at the centre of his chest, and presses. Draco goes, sits back, still not pulling his gaze from the core of her. 

“Of course I am. I spend half my life angry at you.”

He manages to chuckle. “When I win, and this passes, you’re not allowed to be angry at me. You’ll have to divert it to the Wizengamot.”

“Whatever you think, darling,” she says, her foot keeping him in place. “The fact you don’t think I will win will make my victory all the sweeter.”

He manages to glance up at her in order to roll his eyes, she presses the spike of her heel ever-so-slightly harder into his chest. The red spreads, down his neck and blooms on the top of his chest, the tiny sliver she can see from where he unbuttoned his shirt. 

“Oh really,” he says, sarcastic. “And how are you going to do that,” he asks, his hips shifting slightly. 

“Secret,” she replies. 

They sit for a moment in silence, charged and full of tension. Different from at the company. He knows she wants to fight him, he realises she isn’t going to leave him, and though neither of them have said anything about their feelings, it seems to be enough. 

“Take your cock out,” she says. 

“What?”

“I want to see you,” she continues, realising that she does want to. She wants to watch him like he’s watching her. “I want to watch you.” 

“Fuck.” 

They stare at each other for a beat, and then he unzips himself. They keep staring as he lifts his hips up to pull down his trousers and boxers, until she can’t wait anymore, and breaks the eye contact. 

His fist is around his length, the tip of it red and swollen, beaded. She licks her lower lip absentmindedly, realising from his inhalation that he is still watching her. 

“You have such a pretty cock,” she admits. It’s true. He really does - long and thick, the downy hair at the base a darker shade of blonde, the veins spiderwebbed along his shaft pulsing. She feels empty. 

“Fucking hell, Hermione,” he says. 

“I want to watch you.”

“Watch me what?”

“Make yourself come.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” she says, suddenly shy, glancing up at him. But it reassures her, the way he’s staring at her. “You had lunch earlier,” she suggests, smirking slightly, and he huffs a laugh. His arm flexes as he moves faster. 

“I’m not going to last.”

“You don’t have to,” she murmurs, as they keep watching each other. Tempted, knowing how wet she is, Hermione reaches one hand down, balancing her weight. They both gasp as she pushes a finger inside her, and a dim part of her brain can’t quite believe she is here, half naked on Draco Malfoy’s desk, watching him toss himself off with her fingers in her pussy. 

“Hermione.” It's almost a whimper. He’s picking up speed, his chest rising and falling. 

“Here,” she mutters, not quite wanting to remove her hand from her pussy, but wanting to watch him taste her more. She removes her foot from his chest, scoots closer. “Taste.” 

She falls into his lap awkwardly as he brings her closer, as he tugs her fingers into his mouth and closes around them, and then she feels the wet, hot spurts of him almost immediately across her thighs, her fingers in his mouth, his eyes closed. 

They sit like that for a while, half dressed, sticky and close. His head rests against hers, their arms holding each other together. She finds herself combing through his hair, marvelling at how soft it is, at how she can feel the tension roll out of him, as his shoulders unwind and they sink deeper into their embrace. 

Eventually he stirs, nuzzling against her. 

“I’m glad you came home.”

It feels like an opportune time to tell him the truth. She balks from it, anyway. 

“I couldn’t leave the cat again.” 

He laughs into her neck, she tightens her hold on him. 

“I -” he breaks off, pulls back, looks at her. She panics. Kisses him instead, can’t bear the thought of this breaking. 

“I don’t know either,” she murmurs against him. At least their lips are more honest than the words that emerge from them.

Chapter Text

Percy is five minutes late on Monday morning, stepping through her private floo with an apology, and another pinstriped suit. Hermione has breakfast laid out on the table that she can fit into her new office, some croissants brought through the floo from the cottage, fresh fruit, coffee in a French Press, and lots of sparkling water courtesy of Tilly. 

“Morning,” Hermione says. Her nails are freshly painted, her hair blown out. She spent most of the weekend in the library at home, or being coaxed to the Hampstead ponds on Draco’s suggestion, and so genuinely feels relaxed. She thought it was sweet and a bit funny that he clearly had never been before, and was therefore taken aback by the sheer number of people there. 

Hermione forced him to wait in line for the mixed pond and banned him from using magic to skip the queue, so he took the opportunity to blatantly feel her up under her bikini, and then loudly complain about the crowds in a joking sort of way. She had not missed the very real moments he had flinched, and ended up taking pity on him after a single lap. Hermione is still thinking of his aversion to people two days later. 

“Morning,” Percy says, a little woodenly. But then again, he always has been a bit odd. “I have to say, Hermione. I don’t normally accept meetings when I don’t know what they’re going to be about. And the markets open at eight.” 

“Coffee? I think Draco can spare you. Help yourself, by the way. I’m starving.”

“Oh?”

“Morning yoga. It’s really been a game changer for the stress.”

“Has it,” Percy replies, heaping his own plate with berries and melon. 

“There’s a little studio I go to by the house - it’s lovely. You should come some time.”

“Why am I here, Hermione?”

Hermione smiles to herself. 

“You’re clearly aware of the situation I was in before.” She forces herself to not show how embarrassed she is. “And you’re aware of the situation I am in currently.”

Percy inclines his head, cautiously. 

“I am. I am sorry, by the way.”

“It’s no matter,” she delivers a deliberate shrug. “But anyway. It can’t go on. Obviously, in the event of our separation, I will suddenly be in the possession of a small fortune, no matter how enormous the sum I am not party to might be. I need you to teach me what to do with it.”

Percy stares at her, clearly not expecting this. 

“You - what?”

“Lessons, I suppose. I’m going to hire you as my private tutor.” 

“Why don’t you ask -”

“Draco? Don’t be ridiculous. I’m asking you. You’re the only person I trust,” she says this honestly. “The only person who knows exactly what situation I’m in, and exactly what I don’t know. I need your help.” 

Percy sighs, lowering his coffee cup. He settles himself, and Hermione readies herself for a story. 

“I was surprised when he approached me. I didn’t just say yes straight away, you know. It wasn’t - obviously. I’m very ashamed of that part of my life. With the war. And it’s still - I can never quite forget it when my family are all together. The ways I failed them.”

Hermione is silent, no clock ticking to even interrupt the heavy silence. 

“I just wanted to get away. To make something of myself. I got carried away and now - well. I keep trying to tell myself it doesn’t matter, after all. The right ones won in the end.”

“You showed up when it mattered, Perce.”

“That is generous of you to say,” he says, with a bitter smile. “When I met with Draco I saw a lot of that in him. The regret, the knowing that he had made mistakes, the determination to never, ever, be in that position again. He wanted to make a difference, and I wanted to, too. I wanted to pay my parents back. For them to never worry about money again - it seemed like the least I could do. I know what it’s like, Hermione,” he says this quite passionately, and Hermione suddenly doesn’t mind that Draco told Percy about her, because she realises that he’s right. Of course he knows. “I know - the humiliation. The fear. The exhaustion. It’s - well. We’re free from that now.”

“Yes,” she says softly, biting her tongue. “We are.”

“Draco saw that and he thought I could help. He knew about my professional experience but thought I might be interested in learning something new. And he was right. It’s been more satisfying than I could have imagined. Building something like that. It’s been - it’s been fun. I can’t say I ever expected to end up in financial services but -” he shrugs. “I’m glad I have. And I’m happy to help you, Hermione. But I’m not keeping secrets. And I’m not taking sides.”

“Of course not,” Hermione says, because she knows that even with all their history, Percy has already chosen his. “I’m going to tell Draco tonight that you’ve agreed to help me. I actually think he’ll consider it a good idea.” 

They finish their breakfast and talk no more of lessons, or failures, or amends that need to be made. The yoga studio is mentioned, the wedding gently discussed, because now it makes sense that Percy was there, and various other, inconsequential moments. Ginny and Harry, Ron, George. Bill and Charlie, how Fleur is, Molly and Arthur. That sort of thing. Upcoming family barbeques, reminiscences over Hogwarts. He leaves just before nine, and Tilly pops her head round to check in. 

“Mr Greengrass is confirmed for lunch,” she says. Hermione smiles. Two down, three to go. 

“Excellent. Thank you Tilly.”

“And Hannah and Marjorie are in for tomorrow.”

“Lovely.”

“The Minister also called down - if you have five?”

“I do. I’ll pop up. Nice lipstick, by the way.”

Hermione Granger used to be fairly innocuous when she walked through the Ministry corridors. Naturally, when people did notice her there would be a few mutters in her wake, but most of the time people tended to overlook her. In the six years after the war she firstly didn’t leave her cubicle very often, and even when she did, to take the public floos or make her way to a floor where the bathrooms actually worked, she seemed mostly invisible. Head down, an apologetic, worn down air, hurrying through the corridors made it surprisingly easy for people's eyes to skate over her, unseeing. 

Hermione Malfoy is less easy to ignore. She glides now, whether her hair is curly or blown out it wafts around her. The perfume she has taken to wearing lasts all day, is heavy and expensive and welcoming, and it lingers, like her. She is not in a rush. She no longer looks down, or away, but acknowledges the attention with a calm smile. Her heels announce her arrival before she is seen, the way she carries herself is confident and assured. 

Hermione Malfoy, therefore, walks into the Minister’s office easily, with doors opening to her and people respectfully greeting her in the corridor. 

“Hello, Minister.”

“Hermione,” Kingsley says. “Nice to see you again.”

“How are you?”

“Well, thank you. Please take a seat.”

Kingsley’s office is bigger, naturally, than hers. As she takes in the space, she realises it is probably only marginally. She wants to laugh, and then maybe send another Howler, to her husband. She wonders what strings he had to pull to get that one approved.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I‘ve called you in.”

“It did cross my mind.” 

Kingsley allows himself a smile. “Marriage, if I may say so, agrees with you.” Hermione returns the smile. “I received over the weekend an anonymous donation,” he continues, looking at her expectantly.

“Oh,” she questions. “How nice.”

“It is entirely intended for your department.”

“How generous.” A silence. 

“We don’t tend to accept these sorts of things,” he says, after a moment. “Post war, naturally we are trying to be as transparent as possible about our sources of funding. I’m sure you can think of why.”

“I can, and I’m glad to hear it.”

“So you understand my hesitancy in accepting such a gift.”

Hermione says nothing. Kingsley waits again, and then sighs. 

“You are working on some legislation as part of your role in the Department of Magical Creatures.”

“Yes. We're hoping to bring it to vote in the next month or so.”

“Do you have any idea as to the parties who might wish to influence this sort of vote?”

“I have a few ideas, naturally. It is my job to understand who might benefit from this.”

There is a further pause. 

“I would hope, Hermione, that you might share those.” 

Hermone blinks. 

“Why? Will you refuse the gift?”

“No,” he admits after a moment. “No. The support would be…useful, of course. We are always in need of resources.”

“I would think, Kingsley, that finding out who donated the money might actually make it harder for me to remain impartial. If I knew who had done so I might be tempted to appease them, or make concessions to their point of view.” 

“I see.” 

“I can assure you, that if we were lucky enough to receive any sort of funding, it would merely go to expanding our team in order to make the best case possible for the magical creatures we are focused on protecting. I know that my previous requests to do so have been denied - last time I was told that central budget just ‘can’t support this sort of this.’” 

Kingsley steeples his hands over the desk.

“I’m going to be frank with you, Hermione. We are concerned this funding comes from a fringe group of creatures, who are looking to extort our government workers.”

Hermione blinks. 

“I haven’t heard of any such groups.”

“No, but -”

“Is there any evidence that these groups exist?”

“Well, there are murmurings -”

“Then I think the more pertinent question is why have they not been brought to my attention? Surely if the auror department is expressly concerned with such a thing, I should have been informed of this before now?”

“Naturally, in an organisation this size -”

“We are running out of time to pass this legislation. I have been working for the past six years, with creatures, to try and put together something that will be the first step in meeting their needs. I hardly want to use this little chat as a moment to highlight the failings of the Ministry and the Wizengamot and the shortfalls of the justice system so far, not least because the thousands who fought on our side during the war are still disenfranchised, but if I were to take this hesitancy around release of the funding in tandem with the time it has taken to get to this point in the first place, I might be tempted to suggest that the Ministry itself is actively against creatures gaining legal recognition.” 

The silence deepens, becomes less friendly. Hermione holds Kingsley’s stare passively. He sighs. 

“Very well. I will approve the funds.”

“Should I expect a meeting with the aurors to be put into my calendar?”

He hesitates a moment longer. 

“I don’t believe it will be necessary.” 

Hermione forces herself to keep a straight face.

“Then I thank you for your time, Minister. Have a good day.” As she returns to her desk, Hermione wonders exactly just how much money Draco has pledged. And why only her profligacy is the one under scrutiny here. She rolls her eyes at him, even though he’s not there. After the weekend she is still floating too high on the forbidden truth of how she feels about him to be actually angry. And then she gets back to work.

Chapter Text

Hermione had dressed carefully that morning on purpose, leaving Draco to raise an eyebrow when she emerged, in what she considered her most casual embellished robes. 

“Have a good day,” he had murmured, briefly taking her in. She smiled, he had smiled, they’d ended up against the wall in the floo parlour, both desperately trying to make the other break first, both failing in that but succeeding in other, more physical releases. She could still feel his come sliding down her thigh when she had arrived, and Percy’s five minutes late had given her just enough time to fix her hair. 

When Mr Greengrass is shown into her office, Hermione is grateful that she had decided to play the game, and dress like the perfect pureblood wife. 

“Mr Greengrass.”

“Miss Granger.”

“Malfoy,” she corrects, and he just looks her up and down. No matter, she doesn’t need him to like her. “But call me Hermione.”

“Hmm.” 

The high neck of the robes is uncomfortable, a useful thing to focus on, to stop her from getting too frustrated. 

“Please, take a seat.”

She had contemplated setting out lunch, but then decided against it. She doesn’t want him to be comfortable, after all. She wants him to agree to her demands. 

Mr Aloysius Greengrass sits, as contemptuously as that action can be performed. He does not want to be there, that much is clear, and considers being in her office beneath him. His robes have a light pinstripe, his waistcoat - an item of clothing Hermione has always rather disliked after her brief infatuation with Lockhart disabused her of anything similar - dressed with a gold chain, his cravat tied rather nattily, a diamond pin holding it together. He, like his daughters, is thin and tall. He has a large nose, a receding hairline, a nasty turn to his mouth that Astoria inherited, and his hands rest on the tip of a cane, twitching, ever so slightly. 

“I’m going to do you a favour,” she tells him, cutting to the chase. He snorts. 

“Are you, now.”

“Yes,” she smiles, and wonders how long it will take him for the penny to drop. Draco clearly doesn’t think he’s particularly intelligent, so she makes a bet with herself that he is going to need the full thirty minutes. She hopes she’s wrong. 

“And why would you do that,” he says, bored. “What could I possibly want to do with you?”

“Not me, necessarily,” she continues. “But if you want to ensure the continuation of your family’s fortune, I highly suggest you take the course of action I am offering. It would be in both our interests for that to happen.”

Greengrass doesn’t laugh, but he does sneer. A laugh, after all, would probably be too good for her. 

“I had the pleasure of spending time with your daughters the other week.”

“I saw.”

“Yes,” Hermione genuinely smiles, grateful for how naturally he is setting her up for this. “I am sure you did. It was them who ensured that, after all. After they paid a photographer to take and then publish extraordinarily unflattering photos of myself.”

His eyebrow raises. 

“Oh, what a shame,” he intones. 

“It is rather a shame,” she continues, making a little pout. “You know my husband, naturally. His background. You know how possessive he is. How he can be…unstable, at times. Well, he was rather upset when he found out who had done such a thing to hurt me.” 

Aloysius starts to freeze, in place. Hermione’s smile becomes reptilian. 

“I am so glad you are starting to understand. Draco was furious. He came to me with your financial information on a platter, and was rather keen to ruin you beyond all comprehension.”

“He can’t.”

“He, and I am sorry to say this, can. And will, actually. He is very, very keen to see you suffer.”

Aloycius does not move, but he does turn various shades of puce. Takes a deep breath. Stares at her.

“Why are you telling me?”

Not so stupid, after all, Hermione thinks. That did not take nearly as long as she thought it would.

“I’ve spent the last six years working on a legislation for creatures who work for wizards to be paid at least a minimum wage. It will go far to acknowledging creatures as being groups of individuals that are firstly recognised by wizarding law, and secondly protected by it. My husband is a fan of the Bill. He intends to use the influx of cheap labour on the market to expand Wizarding London. He will benefit from significant tax breaks because of this. He will own all the buildings in this new area of town. He will rent to them, build a bank to take their money, and loan this money back to them with enormous, predatory interest rates, and because the goblins refuse to work with anyone but other goblins, the other creatures will have no choice but to use it. He will sell the promise of a glittering, new future, and he will own all of it. Do you, Mr Greengrass, think that sounds fair?”

“I don’t - you’re trying to stop him?!”

“He will end up exploiting creatures as they are in a vulnerable economic state. I intend to stop that from happening.”

“So - what? I don’t understand why you need me.”

“Someone, someone from a Pureblood family, with a vested interests in the financial outcomes of this, needs to stand up and point out that this is unfair. That it is anti-competitive. Do you think only one person should benefit from the new workforce that is about to have significant money to spend?”

She watches the man opposite her think. 

“No,” he says, slowly. “I don’t.”

“Good,” Hermione beams. “Then we understand each other. I need someone to bring a faction of powerful individuals to hold up the legislation so we can rewrite it not in Draco’s favour, and you need to avoid financial ruin at the hands of my husband.”

“He’ll want to ruin me even more,” Aloysius splutters. 

“Probably,” Hermione agrees. “But he won’t.”

“I - you can’t possibly -”

“He won’t, Mr Greengrass. You have my word.”

“Why,” he asks. 

“Because I won’t want him to,” she blinks at him. Aloysius scoffs. 

“So ask him to stop your legislation -”

“He won’t do that,” she sighs, drumming her fingers on the desk. “It’s annoying, of course. He thinks he’s doing this for the common good, which is wrong, but in his mind I’m the one who doesn’t understand. I can stop him from ruining you, but I can’t stop him from pushing thousands of creatures into debt. Typical wizard logic.” 

Aloysius gapes and splutters and asks more questions, but she knows she has won. He will help her, just as she planned. 

Draco can think whatever he wants. He can try and use her legislation to benefit him, he can fund the expansion of their department, he can believe he’s going to win. But Hermione is going to bring an army of angry, money hungry purebloods to stop him, and she is going to enjoy every single moment. 

Being powerful, Hermione muses as she returns home, late that night, is much better than crying all the time.

Chapter Text

“Hermione,” Draco sounds displeased as he enters the library, invitation in hand. “Why are we going to a ball?” 

“Hmm?”

“A ball,” he says, moving between closer to her desk. “And the whole point of ordering these was to fill the library shelves, not make some sort of godforsaken obstacle course.”

“How else will I keep you away,” she smiles to herself, because she doesn’t want him kept away at all, even as she can’t wait to ruin all his plans. Draco manages to reach the side of her desk amidst the multiple stacks she has not yet organised. She finally tears her attention away from the book she is reading and stares up at him, chin in hand, blinking. He is in muggle suiting again, it’s late - he must have only just gotten back. Her stomach rumbles, she was waiting for him for dinner. 

“I hate balls.”

“I think we need to go to this one.” 

Draco rolls his eyes, then leans on her desk. “I suppose it's tied into your poorly considered revenge plan.”

“No,” she argues. “It’s part of my extremely compelling revenge plan, which will succeed in making you very cross, and a lot of creatures very protected.”

“They are being protected -”

“Your desire for profits is making your approach extremely limited in scope,” she tells him. “You’re blinkered, Draco. Admit you are, and you won’t do this, and then we’ll be fine.”

“But I’ve already invested so much,” he says, silkily, which succeeds in making her pout. He trails a finger alongside the side of the desk. She ignores it. 

“Sunk cost,” she tells him sharply. 

“Lessons with Percy going well?”

“Mhm.”

“You’re being a good student,” he asks, with an arched eyebrow.
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Exactly,” he says, eyes flashing, and her lips part a little bit. “I’d love to quiz you. Let me know any time you need help with your revision.”

“I don’t think we’d be very productive,” she counters, annoyingly breathless in the face of this onslaught. She presses her legs together, and he smirks. 

“I disagree,” he says, because of course he does. “I think we’d be extremely productive.”

“I’m trying to work now,” she points out.

“I thought you were hungry. And I am trying to convince you to not go to a ball with me.”

Hermione sighs, and gives up for the night. 

“I am hungry. You don’t have to come to the ball with me.”

“And miss an opportunity to watch you bully some poor, idiotic pureblood? While wearing something jawdropping? Whyever would I do that?”

“So why are you complaining?”

“There are going to be so many people -”

“Let’s talk about that,” she says, quickly. And then he rolls his eyes again, pushes himself off the desk. 

“Let’s have dinner.”

“Draco.”

“Hermione.”

“Stop ignoring this.”

“What do you think I am ignoring?”

He’s infuriating, wrong, ignorant, making countless mistakes with all kinds of things she cares deeply about. And yet every time he lowers his voice, or comes close to her, or makes any sort of allusion to the fact that both of them have probably stopped pretending, she wants to die, melt, fall apart in front of him. 

“Your aversion to groups of people.”

“Groups of people have not, historically, been very good for me.”

She gives him a pointed look, he gives her one right back. She knows it's only a matter of time before he starts distracting her, with food or orgasms or something else, and so she tries to make the most of it. 

“I just think we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how crazy I am being,” she murmurs, moving closer to him, looking up at him and having the satisfaction of watching him inhale, slightly. “And you are equally to blame.”

“I’m not crazy,” he lies.
“Sure, Draco,” she says, smirking. “You’re not crazy at all.”

An arm snakes around her waist, pulling her closer to him. 

“If I am, it's your fault,” he says, kissing her slowly, languidly, unhurriedly. Her pulse leaps under the attention, she allows the day to slip off her shoulders, she allows him to push her jacket from them, to run his hands all over her shirt, to feel her body all pressed up against him, to revel in the fact that he wants her as much as she wants him. He does, right? 

“How is it my fault,” she gasps, moans slightly. His hands have been making short work of her skirt, pulling it up, smoothing over the globes of her arse, testing the lace edge of her knickers. 

“You,” he says, breaking off in between kisses to her neck, laving the sensitive skin under her ear with his tongue. “Are. Driving me mad.”

“The feeling is mutual,” which is the closest she will confess to wanting him. She tells herself it is probably okay to want him. Then she tries to push him off her. “But I’m not letting you seduce me on my desk.”

“Spoilsport.”

“You’ll do something devious. Break into my drawers and steal my plans.”

“There’s only one set of drawers I’m interested in breaking into -”

She laughs, despite herself. 

“I’m serious. You don’t even want to know what kind of hexes I've put on them. I’ll end up spending the whole night with you in St Mungo's.”

“Sounds like a date,” he replies, and she rolls her eyes. Then her stomach rumbles, and he is distracted, smoothing his hands over the band of her skirt, gripping her hips firmly. “You need to eat.”

“What’s for dinner?”

“A wide variety of leftovers. Sushi. Steak. Some of that pasta you like. Various salad-y bits. We can have a picnic.” 

“Sure,” she agrees easily, and he smiles at her and she smiles back and somehow this is much more than liking. It’s domestic and warm and comforting, and she tries not to let her fear of it show on her face. 

She does freeze, though. When they go downstairs and he pulls her outside and then she sees he has already set one up, with rugs and overlarge pillows and candles, and then the slow tinkling of classical music - an enchanted harp is right there next to them, played by no one so they will not be disturbed, a bottle of champagne on ice, crystal glasses floating and ready, flowers all around. She freezes. 

“What -”

“Happy two month anniversary darling,” he murmurs, against her neck, kissing it again. His arms encircle her, her heart feels like it might fall out of her chest, she doesn’t - she can’t. 

What is this, what is this, what is this? It echoes around her brain, he must surely be able to hear it, yet he is oblivious and waving his wand so the champagne uncorks and pours itself. 

“I forgot,” she squeaks, because she has to pretend that it's not panic at this or him that has her drowning. “Is - anyone coming?” 

He plucks a glass out of the air, handing it to her. 

“No,” he says, after a minute. “I thought it would be nice, just for us.” 

The same flowers from their wedding, she notes. She wonders how he got hold of those in July. His voice is stressed, she can’t look at him, he can’t look at her either, she can tell by the way he’s standing that he is facing away from her. A confession, of sorts. If you were happy with reading between the lines, if you were cowardly and hoping and hiding your soul from the person who might just carry it. 

“That is nice,” she manages to say. “Thank you. You still have to come to the ball, by the way.” She says it to break the tension between them and it works, and they eat and tease each other in a less serious way for the rest of the evening, managing to both say nothing and everything all at once. He does succeed in seducing her, though she succeeds in getting him to agree to come with her and not complain, so really who is winning, here? Both? Neither of them? Hermione has her skirt pushed up and her knickers pulled off, she needs to buy more because he keeps pocketing hers and holding them ransom. And then he’s on top of her and they knock over the champagne bucket but neither of them notice their lawn be watered by the Dom Perignon, not when he’s pushing inside her and she’s holding him with her thighs, and there is a gentleness to it even as he grips her hair and tugs her neck back. Afterwards she lies sprawled across him, both of them naked in the garden, and she feels him play with an errant curl as the city moves on around them, it is far too late to be lingering when they both have work tomorrow. She doesn’t want to go in, though. She wants to be lingering ill-advisedly, forever. 

“It’s your turn to carry me to bed,” he murmurs sleepily, which makes her laugh again. 

“You’re too heavy.”

“Are you a witch or not?”

“Do you really want to be bumped into the staircase? Besides, you could just apparrate.”

“You could apparrate both of us,” he says, holding her tighter. She thinks of the first time they kissed, she wonders if he had wanted her before then. She wonders, for the first time, if Draco has been telling the truth about his motivations. Her stomach tightens again, she nuzzles into him, she wishes it was always this simple and easy. 

“Hold on then,” she murmurs, and they squeeze away, just upstairs. They get ready for bed. Hermione wonders why Draco always carries her up, why she feels like this, why she wants to be with him in the first place, whether or not he knows. 

Chapter Text

Pansy arrives armed with a stack of images, which she slaps onto Hermione’s desk. 

“Pick one,” she says. “We don’t have much time so you need to decide quickly.”

“What -”

“And don’t ask too many questions,” Pansy says. “You don’t want to know the answers.” 

Hermione stares at Pansy, who has a single hair out of place. 

“You seem frazzled,” Hermione says. Pansy pulls a face.

“Frazzled? Frazzled, Granger? Of course I’m frazzled. I’m trying to secure couture. Couture! And these muggles don’t know who I am! I’m having to schmooze! I can’t bear it! Now, pick one and then we can discuss hair, makeup and jewellery. I know Draco has some vault options that would go beautifully. Hurry up.” 

Hermione does as she is told, flicking through the images. 

“Gosh,” she sighs, overwhelmed. “It’s so hard.”

Pansy is clearly losing patience. “Well, you have to. I’m thinking we can lengthen the train of this one - make it appear more traditional. That is what you want, yes?”

“A mix between the two,” Hermione nods. “Will there be photographers?”

“Outside.”

“Lovely,” she sighs over another, jeweled encrusted, more beautiful than she could ever think up. 

“And Daphne and Astoria are definitely confirmed. As are their parents.”

“Good,” Hermione says, smiling. 

“Do I need to know -”

“I’m just going to have a conversation, Pansy. I already spoke with Aloysius."

“And?”

“Receptive,” she says lightly. Pansy sighs. 

“Don’t pick that one,” she says, over her shoulder. “I think you can do better.”

“So why is it -”

“I wasn’t sure,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But now I’m looking at it again, I am. You should go for the Saab or the Murad. What do you want to say - revenge from the Gryffindor gold girl, or innocence in the face of evil scrutiny?”

“I - “ Hermione is stumped. “I don’t know. No - revenge. Actually - innocence.”

Hermione considers the two images - one red, heavily beaded, reaching up across her bodice, definitely a bit sexier than she had anticipated. The other is the opposite, lace, bridal, almost. Would that be too on the nose? “What about this one?” She points to another image in the collection.

Pansy looks, sighs. “Ugh. You really have no taste, Granger,” she says. “That’s the problem with all this new money. No taste.”

She leaves in a whirl of robes and expensive perfume, and both Hermione and Tilly are slightly shellshocked afterwards. 

She walks again to therapy the following day, wonders whether or not Dr Edwards will express admiration and surprise at Hermione’s sudden victory over her tears, declare her the best patient who has ever crossed their threshold, and announce her immediately healed. 

It does not happen quite like that, naturally. Hermione spends the first fifteen minutes outlining what has happened so far: her discovery that she was being given an allowance and was not party to most of the Malfoy fortune despite their agreement, the fact that she was finally feeling excited about work again, that she really could see a way to make a difference, the way she was going to fight her husband and family friend and save these creatures before they needed saving. Preventative, now that she knows about money a bit more it all seems so simple. 

Dr Edwards listens and smiles and then kindly asks Hermione; why does she think she feels so galvanised about helping others, but when she was in trouble she wasn’t able to help herself? 

Hermione is stumped by the question, stutters out an answer.

“Because - you should - it’s different.”

“What is different about it?”

“Well, it’s more important,” Hermione says, flinching. 

“Ah. It certainly is important, and I think your plans are well thought out and will help many people. I don't want to dissuade you from pursuing them. But I do want to know about you, Hermione. This is therapy for you. Why did it feel too much to help yourself?”

More tears, which Hermione resents. She leaves in a bad mood, Sam is there again. 

“Go away,” she tells him, and Sam looks visibly startled. As visibly startled as he tends to look, that is. “Sorry,” she corrects. “I’m fine. I’m going to walk home.”

“Please - Mrs Malfoy -”

“I really don’t need Draco to micromanage me,” she snaps. “I’m walking home.”

“To Hampstead?!”

Hermione sighs, looks up at the sky. It looks dark and nasty and probably will rain, and she’s angry again at her stupid husband because he’s right. 

“Fine.” 

She hopes he’s not there when she gets back, and when he isn’t she’s annoyed. It’s dark, starting to rain. Hermione sits on the stairs because she feels at sea again, which she wasn’t supposed to feel like. She was supposed to win, now! But her conversation has thrown up things she wasn’t expecting to feel, and now it all feels too - too much, all over again. Couture gowns, attending balls, this enormous house which isn’t even hers, really. 

She hears the rush of the floo, then the yowl of the cat. Draco is surprised to see her, she is surprised to have spent the last however many hours just sitting on the stairs, doing nothing. Nothing! When she has so much to do! It is probably his fault. 

“What’s wrong,” he says, coming towards her, as though he has always done this, as though they are in some sort of relationship. 

“Nothing,” she lies, and she’s angry and trying not to cry again. Draco pauses. 

“Did you have your appointment?”

“Stop sending Sam to babysit me!” 

“I - what? Hermione -”

“Leave me alone!”

“What happened? What’s gone wrong? Is it the papers? Someone at work? Who is it?”

“I hate you,” she cries harder. Draco ignores her, this time. Sits underneath her, and places his head into her lap. “Don’t laugh at me.”

“I wouldn’t,” he lies. 

“I can feel you laughing.”

“So therapy was hard.”

“I’m going to have a bath.”

She stands, tries to leave, his hand locks around her ankle again and he slides a finger underneath her trouser. “Let me come with you.”

If there were boundaries before they’ve disintegrated now. 

“Why,” she asks. She is so startled she stops crying, flinches away from how embarrassingly childish her behaviour has been, at how easily just his presence seems to calm her.  

“I haven’t seen you all day,” Draco replies, frowning. Why is he confused? “Let’s hang out.”

“In the bath?”

“I love baths.”

Hermione blinks at him, unsure why this new piece of information is confusing, but it is. 

“Do you?”

”Of course,” he murmurs, getting up off the stairs, letting his hands run over her as he stands. “Don’t you?”

”It's been too hot.”

“Cooler today. Come. Let me run us a bath.” 

He runs them a bath. The bath, naturally, being big enough for two, almost swimming pool sized. He undresses her as she stands there, letting his hands skate over her body, letting them linger as he pulls off her shirt, brushing over her nipples, running down her arms, and she lets him pet her, lets him scoop up her mass of her, smiles at him as he frowns, unsure how to tie it up. 

“Is there a spell for this?” he asks, scooping and mushing it into a ball on top of her head. 

“Well, sometimes I use my wand to hold it in place. Here.” 

She shows him, he watches, entranced. 

“Show me again. The twisty thing.” 

“It’s just a stick, Draco. Come on. I want to get in.”

”Again,” he pouts, so she does, and then he pulls her against him, naked and pressing against his front, but it's not sexual. Well, he’s hard, he’s always hard around her these days, but there is a playfulness to it, and innocence that she finds oddly endearing, so she has to hide from him amongst the steam. 

She ends up between his legs, submerged in warm, jasmine scented water. The oil Draco uses leaves a slight foam, which he is lathering all over her skin, smoothing it over her upper chest, her neck, the tops of her arms. 

The sadness is being massaged out of her, but in its place new thoughts are spilling in. They are naked, having a bath. There is surely nothing fake about this, but she isn't sure when they made this transition. The yacht? Can she ask? She should ask. She is fairly sure, after all, that he has some feelings for her. Why wouldn’t he, if he is so keen to do this, if the times they have been intimate together recently are more private than public. 

“What are you thinking about,” he asks into her ear. Hermione tenses immediately. 

“Nothing.”

“I highly doubt that.” His voice is warm and she knows he is smiling. “I feel like I can hear your brain.”

She should just ask. 

“I can’t decide what to wear to the ball.” 

He presses a kiss to her neck. “You’ll look beautiful, no matter what.” 

Does she need to ask? What if he asked her - what would she say? Yes, I like you? Is that it? It doesn’t have to be serious. I mean, they are married but only for a year, so maybe they could…date? Is that what she wants? Does she want to date him? 

“I need to choose so we can pick out jewellery, apparently.” 

“I’ll come with you,” he says. “I love watching the goblins get angry at someone other than me. Makes for a nice change.” 

She snorts, and then they turn to other things, mainly relating to Draco’s goblin relationships and Merjak’s role in the company. The answers are cagey because she is, as he points out, the enemy right now, and they bathe and float until the water grows cold and their fingertips prune, and Hermione thinks she doesn’t need to know what they ‘are’ if she can just have this.

Chapter Text

He meets her in the foyer of Gringotts, people turn to watch them kiss as he brings her into his arms. She is fairly sure someone takes a photo, decides she doesn’t care, reaches on her tiptoes to kiss him again. 

“Good day?”

“It was fine,” she says mildly. Her and Tilly hired three people, their team now fully equipped to take on Malfoy Capital Llc, and they’ve been consumed with liaising with the old guard, as she has taken to thinking of them. And now she gets to go to her husband's vault, and try on tiaras. Hermione smiles. “It was good,” she amends. He smiles back. God, she thinks, as they make their way over. Her hand snakes under his robes, looping into the waistband of his trousers, his over her shoulder. 

“Let me take your bag,” he murmurs. She lets him, and wishes it could be this easy all the time. 

They are both blindfolded earlier than they need to be to their amusement, and she sits happily in between his arms, leaning against him, easy in the weight he offers her. And then they are in the vault again, together, that same floating mirror back, as she describes in vague terms the dress and he tries to help her decide. 

“I don’t know if I need a tiara,” she says, as they both hover in front of the cabinet. “It might be okay with just a necklace. I don’t know. I can’t remember what Pansy advised.” 

Draco snorts. “What do you want?”

She considers the tiaras, the weight of them. 

“I’ve got gloves, and a cape thing. And the dress has a low neck…” she trails off, biting her lip. “It might be too much.” 

Draco frowns. “Impossible.” 

She tries not to just stand and stare at him, smiling. But he’s so handsome in the flickering light and now she has admitted to herself that she likes him, that she wants him, it seems so ridiculous to resist. The fact that she’s actively working against him seems only to heighten her desire, to remind her that this is what she was missing - someone to push back against. Someone to fight. He seems to know what she is thinking, or part of it, because his lip quirks to one side. 

“What do you want, Hermione,” he asks again, his voice sliding lower, as though they don’t wish to be overheard. The fact that they are so clearly alone only helps to twist the knotting in her stomach tighter. 

“I -” she wets her lips, runs her hands along the lapels of his suit and tugs him in towards her. Their kiss is slow but not gentle, she worries his bottom lip between her teeth as he gusts out his want into her mouth, groaning against her, letting her set the pace. When she slides her hands underneath his jacket to greedily feel his body, he moans. “I don’t want to wear a tiara,” she admits against him, and he pulls back, laughing. 

“You don’t have to - seduce me in order to admit that,” he says. They’re still in each other's arms, she’s still close enough to feel how hard he is, awkwardly so down the leg of his trouser, not awkward at all as he twists a tendril of her hair easily back. There was a pause, a small one, before he called it seduction. She wonders if he is nervous at applying those words to what they are and what they do, wonders if she ought to consider her vocabulary with as much care. 

“That’s just for fun,” she says lightly, though she, too, stumbles over it slightly. It is safer between them when they extract themselves from their hold, a little unwillingly, their fingers still catching on edges of clothing where they can. Hermione turns back to the tiara cabinet, and waves a hand so that it closes. 

“I’m wearing - it’s pale. Pink. So maybe something diamond? Or pink? I don’t know. For a necklace, I mean.” 

“I don’t know Hermione,” he rolls his eyes as he adjusts himself, completely unbothered by her witnessing the effect she has on him. “Do you honestly think I’d know about pink diamonds or whatever?”

She can’t help it, she laughs. “You know about a lot of fancy things.”

“Consider my appreciation of my family jewellery limited in scope, then,” he says drily. “Come on. Let’s go and dig around.” 

There are obviously cases full of things, though many she disregards instantly, beautiful though they are. There is too much gold, an awful lot of dark, deep emeralds that make her nervous just to look at, and would entirely overwhelm the delicate colour of the dress. And much of the silver, or white gold, or platinum is genuinely old fashioned in style. Hermione can’t help but feel like a spoiled princess as she turns priceless object after priceless object away. 

“Not that one,” she says more than yes. “Too heavy. Too gold. Too…much. Too old fashioned. Draco,” she says exasperated after a bit. “Are you listening at all to the dress description? It has to be white gold, diamond, with pale stones. Delicate. It’s a delicate dress, with a relatively low neckline. Okay?” 

He laughs again, delights in her assertiveness. “Right,” he says, nodding, apologetic, grinning. She is trying not to laugh in the face of his giddiness. “Whatever you say.”

“Stop laughing,” she says, now laughing herself. “And listen!”

“Sorry. I heard low neckline and just forgot everything e-”

A pillow she conjured hits him in the face and he laughs even harder, and she is just about to devolve into a full attack against him when something glints out of the corner of her eye. 

“Oh! What’s that!” 

Draco, dutifully, levitates it over to her, and when Hermione catches it out of the air, she knows it is the one. 

She loosens her shirt to try it on, anticipating eagerly the feeling of the cold metal against her flushed skin this time. Two graceful wings of diamonds, delicate and perfectly symmetrical sweep out from a central stone. Unlike most of the other vault objects it is not large, but the way the diamonds reflect the light hint at the skill involved in its creation. The central stone also, not diamond but something perfect and pale and green. Almost translucent, but exactly in line with the shade of pink on her dress, exactly enough to show that she might be the innocent bride, but she’s also a Malfoy, now. And beyond that, before that, underneath that always, she is Hermione Granger. 

She tries it on as Draco picks his way towards her, conjuring up that mirror again so that she might see the way the necklace throws light up onto her face, illuminating her. Just like magic. 

“Stunning,” he murmurs as he reaches her. “Stunning,” he says again, as though once was not enough. She, for the first time, agrees. It is the only word that could do justice to the piece. 

“Thank you,” she says, because she knows he does not care about the necklace. 

“What about these, for your ears?” 

He pulls them out of his jacket pocket with a small flourish, and she gasps at the surprise, even though it is silly, really. She is about to walk out of here with a king’s ransom worth of jewellery, but the ones he found are the most special. 

“Where were they hiding,” she asks, as he opens the box for her. Two cascading flowers sit against midnight blue velvet. 

“In the shops,” he says, his voice playful even if she can tell by the set of his shoulders that he is nervous. “I went for a walk at lunch. Saw them.” 

“You - oh.” She thought that he had found them in the vault, her throat works against the rising emotion. “Thank you,” she says instead. She puts them on, he helps her move her hair back she they might see, together. Him standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders, helping her stand as tall as she can. 

“I love watching you in here,” he says offhand, and she blushes, swoons, tries to hide how happy that small comment makes her. 

“Why,” she asks. 

“You wear jewellery very well. It never overwhelms you,” his hand traces the line of her neck. “You have such a beautiful neck, too.”

She swallows to stop the goofy grin emerge. “What would you have done if I picked a necklace that didn’t go with the earrings,” she asks to distract herself, and he laughs easily. 

“I thought diamonds go with everything. Shows what I know,” he says, smirking, glancing around at the mess they have made. Hermione sighs. 

“Sorry -”

“Don’t apologise,” he says, hands continuing to stroke her shoulders. “Not for going after what you want.” 

She meets his eyes in the reflection, smirks slightly. He’s watching her, still, staring at the lines of her throat, she wonders if he remembers the last time they were in here, how badly she wanted him to touch her, how confused she was that he didn’t. His fingers seem to itch to close around her, to hold her like that. 

She reaches behind her, grasping whatever fabric she can, pulling his body flush against hers. He inhales, she feels it, and then he bends to kiss the edge of her jaw, holding her gaze in the mirror. His eyes are liquid, his gaze flowing over her, she feels it in her stomach, the wash of wanting. Hermione reaches into his pocket, finding his wand, and holding it she vanishes her top. 

His lips part as he takes her in. 

“I want you to make me come.” 

His eyelids drop, he’s still staring at her, taking her in. Half-lidded, desire making him remote, he nods. “How?”

“Touch me. I want to watch you make me come.” 

“I want to taste you.”

She shakes her head. “Later. I want you to touch me right now. Because the first time we were in here, I wanted that so badly.” She feels his breath skitter over her naked shoulders in response, as he runs his hand down the centre of her stomach lightly, as she tries not to writhe against him and fails, seeking friction badly. She knows she will not take long, lets her head drop back against his shoulder, both of them still staring at each other in the reflection. 

“I thought you hated me, then,” he tells her, then ‘then’ an addition she can digest later. 

“I don’t think it mattered,” she admits to him. “I just remember standing here, draped in all your jewels -” his hand reaches her waistband, dips beneath it and starts teasing her over her knickers, light soft strokes that are both not nearly enough and almost overwhelming, “and all I wanted was for you to feel how wet I was.” 

“How wet were you,” he asks, his voice guttural.

“Feel,” she says, and he dips underneath the gusset of her knickers, both of them openmouthed and moaning as one, as his finger slides up inside her easily. She’s soaked, so much so that they can hear it. “I was this wet.” 

“I love this,” he says, starting to flex inside her. “You feel so fucking good, makes me think of how wet and tight you are around my cock,”

“Put your thumb on my clit,” she tells him, adjusting so he can get the angle right. His other arm brackets around her waist, taking her weight almost entirely. “Yes - right there.”

“There? Does that feel good?”

“So good,” she says, lids fluttering as she starts to grind against him. “So - fuck Draco.”

“How do my fingers feel?”

“Not as good as your cock,” she admits, which makes him jerk against her. 

“Yeah? Do you miss it?”

“Yeah,” she admits. “I miss it all the time. I love feel you stretch me open -”

“Hermione,” he laughs. “You’ll make me come grinding against you.”

“Is that bad,” she asks, grinning. 

“I’d rather come in you. On you,” he mutters, biting her ear. “I think about coming all over you sometimes.”

This is new, not something he has voiced before, and Hermione thrills at it. Realises she likes the idea of it, the desire.

“Make me come and you can, all over my tits. All over this necklace which I'm going to wear.”

Draco groans, applies more pressure against her but otherwise holding his hand still, letting her set the pace and the movement, letting her grind against him until she feels it, the unravelling about to take her over, the release which she so desperately needs. 

“I can’t wait to watch you, to watch you walk in that room with a necklace that’s been covered in my come, to know that no one knows except me and you that you’re covered in diamonds and -”

She comes, loudly, her cries echoing off the precious metals covering every surface of the vault. Her orgasm lasts and lasts, his hands eking out every last drop of leg-trembling pleasure from her. Finally, she manages to make eye contact with him again, his flashing with desire, his jaw slack as he watches her. 

“God,” she says, softly. She turns in his arms, extricating herself from his grip. “I want you to do it,” she tells him as she ignores the mirror, turns to face him properly, then drops to her knees. “Come all over me.” 

“Fuck,” he says, as they both scrabble at his trousers, yanking them open. He pulls his cock out, hard and turgid and bigger from this angle, she notices appreciatively. She wonders if she should suck it, thinks eagerly that she should taste him, but he’s already tugging on it hard, aiming at her, and she knows he won’t last long. 

“Touch your tits,” he begs. “Please. Play with -” he breaks off as she reaches up to trace her oversensitive nipples, offering them up to him, and that’s all it takes. 

He comes, splattering her and the necklace with ropes of the stuff, thick and glistening and satisfying, hot against her skin. Her eyes close and mouth opens automatically as she gasps, and then as she reopens them he’s still groaning, staring at her. 

They take a moment, both of them, coming back down to earth. And then she smiles, and he smiles, and it is the most normal thing in the world that they desecrated his family vault. They joke about not knowing a spell to remove his come from the diamonds, and so Hermione just wipes the necklace with a spare scrap of velvet. She wears the earrings out, and Draco announces he’s starving, and they go for dinner, arm in arm.

Chapter Text

“Oh my god. Harry, we might be able to make it later - is there any way that -”

“No, don’t worry about it.”

“I really -”

“I get it, Hermione.”

“Sorry. It’s just - I really need to go to this event. We could swing by after? We probably won’t be too late?”

“Well, see how it goes. You know the Weasley’s, we’ll most likely still be going.” 

Hermione cannot believe she is going to miss her friend’s surprise engagement party. It is probably fine, after all, and Ginny will understand she’s sure but also… 

She’s still chewing her lip when she emerges from their floo call, a frown crumpling the skin between her eyebrows. She really can’t put this off much longer after all, she really can’t miss this party. And Pansy would kill her if she backed out of the dress. 

“What is it,” Draco asks, silently gliding into the room and kissing her frown away. Her heart stutters a bit at his easy proximity. 

“Oh - Harry is going to propose! He wanted us to come tonight - but we’ve got this thing.” she sighs, Draco smoothes her shoulders which are inching up towards her ears. 

“Why don’t you send some flowers - where are they doing it?”

“Restaurant. He’s going to take her on a flight or something and then propose, then bring her back and have family, friends, that sort of thing.” 

“Send flowers, and then put some money behind the bar.”

“Do you think?”

“He could have asked you with a bit more notice,” Draco points out, and Hermione nods, still chewing her lip. 

“That’s what I thought.” 

“I’ll call the florist.” 

Draco calls the florist, as Hermione anxiously twists a curl round her finger. He interrupts her to ask what she wants on the card, and when she says ‘Huge congratulations, we couldn’t be happier for you. Love, Hermione and Draco,’ he pauses. 

“Is that okay? Do you think I should add a line to say sorry we can’t be there?”

“No. Just - you want them to be from both of us?” 

Hermione just blinks at him. She can feel the blush rise in her face and wish it wasn’t. “Yeah. Sure. It was your idea.” She manages to say it casually enough, and he then shrugs, and relays the message over the phone and the two of them turn away from each other. 

She has to just ask him, she tells herself. It’s getting bad now, she knows that. It will happen out of the blue, the sudden small moments that are all too easy to go along with but then reveal so much of herself, the ones that make her panic in how much they do reveal, the agonising waiting for him to bring it up, or to reject her, or to say something, anything about the fact that they might not just act like a couple in love. 

It’s insane, she muses privately to herself. This is an insane way to live. 

“I’m going to the office,” she murmurs. Draco waves her off, not quite catching her eye again.  

The dress is waiting for her in the wardrobe, her hair and makeup has been done. Hermione puts it on like she is donning armour, though the entire effect is soft. Petal-like, she is wrapped in yards of silk chiffon, all of it floating almost away from her body, almost enchanted itself. Strips trail down behind her in an approximation of a more traditional robe, and then she places the diamond collar on, her heart hammering as she hooks the earrings in, the blush at the remembrance of what they did in them completing the look. 

She inhales through her nose the entire time, practicing the breathing techniques her therapist has suggested for when she gets overwhelmed. It’s nearly time for her revenge, nearly time to move onto the next stage of her plan. She isn’t stupid - she knows Aloysius is probably going to out her to Draco, tonight. And so she has a limited amount of time to get revenge on the girls, cover her tracks, and hope that Draco is angry in a ‘I want to rip your clothes off’ way, and not a ‘I am going to divorce you’ way. 

She can’t stop thinking like that, pretending that it’s real. More nose breaths are taken. 

It hasn’t been much time since she first descended those stairs to find him waiting at the bottom, since she first realised that she wanted him. Everything is different now. He smiles at her, then laughs and shakes his head. 

“You look -” he trails off, as she reaches him. He inhales, as though he’s trying to breathe her in, as though he’s trying to remember this. He kisses her. “You look perfect.” 

“Too much?”

“No such thing.” 

He kisses her again. His hand comes up to hold her against him, she tries to pull away and is chased by more kisses. 

“If we go early we can make Harry and Ginny’s anyway,” she says against his lips, and he sighs, making it very clear that the last thing he wants to do is go to one party that night, let alone two. His hands roam over her appreciatively, she enjoys that the fabric is thin enough she can feel the heat of them through it. 

He finally stops, his eyes travelling directly to the necklace, and he groans. “I wish we never -”

“Oh?”

He shakes his head, kisses her just above it. “I’m never going to survive seeing you there, in this.” 

She chuckles, then her eyes roll as he both manages to lick and inhale up the side of her neck. The sensation is so visceral it nearly makes her agree with him, cancel this, stay at home. 

“Come on,” she manages, intoxicated. “We’ll be quick. I promise.” 

His expression seems to suggest she better be ready to uphold that promise, and then he is ushering her through the floo.

In the blur of the past few weeks, Hermione can’t even remember which one of the many invites she ended up choosing, and is rather surprised to notice that there are many garlands elegantly inscribed with the Skrewt Ecological Protection Society In Spe. 

“In hope?” Draco asks next to her as he comes through the floo, his whole face crumpling with distaste, annoyance, disbelief. “For the skrewts? Hermione - what the fuck have you brought me to?” 

“Sepsis?!”

“What?”

“Blood disease. For muggles,” she clarifies, and then starts to laugh. “Right. Well. That’s quite funny.”

“Sepsis?” Draco is muttering, looking at the garlands, looking at the various shrubs which, on closer inspection have been constructed to mimic the Skrewt’s natural habitats, and why on God’s green earth are they at a white tie ball for skrewts?

“This is -”
“Batshit. The kind of thing my mother would host.”

“Is she coming?” 

Hermione hasn’t seen her in months, but Draco just shakes his head. “No,” he says, in a voice that suggests they should stop talking about it. Hermione would usually ignore this and press. She has other things to deal with tonight. 

They reach the step and repeat, and Draco tugs her into him tightly. It isn’t even hard to pretend, because they aren’t, of course. They smile next to each other, the bulbs nearly blinding, Hermione knowing she has the weight of him to support her, and when someone calls out for a kiss the strange part is not the way their lips connect, but the fact they are reminded of the reason for all this in the first place. 

Champagne is handed to them in the doorway, Draco keeping a hand on her, Hermione on the lookout. She spies Pansy inside with - thank goodness - the Greengrass girls. She can’t see Aloysius, or any of the other old guard, though they must be here. Rita is behind them hovering, she notices another reporter in a bush trying rather unsubtly to break their way into the ballroom. Pretending she has gotten the hem of her dress caught on her heels, Hermione hovers in the doorway. 

“Hermione?”

“One minute. Can you take my glass inside? I’ve got a little bit tangled.” 

She hands off her drink, Draco turns in for a fraction to deposit them, Hermione shoves the door a little wider while murmuring a notice-me-not and the reporter, a young man with overlarge glasses, a bow tie she can only suppose to describe as ‘natty’, and a sweaty brow freezes in disbelief for a second, before scuttling in. His murmured ‘thank you’ is gone by the time Draco returns, and Hermione offers him her hand with a smile. 

“Chiffon,” she sighs. “So annoying.” 

Draco laughs, and the evening opens to them. 

Chapter Text

The party is in full swing by the time Hermione tracks down the reporter again, her notice-me-not proving too good for her own aims. He’s shivering behind a pot plant, tiny notebook out, scribbling things down. Hermione has only just managed to extricate herself from Draco’s rather irritatingly undivided attention. She can’t tell whether it's because of the dress - he is evidently a fan, who wouldn’t be - or the fact that he also doesn’t trust her. She also can’t tell which reason she likes more. 

“There you are,” she says, and the man nearly knocks over a fern in shock. “Sorry. I need you to do me a favour.”

“Ms Granger?” He squeaks. 

“Yes. Do try to look less nervous, I’m hardly going to shove you in a jar. I just need you to overhear a tiny little conversation. That’s all.”

“A - between who?”

“Well - oh! Right now, actually. I’ll try to speak loudly, but if not,” she reaches into her evening bag and chucks an extendable ear to him, and then steps out from behind the foliage into the path of Pansy Parkinson, who gives a little shriek. 

“Merlin, Granger,” Pansy mutters, placing a hand on her beating heart. Pansy is impeccably dressed of course, in undulating black and white. “Whatever are you doing in a plant pot? Have we, or have we not, discussed what is appropriate Mrs Malfoy behaviour?”

“You were cosy with the girls,” Hermione says, ignoring this. Pansy gives her a look. 

“Whatever you are planning -”

“I’m not planning anything. I’ve actually come to warn you, and them.” 

“And them?” Pansy raises an eyebrow. She does not believe Hermione, who is the picture of innocence in front of her. “Of what? I thought you were going to have a conversation?” This is delivered in air quotes. Hermione rolls her eyes. 

“I was, but then plans started to change.”

“What does that mean?”

“Look, I just want you to know that they’ve been discovered.”

“For what? The pictures?”

“No, I’m over that. They’re both sleeping with the same man.”

Pansy gives a little laugh. 

“Oh, come off it, Granger. You’re going to have to do better than that.”

“I’m serious. You don’t have to believe me, but I just thought you should know -” she breaks off, because her husband is suddenly striding towards her, his jaw tight with anger. 

“What have you done,” Pansy breathes next to her. Hermione can’t help it, and giggles. Draco reaches them rather quickly, considering the polished expanse of floor between them, and his hand slips round her upper arm. 

“A moment with my wife, if you wouldn’t mind Pans.” 

Pansy gives Hermione a very pointed look as she is dragged towards the balcony, where no doubt further skrewt-themed bushes await them. 

Hermione breathes as she finally escapes, the music quietening almost immediately. There is the occasional plume of smoke as party-goers escape from the din inside, but they do not linger among them. Instead, Draco is insistent, dragging her further towards the darkened areas of the gardens, making Hermione stumble and trip over the gravel. 

“You are going to ruin my dress,” Hermione pouts. 

“You are going to ruin all my fucking plans,” Draco hisses, finally yanking her around. She is pressed up against a tree, and then he’s kissing her, the bark scraping against her back, snagging on her embroidery. His teeth clash in her mouth, her head has a twig pressing into it. “I. Cannot. Believe. You.” He says in between kisses, as she is trying desperately to get her breath back but he keeps stealing it. “You. Fucking. Idiot.”

She pushes him off her slightly, panting, wanting to laugh. “What? I did warn you Draco.”

“Using Aloysius, Hermione,” he practically growls. “The man who’s daughters tried to ruin your fucking life? Are you MAD?!” 

“You have more than enough money.”

“So you want them to have more?”

“What did he say to you,” she asks, innocently. Draco’s arms are still encircling her, he’s leaning over her, also out of breath, and she wants to keep laughing, to keep this delicious tension building in her, making her blood fizz with it. 

“That he is looking forward to stopping your legislation, your legislation Hermione, from passing just so he can stop me from owning the future of Diagon Alley. You must be mad to want this, you’ve been trying for years and you’re just shooting yourself in the foot?”

“Ah, well,” she says, because she can afford to be generous, now that she knows Aloysius didn’t give the whole game away. He just wanted to brag. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.” 

“You are handing the power -”

“Stop fussing, Draco,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I don’t think you do.”

“So you keep saying,” she says, dangerously. “Care to underestimate me some more?” 

He hesitates, exhales. “I am really fucking mad at you.”

“I know,” she grins.

“Really, really mad Hermione.”

“How can I make it up to you,” she says, giving into the fact that he’s hot and hers, running her hand down his shirt until she reaches the bulge in his pants. “I’m sure there must be a way,” she continues, letting her fingers stroke over the material. As though he is drugged Draco’s pupils enlarge, he presses into her, crowding her further, dropping his head down against the tree. 

“Hermione.” His voice is lower now. “I don’t think we were subtle,” he continues, flexing into her. “I think people will have seen us leave.”

“Okay,” she whispers. “Then we have to be quick.”

He skips a thrust as she says that, as she undoes the placard of his trousers and brings his cock out, relishing in the feel of it, the length, the silkiness of his skin. And then she shimmies down the tree, drops to her knees. 

“What -” He needs to regain his balance and his arms shoot out to the trunk, holding himself against it. “Hermione -”

“I want to taste you,” she says, breathing in as she does the scent of him. She can feel the warmth radiating off his cock, though it is dark she can make out the size of it, just like in the vault. She keeps her hand around the base, leaning towards him. “Please,” she adds, glancing up to him. He is speechless, just nods, and she knows that she will definitely not be in trouble any more once she is finished. She opens her mouth, taking the tip of him in, and licks all around the head of his cock, pushing back his foreskin and closing her lips around him. Her eyes flutter closed - the taste is an intensification of his scent, musky and salty and dark. 

“Hermione.” It’s hoarse, his hips try to flex but he holds himself back. She doesn’t want that, though. She wants him to lose control. She takes him deeper, eyes watering as too soon he hits the back of her throat, her hand still fisted around the base of his cock. She frowns to herself, tries to open her throat, to take more of him in until she is gagging over him. He pulls out. “We’ll be heard,” he says, but he’s staring at her, at the trail of spit still connecting his cock to her mouth, at the way she quickly dabs away the tears gathering under her eyes. She pouts. 

“I want to take all of you,” she whispers. 

“Later -”

“Just - please, Draco. Please. Fuck my face.” 

This succeeds in halting his objections. 

“Seriously,” he hisses down at her.

“Seriously. Please.”

“Just - okay. If you want to stop -”

“I won’t,” she promises. “I won’t.” 

He moves cautiously at first, guiding his cock back into her waiting mouth. She hums around it, enjoying watching him watch her, watch the slick base of his cock slide in and out of her mouth. His hands come off the trunk of the tree, instead moving to her face, gingerly lifting away her hair from her face and cradling it. She holds his hips, balancing, urging him on. And his movements get harder, faster, until she has to close her eyes to take it, until he’s sliding down her throat in hot spurts, whimpering in the dark. 

They return to controlled chaos. There isn’t anything clearly wrong, of course. Just a feeling, a tension inside that suggests something might, if it goes wrong, interrupt the blessed sanctity of the skrewts. Draco instantly tenses next to her. 

“What did you do?” he asks. At least this way no one is noticing that both of them are faintly dishevelled, nor that there is a twig still nestled in the back of Hermione’s hair. 

“What do you mean,” she asks innocently, but her heart is thundering, and her hands are hot and sweaty under the gloves and she wants to crow. “Oh, look, Pansy is at the bar. Let’s go and say hi, seeing as you dragged me off before we could properly catch up.” Pansy is hurriedly collecting three glasses, slipping out through a side door. Hermione follows. 

They find them in a corridor, Astoria, Daphne and Pansy, two of the three women in tears with red, angry welts springing up along their arms.

“It itches,” Astoria sobs. “I’m hideous!”

“What is it,” Daphne is crying. “What is it! What is it?” 

There’s an ill-timed flash, and all of them whirl to see the small reporter scurrying away. Hermione turns back to the group, a nasty smile on her face. 

“Hello,” she says easily. 

“You!”

Astoria’s hex is deflected quickly into the wall, Draco shoves Hermione behind him, and Pansy leaps on the woman, holding her wand arm back. 

“Astoria, don’t!” Pansy has the good sense to say. No one, naturally, would win in a duel against her. Especially not Astoria. 

“We came to catch up, but I suppose the timing is a little off.”

“What did you do!” 

“Nothing,” Hermione says, blinking.

“It looks like - like - like -” Daphne is heaving sobs. 

“If I were you I’d go to St. Mungo’s,” Hermione suggests. “That rash looks nasty. A lot, actually, like temeritus venereus. Of course, easily cleared up with a spell or two. You just have to know which one.” 

“What did you do, Granger,” Pansy grits out. 

“Genuinely nothing. This is a sexually transmitted disease,” Hermione shrugs. Pansy just stares at her, then the two, itching women. 

“Hermione,” Draco begins. “If you’ve -”

“How,” she asks. “I haven’t had sex with either of them. If there’s a shared partner then perhaps the two of them should discuss that between themselves rather than arguing with me in a corridor.” 

“A sexually transmitted DISEASE,” Astoria screeches. There’s another camera flash, the reporter peeking out from behind a door before ducking away once more. 

Draco stares down at her, his mouth open. “I think we should go,” he finally says, as Hermione blinks up at him in return. 

“Do you need any help, Pansy,” Hermione asks. 

“We’ll be fine,” Pansy replies darkly. 

“Alright then, Draco,” Hermione agrees happily. “Let's go see the Potters.” 

It is on their way to the floo that Draco leans down to mutter into her ear. “Biological warfare, Hermione? Did you actually, seriously, unleash a disease -” she can’t tell if he’s thrilled or appalled. Probably both. 

“It’s not real,” she replies, affronted. “It’s merely an illusion. The itching is probably a reaction to the visual. They will, actually, be fine by midnight. Of course, the papers go to print just before. Unlucky timing I suppose.” 

“They won’t -”

“Unfortunately again, it seems, that Pansy and I were having a conversation right by that reporter. I had told Pans that the two were shagging the same wizard, so I suppose everyone is going to get the wrong end of the stick. Still,” she shrugs. “What does truth have to do with anything these days?”

“Sweet Cassandra,” Draco whispers, staring at her. “You are insane.” 

“You were the one who wanted their heads on a platter. I thought this had some nice poetic justice.” 

“Are they really shagging the same guy?”

“No idea,” she admits. “Pansy didn’t believe me either. Don’t suppose that really matters right now in any case.” 

“I -” Draco breaks off as they reach the enormous fireplace, running both hands through his hair this time. “I cannot believe you.” Hermione just shrugs. 

“Shall we go?”

“You really are a little bit evil, aren’t you?” He says it approvingly. Wantingly. 

“Takes one to know one, after all.” Hermione pokes him in the ribs, and he laughs, manoeuvring her towards the grate and handing over the floo powder. “Come on. I want to see my friends.” His mouth opens as though he’s about to say something, but the flames erupt around her too soon, and so all she knows before whirling away is the way he is staring at her - as though she is something terrifying and strange and he desires every part of it. 

Chapter Text

They emerge into the chaos, filled with smoke and laughter and Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes' indoor fireworks, Hermione and Draco in couture, and the tension from the evening melts away in the face of her true friends. 

Hermione is surprised that it is Ron, actually, who is the bridge that mends the slightly frosty reception between Draco and Harry. Hermione is whisked away by Ginny to coo over the ring (gorgeous, very well sized), the story (romantic, completely shocking), and initial wedding plans (‘I want to get married at home,’ is sobbed at her. Draco’s propensity to pay for an open bar seems to have rubbed off on the future Bride.) 

But she still manages to see Ron press a drink into Draco’s hand, to watch her husband down it, slightly slack-jawed, and to hear Ron’s booming voice, which is always louder after a drink, say “you look like you’ve been Hermione Grangered, mate.” 

Draco says something back which makes Ron laugh, and even Harry’s lip quirks, and then she doesn’t see much of any of them for the rest of the night, which stretches into the wee hours. The three of them eventually stumble in through the pub back door, stinking of cigarettes, with Draco nursing a burgeoning black eye. 

“What -”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it ‘Mione,” Harry slurs at her, slapping Draco on the back. 

“Water under the bridge,” Draco mumbles, reaching for her clumsily. “I let em get one in.” 

“You’ve been - you’ve been hitting each other? And smoking?!” 

“No,” Draco corrects. “I let them hit me. Jus’ once. And then maybe a bit of smoking.”

“I said no,” Ron says, spilling his pint. “Cos of Perce. But then I did a little one.”

“A slap,” Draco nods. Hermione is, for the first time that evening, utterly speechless. “A lil’ punch and a lil’ slap. Easy peasy.” 

“You wan’ another dr -”

“I actually think we should probably head home -”

“Noooo,” Draco says. “Don’t be boring ‘Mione. Cm’on”

“I don’t think that sentence contained a single consonant.”

“Wasat?”

“I can’t believe my fiancé abandoned me to hit Draco Malfoy!” 

Hermione wakes up the next day, her husband practically on top of her and snoring. She is horrified that she finds it endearing. He has quite a nice snore. He stinks of booze, and she’s a little hungover, and he’s snoring in her ear, his arm heavy and sweaty and slung over the top of her, and she is perfectly, impossibly, content. 

She extracts herself carefully. 

“Why’re you waking up,” he murmurs into the pillow. 

“It’s the morning,” she says softly. He moans, she tries not to laugh. “Let me get you a potion?”

“Come back to bed.”

“Draco.”

“No. I’ll feel better if you come back.”

His hand has snaked across the sheets, it encircles her wrist. 

“I promise you will feel better after a potion.” 

“Don’t go.”

“I’m coming back. I promise.” 

She is finally released. Her wand is nowhere to be found, probably strewn somewhere among the folds of The Dress, and so she pads downstairs to the second kitchen, which holds the second pantry, with the big fridge with all the bottles of various drinks Draco constantly has on hand. She walks in to the potion storage, selects the one she needs, walks out, feels normal despite the fact she has gone through several rooms and multiple floors just to get a tiny vial, and her silky nightdress brushes against her and her hair is blow dried again and perfect, her nails are manicured, and even hungover and tired she still looks, feels, is glamorous. 

She takes a deep breath before re-entering their bedroom. 

She doesn’t want this to end. 

The thought is horrible and makes her want to cry. She blames the hangover, because that is all it is. Or she’s due on her period again. Whichever one. Maybe both. 

Her husband is still face down on the pillow. 

“I’m back,” she says, softly. He groans again. The potion is offered, tantalisingly wafted around his ear because she can’t get it close to his nose. He drinks it with his eyes still closed, holding his forearm against them, his lips pouting and soft, she finds herself scraping her nails across his hair which makes him moan again, pleasurably, she finds herself sinking ever closer into never wanting this to end. 

“I’ll fix your eye when I find my wand,” she offers, and he grunts, the purple blooming prettily over his socket. 

“Let’s go to France,” he finally manages. “For the rest of the weekend. I want to go swimming.” 

An hour later and Hermione has a bikini and a portkey. She is told she doesn’t need anything else, she is also told they’ll go to the chateau proper, this time, because Draco prefers the pool there. 

“You are such a little prince,” Hermione says wryly. Draco shrugs, gallic and uncaring, in indoor sunglasses and nursing an enormous coffee, because even the potion couldn’t touch the sides of a night spent with Harry and Ron and revenge. 

“I might be sick when we land,” he announces to her. She wishes she liked him a little less. That’s a disgusting thing to say. But she laughs anyway like he’s charming and sweet, and then the portkey yanks them from their navels, holding it and each other, and they arrive at the grounds of the Malfoy chateau. 

It is instantly more grand than the cottage, she knows that. The roses reach up higher, the hedges stretch into the sky with a monumental presence. The birdsong seems softer and more refined, the tinkling of the fountains richer. Hermione spies one depicting a medieval-looking wizard on top of a writhing woman in rags and raises an eyebrow. 

“Fuck,” Draco says. “I forgot about that one. Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

There’s a flash, of both shield and spell, and the statue abruptly explodes. Hermione shrieks, grabs his arm in surprise. “Draco! Even if it was evil it probably had some historical sig-”

“Oh, God.” 

Draco disappears, moving faster than she expected him to, a flash of silver. In the settling of the plaster and the emptiness of the noise after his explosion she hears him. Throwing up, right into one of the very fancy hedgerows. 

“You alright?”

He doesn’t answer. 

“Maybe small charms until your stomach settles,” she suggests, and then he groans. She laughs, softly. “It’s okay. Come on. A swim will help.”

She wants to make fun of him for having a preferred French pool but when they reach the thing, larger, more blue, more private than the cottage, she has to admit he is right. They walk into the water, Draco seeming to revive, slightly. Hermione conjures up a sort of float made from the water, so they both of them can lie suspended in the cool. It is hot, much more so than she expected it to be at the beginning of September, and then Hermione starts. 

“What is it?”

“The Hogwarts Express would have left yesterday.” 

Draco is silent for a moment. “Oh,” he eventually says. “You’re right.” 

“I think this is the first year I haven’t thought about it,” Hermione adds mournfully. “I can’t believe I missed it.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

“It’s not a big deal,” she replies, blushing now that he thinks she is so attached to their school days, but of course she was. It was the place she discovered another world, where she realised who she was, where she grew up. 

“No, Hermione.” Something in his tone makes her take her sunglasses off and squint at him. “I’m sorry.” She holds her breath. “I - I suppose I should have said something before. I know I should have. I find it very hard to talk about, you see, which is bad anyway because it makes me seem like I’m trying to be a victim and I’m not, because you were, and actually I’ve just said I, I, I this whole time but -” he takes a deep breath, and Hermione is too shellshocked to say anything in the meantime. “I’m sorry. I was very wrong for the way I treated you. I wish I had been brave enough to see how stupid I was, I wish I had been brave to do many things, I wish - Hermione,” he breaks a little over her name. “I wish I had done something. That night. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t - my aunt tortured you and I stood there.”

“You didn’t give us away.” She does not want to have this conversation.

“But I didn’t save you!” The outburst makes the birds startle, Hermione flinches as they erupt into the sky. “I watched you be brave every single day for years, and when it came down to it, it was as though I had learned nothing.” 

“You weren’t - I mean,” Hermione sighs. “I know,” she ends up saying. “It was really bad. It was awful. And I have - I do think about it. Of course I do. But honestly, Draco, I don’t think there was anything you could have done, not without you ending up dead.” 

“I should have died.”

“That is a cowardly thing to say,” she snaps. “It would be easier to have died. It’s much harder to be alive, to try to make amends. Draco - you have helped me. You are working to make things better, even if we disagree on how. I - I am glad you didn’t die. And if that means I’m glad you did nothing to help then so be it.” 

They are both quietly, furiously, mortified. 

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation on a wizard-lilo,” Hermione mutters, brushing away the tears that have congregated in the corners of her eyes. Draco barks out a laugh, and then he, too, rearranges his sunglasses, possibly wiping away his own tears.

“Yes. It is a bit ridiculous I suppose.”

“All of this is. Our lives are - Do you ever just stop and think about how mad all of this is? How stupid? We were in a war as child soldiers, we’re in France for a day because you wanted to be hungover in a pool, we’re in some arranged marriage for publicity,” Hermione breaks off, starting to really laugh. “Oh my God. I feel like I’m in some sort of melodramatic romance novel. This is like the wizarding equivalent of the Dukes of Disarray,” 

“I love those books,” Draco says suddenly. “I - I love those books.” 

This succeeds in halting Hermione’s hysteria, before restarting it. 

“You’ve read the muggle romance series -”

“Yes. Every one. You know, they’re much better than the modern day romances she writes. I think those are lacking -”

“Lacking?! Draco, be serious. The only reason you think that is because the references go over your head.”

“I know all the references,” he says stiffly, which makes her laugh again. “And you’re wrong. The Dukes series has something timeless -” 

Hermione splashes him. “Different books should do different things. You practically are a Regency prince so of course you think those ones are better, but there’s a depth and sweetness to the modern ones that I think -”

“You think the billionaires are sweeter than the Dukes?”

As the shadows lengthen over the pool their argument becomes more ridiculous. And by the time it turns six Draco has not managed to convince Hermione on his opinions, but he has managed to convince her to stay the night, and have a drink. They need a break before the madness begins, he suggests, and Hermione can’t help but agree. 

“You aren’t real, you know,” he says, helping her out of the pool as she dispels the enchantment on the water, returning it to its mirror-like state. “You’re like a mirage. I can’t quite believe I can touch you.” 

The romance of it takes her breath away. 

“Oh,” she exhales once she has found it again. He looks away, directs his words to the trees. 

“I wish I had saved you.”

She snorts, then tugs at him until he looks at her, regretful and honest. 

“I can save myself. But I'm glad you helped me remember that.”

Chapter Text

“I don’t have anything to wear for dinner,” she reminds him as they meander towards the actual chateau, turrets and spires black against the fading light. There are golden pools of candlelight spilling onto another perfectly perfumed terrace, the shirt she is wearing feels stiff with dried chlorine and sun, and his arm is over hers, his sunglasses dangling from his hand, his body close and familiar. 

“We don’t need to change. This is the Malfoy chateau. We are literally the Malfoys,” he points out. She still can’t quite believe that she is one of them. She doesn’t feel like she is. But she feels like she belongs here, at his side. Maybe that is enough.

“When did you read the Dukes of Disarray,” she asks, and he stiffens. 

“Azkaban. There wasn’t much going on.” 

“Really? How did you even get them?” Draco sighs, and clearly does not want to answer, so she presses. “Do they have a library system?”

This makes him laugh, and then he kisses her on the top of the head. “No, Hermione. Azkaban does not have a library system.” 

“Maybe they should,” she muses, distracted. 

“Well, when you’ve finished legislating for creatures perhaps you can turn to the incarcerated. What do you want to drink?”

An elf is there. She glances, a little uncomfortable to Draco, who is waiting for her. “I don’t know. Something fresh. Lemony.”

He orders two French 75s, they sit at the terrace as small bowls of nuts and crisps are brought to them, and she considers how difficult it would be to convince the Wizengamot of reading in prison. 

“You’re actually thinking about it, aren't you.”

She blushes, he smiles, they cheers. She plays with the stem of her glass, the cocktail tart and strong. “You never answered me, by the way. How did you get the books?”

He rolls his eyes. “Mother brought them.” 

It takes Hermione a minute to realise he is being serious. “Are - Narcissa?” 

“She thought it was a good idea to be seen to read muggle literature in case I could get released early. I requested the series.” Every word is efficient, as though he is trying to say as little as possible. 

“You requested, out of all the muggle books, The Dukes of Disarray?” 

“So,” he shrugs. 

“You’re being cagey about this. Why?” 

Draco moans, covering his face with his hands. Through them, she hears the muffled, “Please don’t make me say this.”

“Say what?”

“Just - Hermione. Leave it alone.”

“Why?”

“Because!” 

“No, come on. What is it that you -” she breaks off with a gasp. “Oh my god. Draco. Did you get those books because of that fucking article?” 

There is a pained silence. 

“I’m very hungover you know.”

“You did! Oh my God! You - what? Why? You know they made me sound so vapid. I wasn’t actually looking for a ‘prince charming’. I was asked what my bedtime reading material was as a quick fire question - they were the ones who turned it into a whole thing -”

“Yes, well. I didn’t know that, did I. I just thought it was funny and I was bored and intrigued and then I asked for one of them and yes, I prefer the regency ones but the one you mentioned wasn’t bad, and it was dirty, and Hermione, I cannot emphasise enough how little there is to do in prison, okay!” 

Hermione stares at him, both eyebrows raised all the way up, heart pounding fast. “But -”

“FINE!” he explodes. “Fine! I went crazy,” he is babbling, unable to stop, unwilling to share and incapable of holding back anymore. “I lost my mind. I read the books and became obsessed with the thought of you reading them because it was so at odds with the version of you I knew, and I would talk to you,” he breaks off, laughing like he hates himself, like he hates admitting this. “I would literally have arguments with you about the books and then I had to do that rehabilitation course and I kept waiting for you to show up but you didn’t, and I was desperate to change it all. To undo what I hadn’t done, to make the Malfoy name mean something again, and it was all tangled up with you and The Manor and the books and the fact that they were - it just snowballed, okay! It wasn’t supposed to be like that, but then I came out and you were…not who you were supposed to be. You were so fucked with the money and I could see a way to solve it. And I told myself that I was doing it to help my reputation and all the time it was so…”

He breaks off, breathing hard, genuinely, truly upset. 

“So,” Hermione replies, her voice wavering slightly. “So you just…you made it up? The reason for marrying me? Because you pitied me?”

“Pity?” he gapes at her. “Pity?! Hermione. This had nothing to do with pity. It was want.” 

“Want.”

“I told myself for a very long time that it was because I did need your reputation, and not because I wanted you. It wasn’t supposed to be about that. It was supposed to be about making amends and benefiting from your status but…” he breaks off, redder than she has ever seen, mortified. A mortification that Hermione, too, is mired in. The twisting in her stomach is souring the champagne, a film coats her tongue. 

“I wanted to save you. I hadn’t saved you! I couldn’t do anything! I just stood there and I watched her try to kill you and I couldn’t do anything,” he breaks off, chest heaving. She realises that his eyes are wet. “I didn’t do anything,” he says, his voice breaking. “And then you weren’t anything like I thought, and in my head it was all because of me. I wanted to do it differently. I didn’t deserve any of it, any of it and it didn’t matter because I could see how I could fix it. And beyond that I still - I didn’t deserve you, or rehabilitation, or any of those things. And I took them anyway, not even because I wanted to help you. In the end, it was because I fucking wanted you!”

The house elf cracks to the table, telling them dinner is ready. Hermione and Draco are both staring wideeyed at each other, and she doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t know how to feel. 

“I -”

“Trust me,” he interrupts, running a hand through his hair, breaking their eye contact to stare out over the gardens. “I wish it had been pity. But it wasn’t.” 

She should have many more, pertinent questions. But there is only one that looms in her mind first, most urgently. 

“I don’t understand. How could you -” 

“Do this? Because, as you’ve already pointed out Hermione, I take what I want.” The echoes of his self-hatred infuse every word. 

“No -” she takes a deep breath, steels herself. “How could you want me. Why me, Draco. I don’t understand.”

His eyes bug slightly. 

“Why? Are you mad?” His head falls into his hands again, surprising an elf who squeaks and nearly slides a plate of snails into his lap. “You are quite literally the most perfect person in the world. Why wouldn’t I want you?”

He knows first hand how flawed she is. It is, after all, the reason they are sitting here.

“You hated me for a long time.”

“Yes. I was stupid and blinded-”

“So - sorry to interrupt but I just…would quite like to get a sense of the timeline here. And the legislation. And I - Draco,” she says suddenly. “Why didn’t you just ask me for a drink?”

She glances up at him through her lashes, and is strangely relieved to have asked a question that he doesn’t know the answer to. He sits there for a moment, blinking. 

“A drink?”

“Yes. I mean - so you went a bit mad in prison,” she says. He nods, hoarsely. 

“I did.”

“You felt very bad about The Manor.”

“Of course.”

“And you wanted to make amends but you also…wanted something else?”
“I didn’t - I didn’t want to feel like that. Because you deserved better. Something else. But I could -” He swallows again. “I convinced myself that I could save you this time. I knew about your finances and I just told myself it would be easy to save you, and then I wouldn’t need to feel bad anymore, and then it just so happened to also align with my other aims. So it seemed so…neat.” 

“Neat,” she replies.

“Yes. I wasn’t meant to want you. It wasn’t supposed to be about that. I did want to help you. And I couldn’t just give you money. You would have said no to that,” he says, faintly combative. Hermione allows the point. 

“But you…” This is the bit, the part of all of it which makes her feel the most insecure, despite all the insanity he has spouted to her, it is this part which makes her heart race. “But you liked me,” she says. 

He squirms, she squirms, they both avoid each other’s gazes. 

“Well…yes. I - yes. I liked you.” 

“Right,” she says. “I wish I was able to be normal about this, you see.”

“Normal.”

“Yes. You’ve - I mean that’s insane, Draco. That is an insane thing to do.”

“Yes.” He sounds like she feels - stretched and bruised and sore. 

“I was your imaginary friend in prison and then that snowballed into faking a marriage and giving me an allowance and using my legislation to build some sort of misguided empire, I mean that is -”

“I know,” he interrupts, bracing himself. “I know.”

“What I’m trying to say,” she manages. “Is that I wish I was capable of being sensible about this. But I can’t. It turns out that I want you. As well. In fact, I liked you quite a bit. Not even liked. I like you. Present tense. So. I suppose I can’t really be…objective about this.”

“Are you often…objective in relationships? Not that - I mean. Any kind of relationship that has, erm, feelings in it.”

“I don’t know,” she says, sneaking glances at him. His arms are shifting, she suspects under the table his hands are twisting in his lap, making handcuffs in his napkin. “I know that you were using me, and using those creatures, and using my legislation and I still… It should matter,” she says this quite passionately. “It should matter that you have done those things.”

They manage to look at each other. 

“Does it?” He asks. “Does it matter?” He isn’t breathing, she feels it in the way her stomach dips. 

“No. It doesn’t. Because I want you. Probably more than you want me.”

Draco doesn’t answer for a long time. Then he laughs. Not loudly, the edges are still reeling from it. But he laughs and shakes his head and doesn’t meet her eyes. 

“I don’t think that’s possible,” he says. They steal fleeting glances, swallows dipping in and out of each other’s gazes, the sweetness of saying it out loud too intense to revel in just yet. 

“Oh,” is all she says, biting down on her lip. It is silent, the garden heavy, the atmosphere gathering into something thick and twisting and confusing. And they stare at their meal, and each other, and Hermione lets herself want.

Chapter Text

They don’t eat. How can they? Draco gets up from the table and crosses over to her, kneels by her seat. He pauses, moving slowly, waiting for her to say no, and brings her hand up to his lips. He kisses the back of it, lips soft and brow furrowed - he can’t bear it. 

“I’m sorry.” 

Her hand is held against his cheek, still. 

“I know. And I’m sorry too.”

“You have nothing -”

“I’m glad you went crazy, Draco. I’m really, really glad you lost your fucking mind. So I’m sorry for thinking that.” 

The laughter breaks them out of the spell they were under, and then he is picking her up and holding her, tighter than ever before, whatever barrier between them gone. She can barely breathe, holds him just as tightly back, wants to claw his skin off and crawl underneath it, wants to live violently inside him. It would be terrifying, it is terrifying, but she doesn’t feel scared anymore. Despite all the inequalities between them, in this they are balanced. At last. 

“I feel bad about dinner -”

“They’re paid, they didn’t want to leave, they won’t mind that we haven’t eaten,” he tells her in between kisses. It's breathless and hurried and it does not take more than that to convince Hermione. 

But when they arrive in their room, Draco having pulled her through an endless maze of candlelit corridors, they slow. They have time. The balcony doors are open, the room smells fresh and bright even though it must have been years since Draco himself was in it. The heavy scent of the end of summer wafts in through the window - roses and jasmine over a damp, dark undertone, the promise of yellowing leaves and dark nights ahead, but not quite here yet. 

He undresses her, she undresses him. Shirts fall to the floor, his hands are velvety against her skin. It is quiet and only two sconces are lit, and the darkness puddles around ancient furniture, and it is warm. Warm between them, a warm dark, close and tender. The kind that allows you to open up the worst parts of yourself, the kind that lets you be free. They kiss until her neck cricks, until her lips are wet and her legs are aching with standing and wanting, and only then is she lowered onto the bed. 

Sheets have been softened by age, wear petal-like against her back, the backs of her arms, her legs as she splays them open, as he fits himself between them. The way they dip into each other is ancient, well worn. Like sinking into the sea, like staring at the horizon, like pressing conkers from their shells. And only then do they speak. 

“I want you, Hermione,” he murmurs against her skin.

“You have me. All of me.” Each word is weighed out with exhalations as they move together, as they ebb and flow from each other. “I promise, Draco. This -”

“I have never felt like this before.”

“Never,” she agrees, the side of her face smoothing against his. “I don’t want it to end.”

“It doesn’t have to,” he promises, kissing her deeper into the mattress. “It doesn’t ever have to end. Not if you don’t want it to. You can have it all. Everything. Anything you want.” Their hands entwine above her head, his weight spread across her body. “You can have whatever you want. Forever. Just stay.”

“Yes,” she agrees. “I’ll stay.” 

They don’t fall asleep afterwards, but they continue to lie, connected to each other. 

“When did you first realise,” she asks him. “When did you first realise you wanted me?” She never would, never could, ask this in the day, but in the dead of night it seems appropriate. He considers his answer.

“I don’t know exactly when it was,” he tells her, lazily petting her. “I don’t think there was one moment. There were many moments I wanted you and felt bad about it, but it wasn’t until much later that I understood it meant that I liked you, if that makes sense?”

“Not really,” she tells him, they share small huffs of laughter. 

“Okay. Well. When you took your coat off, that time we had dinner with mother.”

“Oh - no. Not then. Surely -” she groans. “I can’t believe I wore that. She told me I looked naked!” 

“She was right,” Draco says, she can hear the smile. “When you sat down the skirt moved up your thigh - I have never been so obsessed with a tiny sliver of skin…it was hideous. I was so cross. I thought you had done it on purpose.”

“Why on earth would I have done that on purpose?!”

“I thought you were trying to make me want you, to get me to do something and then humiliate me. The next day when I realised you’d worn that green nightgown only seemed to reinforce it.”

“That actually was a mistake,” Hermione tells him. “All the other things I’d bought were even more scandalous.”

“God forbid,” Draco murmurs, interested, and they are interrupted in their confessions, returning to them later once they are again sated and sweaty. 

“Does it really not matter,” he asks her then, hesitant. It is Hermione’s turn to consider, to think of all the things she knows of him, to try to rationalise her feelings. 

“I think,” she hums, wondering. “I think you are a very competitive, driven, person,” she says. “I think you want to win at all costs, and I think you care very deeply about things that are important to you. And I admire those qualities very much. I think we share a lot of them - but we just got them tangled up along the way, tangled in the wrong things. Your belief in being the best was manipulated into bigotry, whereas mine was turned into ignorance, a refusal to ask for help when I really needed it. I could never hate you for that any more than I could hate myself. Well,” she corrects. “I did hate myself. And you hated yourself. But it turns out that those attributes in you - I don’t hate them. So maybe that is the reason why it doesn’t matter.” 

“Yes,” he agrees. “Maybe that was why I was so shocked at first. So angry at you. I wanted an equal. I had this fantasy of the two of us working together but you wouldn’t even fight me. I just kept wanting to push you. To see if you were still in there.”

“You were so aggravating,” she sighs, and they laugh again. “I don’t understand why you bothered.”

“I think you already figured it out,” he says, as she yawns, and is brought in closer. “You were the other half of me all along.” 

They breakfast inside the next morning, Draco pulling her seat next to his so they corner the table, being opposite being too far apart. The room itself is enormous, ceilings stretching high above them, a fire burning in the huge grate to heat the place as the heavy stone walls keep out most of the warmth. 

“I really didn’t picture it so…castle-y,” she admits, as they sip coffee. “It’s enormous.” 

“Do you like it? We don’t have to come back -”

“I like it,” she laughs. “It reminds me of Hogwarts.” 

This makes him smile, and then falter again. 

“What is it?”

She can ask him, now, without fear of what his answers will contain. 

“I’m sorry about the fountain,” he says. “And the elves. I should have warned you.” 

Hermione sighs. “It’s your past,” she tells him. “Just like my past is mine. We can’t escape those things. I don’t want you to paper over it or pretend it never happened.”

“Accidentally becoming bankrupt is not the same as thousands of years of actively hating muggles,” he mutters into eggs benedict. She smirks. 

“Well, obviously. But haven’t you been saying I’m better than you this whole time?”

He is shocked at the joke, a smile breaking through. “It’s true,” he eventually says, still, always, laughing. “You are the very best of all of us.”

Chapter Text

Hermione’s office looks like a bomb has gone off. Every inch of extra, ill-gotten space is covered in something: papers, old takeaway containers, empty vases that she hasn’t quite sorted out yet, the venus fly trap, more papers, towers of books, and…papers. Her desk has been cleared to make space for several people to work on it, and Tilly is sandwiched in between Hannah Abbott, and Margaret - one of her friends who was PA’ing for a guy in the Magical Sports Department and wanted a change. Hermione herself is slumped in an armchair, scribbling at an awkward angle. She’s taken her shoes off, everyone has taken their shoes off it seems, and the atmosphere is tense and busy and focused. People speak over each other about proof-reads, arguments and counter arguments. Introductions are re-written furiously, conclusions need to be reformulated. Somehow, despite how many times she has done this, Hermione is always shocked at the amount of work that seemingly has to happen just before everything is truly finalised. 

And then Narcissa Malfoy walks in. 

It’s Tilly who spots her first, as intensely as Hermione is writing. She makes a noise, a half starved scream in her throat. It is only when she says, “Mrs Malfoy,” that Hermione looks up, expecting a question for her. When she sees her mother-in-law, she, too, freezes. 

“Oh,” Narcissa says, as she looks around. 

“Narcissa.” Hermione finally manages to move, pulling herself out of the chair and smoothing down her work skirt. 

“I’m going to -”

“Sparkling waters -”

“I’ll catch up with this later -”

Excuses are made and Hermione’s team moves, frantically trying to arrange piles of paper into less offensive piles of paper before scuttling out the door. The Venus Fly Trap, sensing activity, chooses this moment to snap its jaws, making poor Margaret yelp. When Hermione turns back to Narcissa, she notes the woman’s evident satisfaction. 

They are left alone. Hermione assesses the mess. “Well. Would you like to….take a seat?” 

There is probably one chair not too covered in things. Narcissa floats down into it, Hermione taking advantage to hurriedly shove her shoes back on. She winces, reminds herself to cast a comfort-charm when Narcissa leaves. “How can I help you,” she asks, gliding into her original desk chair. She perches at the edge of it, then decides that she is perfectly capable of moving the stack of drafts behind her onto the floor. Hermione sits back and takes her in. 

It has been months, six or nearly seven at this point, since they last met. Since Hermione turned up to dinner in that terrible dress that Draco has just confessed made him want her - Hermione presses her lips together to stop her smile at the memory, at the weekend they spent, at the way they’ve spent every night since. Narcissa appears faintly perturbed. 

“I hear you are trying to undo my son,” she says. Hermione shrugs. 

“That’s one way to look at it.”

“He is your husband,” Narcissa says, slyly. Hermione can’t help but beam. 

“He is.” 

“And you would go against him?”

“Do you really think listening to our other halves all the time ends well?” It’s pointed and a bit mean, but Hermione is not going to be lectured by the woman who let Lucius Malfoy call the shots. Narcissa removes her bag from somewhere under her cloak, a piece of magic which Hermione lets herself admire. 

“He conspired against you, you know,” she says easily, taking from the extended bag a very, very old copy of Witch Weekly, and a stack of muggle books, well-thumbed with broken spines and battered covers. “He thinks I don’t know, but of course I do. He doesn’t actually want to help you, or your creatures. He just wanted to own you. My son and my husband had that in common. The desire to possess. Money, power. It’s all the same. And it is not, I’m afraid to say, about you.” 

“Is this about the prison reading? I already know about the romance novels,” Hermione says dryly. Narcissa pauses, an infinitesimal flaw in her plan. 

“You know? That he became obsessed with the thought of you because of some little article?” She’s sneering.

“Of course. We talked about it.” Hermione thanks God, Merlin, and whatever magical deities that exist that they actually had this conversation before Narcissa tried to engineer this manipulation. “Anyway. What do you want?”

This does succeed in actually pausing the woman. Hermione watches, faintly fascinated, as her skin pales, her usual perfect exterior cracks. 

“Nothing,” Narcissa manages. Hermione frowns. 

“That’s not true. You came in here with the intention of upsetting me, I’m sure. Given the ammunition you brought along, I’m guessing you expected me to…feel betrayed?” she guesses. “Though I can’t think why. Anyway. What was I supposed to do?”

Narcissa manages to pull herself together, and Hermione wishes she was less of a bitch so they might actually get along. 

“Back down,” she says. “You were supposed to stop whatever foolish scheme you have to stop this from passing.”

“And why was I going to do that,” Hermione says easily. “If I was all upset about my husband strategising in advance about marrying me?” 

“I assumed,” Narcissa sounds almost as haughty as McGonnogall, “that there would have been a desire to…leave the marriage.”

“Ah,” this does interest Hermione. “And you would have…?”

“Provided a way out of the contract.” At Hermione’s evident surprise, Narcissa rolls her eyes. “I would hope that, by now at least, you would understand the importance of being aware of what is going on within your family. There is not a Malfoy contract that is signed without me knowing about it.”

“Isn’t that illegal,” Hermione asks, leaning in. 

“It was quite clearly not a normal marriage contract, and I am not stupid,” Narcissa snaps. 

“Very well. You were going to offer me an early way out, in exchange for not tanking my legislation and Draco’s plan for the future. I’m assuming this is tied to your own desire for the Malfoy name to mean something again that isn’t ‘Death Eater’. I’ll make you a new deal.” 

Narcissa sits back, unaware that she, too, had been leaning towards Hermione.

“I’m not interested in making new deals with you,” she says, eyes flicking around the office once more, her disdain back in place. 

“Oh, why don’t you hear me out first,” Hermione offers. And then she starts to negotiate. 

Hermione does not tell Draco about his mother’s visit. He arrives home later than she does, eyes smudged with fatigue from the day. Hermione has no doubt that Malfoy Capital has been working all hours to consider some new angle they can appeal with in order to overturn her legislation and force it through. The thought makes her smile. It’s sweet. 

“Good day at the office?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he says easily, dumping a plastic bag on the kitchen counter. “I’m craving curry. Have you eaten? There’s enough here if you fancy.” 

They eat at the island, digging into piles of far too much food, chatting about nothing, intentionally avoiding the topic. 

“So,” Hermione says, mopping up the sauce with the remaining scrap of naan. Draco raises an eyebrow. “Next week. What’s the plan?” 

He shrugs. “No plan. Wizengamot will sit, we’ll hear about it probably through the echoes of cheers in the streets, we’ll throw a big party at the office, and you’d be welcome. As long as you’re not going to mope, of course. When you lose. Win. You know what I mean.”

She laughs. “Are you going to watch the whole thing or do you want to know when our stuff goes to vote and come in just for that?”

“Watch?”

“Yeah,” she says, obviously. “Are - you’re not going?” Draco shakes his head. “Why not?” 

Draco just stares at her.

“Why would I go?” 

“To watch,” she says again, as though he is stupid. Maybe he is, she wonders as he stares at her in mild horror. “Why else?”

“You - you can’t go,” he says. Now it’s Hermione’s turn to raise an eyebrow. 

“Why not?”

“It will be filled. People. Reporters. You can’t go, Hermione,” he says, voice rising. “It’s not safe.”

She laughs, before realising that he isn’t finding this funny at all. “Draco. What are you talking about? It’s a hearing - it’s not -”

“You can’t go. I forbid it.”

Chapter Text

Hermione laughs at him. She can’t help it - the idea that he might truly stop her is ridiculous. 

“You forbid me?” She asks. He flinches as the words land between them, heavy and foreboding. 

“You can’t go,” he says again, stuck. 

“Why? What are you going to do? Lock me up?” She rolls her eyes. 

“You can’t go,” he repeats. “It’s not safe.”

“It’s the Wizengamot, Draco,” she says. “It’s perfectly safe.”

“You don’t know that. There might be…freaks. Terrorists. People who know you’ll be there and want to kill you - ex Death Eaters running around desperate to finish what he started…”

“Like you,” she asks, unkindly. She mentally stops herself, tells herself to tread carefully around this, to be kind, like he has to her. She takes a breath. “Draco, you have to stop. I’ll be perfectly fine. Your anxiety about this is completely ridiculous -”

“It’s NOT,” he shouts, stands away from the island, agitatedly hovering between a desire to pace and a desire to crowd her, to stop her from running from him. She can see the slightly frantic twitch of his eye, she can’t quite believe that he is acting this irrationally. For all that they disagree over, for all of his recent confessions, Draco has to her always seemed…sane. And now he is not. 

“Draco,” she says, in a voice that is her attempt at now soothing this stranger in front of her. “I know that you find crowds difficult to deal with -”

“This isn’t about me.”

“Well what is it about, then?” She has to remind herself to be patient. “I’d like you to try and talk about it -”

“You just can’t,” he snaps, running hands through his hair. “You can’t. You can’t.” 

“Draco -”

“You can’t go, Hermione!”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll die!”

Hermione chokes on a laugh, one that isn’t funny but it is nervous, confused, overwhelmed. 

“Look at me. I’m not going to die. Hold my hand, Draco please.”

But he doesn’t listen to her, and her nerves continue to strain under the tension. She doesn’t know how to stop him from spiralling, from getting more and more worked up. 

“Draco, stop!” 

She freezes him, which probably isn’t the smartest thing to do, and yet it's the only thing she can think of. His eyes bulge, furious, and she stands there, her wand out and trembling slightly. “You’re freaking out,” she tells him. “I’m happy to listen to you and what you’re scared of. But you can’t forbid me from doing my job.” This she considers she delivers more gently than she previously would have. She takes a deep breath. “If I unfreeze you, will you promise not to hurt me, or yourself?” 

She doesn’t need him to be able to speak to see the horror in his eyes as he realises what she thinks. She lets him go.

“I would never -”

She takes a step back.

“I know,” she says quickly, into the distance between them. “I know. But you - you aren’t being rational, right now. Can you - can you try and explain it to me?” 

He’s shaky as he sits, and she watches his fingers drum on the edge of the kitchen island, as he tries to breathe, as he tries to control himself. 

“It’s very logical,” he says after a bit. “I figured it out a while back. When I - when you wouldn’t set up your phone and it bothered me. I’m terrified about something happening to you because of the night at The Manor when you were tortured I didn’t do anything. I’m terrified of you meaning so much to me and something like that happening again, and of me being there, or not being there, and just not stopping it. So it all stems from that.” He waves his hand, dismissing it. “Its not bad, most of the time. But when it comes to large groups of people, especially in an enclosed space - I can’t. I can’t control it. So, no, Hermione. You can’t go to the Wizengamot because I think it would kill me, and I know that you want to be there but I can’t - I just can’t let you.”

Hermione takes one more, very deep breath. 

“I am going to go, whether you feel okay about it or not,” she says gently. “No matter how much you want to protect me Draco - no, let me say this. You cannot go through the rest of your life acting like this, and I cannot let your anxiety around it be given any kind of…space to grow. To legitimise. You control so much. You can’t control me like that.”

“It’s not control, Hermione -”

“It is,” she tells him seriously. “I know you are not being unkind, or cruel. But it is another way of controlling me.”

“I want - I need to protect you.”

“Protecting me doesn't mean what you think it means, Draco.” She watches his eye twitch again. “It means letting me make mistakes and letting me be myself. I need you to let me be free.”

“I’m not -”

“Let’s just…can we talk about this tomorrow? I think I need a minute.” His expression blanches, and Hermione goes to him. “I’m not leaving,” she stays, stepping closer to him, manually putting his arms around her because he can’t, because he’s still half frozen in fear. “I’m not. I just…need a minute. Okay? A little bit of time to breathe.”

Draco doesn’t respond, but he does hold her. Properly. Leans his head against hers, leans his entire weight it feels like against her. 

“Where are you going to go,” he asks, quietly, muffled by her hair. 

“I’m staying in the house,” she tells him, making smoothing motions. “Just going to sit in the garden for a minute.”

“It’s cold.”

“And I’m a witch,” she reminds him, her wand still in her hand, held against his back. “I’ll be in, in a minute. Go to bed, okay. You need to sleep.”

“Hermione -”

“Just - please. Please Draco.”

She sits in the garden, except she is claustrophobic there, too. The feeling of him is everywhere, the oppressive, overwhelming panic that he exudes. So she apparrates to the roof. 

This is better, even if when she lands there is a moment her feet slip on the roof tiles slightly. She curses, grabs the chimney, awkwardly shuffles about until she can sit down and lean against it. The bricks are chilly under her fingers and she casts a warming charm, and then she looks up. At the view. 

She exhales properly. 

It is quiet. There are pinpricks of muggle lights, hundreds of thousands of them. The great dark mass of Hampstead Heath, the way the black trees block out the orange-tinted sky. A few, tiny stars visible over the pollution. Car lights weaving their way through distant roads, the sedate silence of a weeknight evening. Some distant chatter, people lingering outside of a pub, talking as they make their way through the lamplit streets. 

Hermione sits, holding her knees. She stares out at the expanse of the city stretched out in front of her, a living, breathing creature made up of millions of people, thousands of witches and wizards. 

She does not think of Draco directly, not yet. Instead, Hermione lets herself think of her old self. The self that is not-so-distant at all. She feels more herself than ever, more like that eleven year old version of who she thought she was, that to think of her recent self is like considering a wax figure. Something not quite right about the way the eyes were spaced, perhaps, or the measurements of the smile seeming off. She had been permanently exhausted. Angry. She recognises that now, the anger that she had, the way she directed it towards Draco at first. The way it masked how angry she was at herself. For failing at something, for not understanding. 

Hermione thinks of her old self, and she forgives her. 

It’s something her therapist has been trying to get her to consider for weeks, but Hermione has always, stubbornly, not understood. Of course she could forgive her old self - that didn’t stop her from being angry at that version of herself. She gets it, now. She forgives the past version of herself, the one that was terrified and lonely and tired of carrying all of life’s weight around by herself. The one that wanted and didn’t know how to get, the one that was beaten down by not knowing how to say no to people, by not being paid enough in the first place, by being young and not omnipotent. It is okay, she says to the night. It is okay that she didn’t know, that she didn’t have enough. She tells herself that she is sorry for being so angry about it all. And she promises to make it better.

She knows Draco means well, she lets her thoughts turn to him now. She recalls his question asked into another night: does it matter? 

Does she love him, as he is now? Can she, forever? They are big questions, sprawling, city questions. 

She has to forgive him, too. If she wants him, if she wants this, if she wants to use what he has given her for good. He cares with single-minded focus on few things, and she knows that she is one of those. Narcissa might not have been entirely wrong - he needs to protect her, she cannot be constantly kept in a cage. He does not care about doing good, he regards his wealth as apolitical, a fact of life, whereas she cannot be so neutral about it. She will have to be the one who pushes to expand this circle of care, she will have to be the one using it for something more than just acquisitions-sake. 

He might always want to control her in this way. She knows this. Knows that she, too, has been changed by the money in ways that are bad as well as good, knows that the enormous profits he makes are, in her opinion, immoral - but she has benefitted from them anyway. It’s not easy, it doesn’t tie up neatly into a big, satisfying bow. The satisfaction is in the push and the pull between them, the constant striving to find their way through it together. She can’t reconcile the irrationality of wanting him, and so she forgives herself for that, too. For loving him for all the reasons she shouldn’t. 

“I’m going,” she tells him later, quietly, when she climbs into bed. His arms tighten around her. “I’m sorry, Draco. Nothing you can say will change my mind. But nothing you can say will make me leave you, either. I can offer you that. You just need to decide if it is enough.”

He breathes her in, whispers it into her ear.

“Okay.”

Chapter Text

Hermione strides into the courtroom flanked by them all - Tilly, Margaret. Hannah, the two other researchers she has brought on board. Mallory Whitman is already inside, taking her place on the council side of the chamber, several rows down from where Aloysius is seated. She knows she shouldn’t be nervous, but she is. She hopes no one tries to shake her hand on the way in, feels how clammy she is. She smooths them on the fabric of her coat, grateful that the subterranean temperature means she can keep it on and hoping this will quell the stickiness. She should have cast a charm. 

“Um,” Tilly says as they enter.

“We’re going to do great,” she pretends. “Come on - let’s grab seats.”

Hermione should not be surprised there are more reporters than normal there. News of hers and Draco’s feud regarding the legislation must have leaked out, and there is an unusual sort of tension to the court room. The six of them shuffle awkwardly along a bench at the front, opposite the Wizengamot members themselves who are twittering in their robes. Neither Mallory nor Aloysius looks at her, and she forces herself to remain calm, to pretend that she does not even notice that every single other person is. This is, after all, the sixth time she has tried this. There is more than one person regarding her with pity. 

Attention shifts when he arrives. Draco, dressed in a dark grey double breasted muggle suit, with Percy and Merjak either side of him. He appears as he used to - stark, silent, snobby. The tip of his tongue, a flash of pink, traces his lip, the only sign he is dreading this. There is a bristling, a suspicious murmur spreading throughout. Hermione calls out to him. 

“Draco!” She waves him over, and watches as he raises his eyebrow. For a moment she wonders if he’ll come to her, but then he crosses directly through the middle, the heels of his Oxford’s making sharp clicks on the stone floor. Hermione realises this might be the first time he was in here since he was sentenced. She feels another pang of grief for him, for them, and then he is there, leaning over the balustrade. 

“Mrs Malfoy,” he says, and she blushes. He leans towards her, chastely presses a kiss to her lips, less chastely murmurs against them. “Good luck.” 

She flushes deeper when he pulls back, but he is smiling ever-so-slightly, and so it is worth the wizarding world having a front row view of her obsession. 

“Likewise,” she says, and he places a hand over hers, tracing a finger round the central stone of her engagement ring. “Do you want to sit with us?”

“Sure,” he says easily, Percy and Merjak having already slid along next to them. “But you have to promise you won’t get distracted.” This is said slyly, she wants to poke him. 

“I think I’m capable,” she replies. 

He grins, nods to Tilly. “Nice to see you. Budge up.” And then he hoists himself over the balustrade into the space Tilly has just made with a small grunt, swinging his weight over the bar and plonking himself down next to her, his hand coming down to bracket on her thigh. The multiple flashes suggest the entire thing has been photographed, and Hermione tries not to look so charmed by her husband. She notes that Tilly has blushed scarlet on the other side of him.

“Philistine,” she tells him and blushes. He just smirks at her again. 

“I can’t see a fucking thing,” Merjak hisses, attempting to peer over the railing. “This is not goblin-friendly infrastructure.” Her whisper is loud enough to carry. Draco merely takes out his wand, doubling up the pillows on which they sit until Merjak is perched, throne-like and slightly unsteady on a stack of them. She harrumphs, readjusts herself. “How do you feel about your husband using me as a political toy,” she grumbles to Hermione, who has to turn away to hide her smile. 

“He does that,” she offers, and Merjak snorts, runs a scaly hand through her hair. Percy mutters something to her, while Draco winks again at Hermione. And then there is nothing else to do, no further distractions. 

Together, they wait.

The morning drags, Draco is on edge. It is useful, actually, as it means she can focus on keeping him calm which, in turn, calms herself. They continue to touch, his hand on her leg, hers threaded through onto his. People come and take pictures, both of them fix their attention on whoever is speaking, regal and quiet as they wait for the council to turn to Hermione's draft. 

It happens eventually. Her bottom has gone numb by the time they reach it, but the stir throughout the courtroom would make anyone take notice, even if they had fallen asleep. Both Hermione and Draco straighten, infinitesimally. She glances to her team, smiles at them all. She’s proud, she realises. Even if it doesn’t work, she is proud of them, she is proud of herself. Draco squeezes her thigh, she squeezes his back. And without discussion, they withdraw from their embrace, hands folded neatly in their own laps. 

The opening remarks go uncontested, but when the time comes for Aloysius to stand, the tension that has been subtly building starts to boil over. 

Hermione frowns as she realises the draft she saw of his speech was the watered down version. Her initial proposal is outlined as expected - this isn’t just enfranchising creatures, it will open up the wizarding world to whole new avenues of growth and expansions, avenues which, still in the post-war period, they desperately need. But then it turns to Draco, to what he wants to do with it, outlining the problems with passing the legislation as it is in gruesome, critical detail. It assaults his character, brings up his dubious past without flinching, reminds the Wizengamot of the trouble of having too much power in a small number of family's hands. That Aloysius was one of these families seems not to matter, he continues to use it to lambast how Malfoy Capital wants to exploit the legislation. Malfoy cannot be trusted, it will be unfair, it should not go ahead. 

Another voice, a man Hermione recognises vaguely, echoes out - defending him. 

“We know about the interest from Malfoy Capital,” he says, voice sonorous and bored. “We also know that it has already pledged a serious investment towards the expansion of Diagon Alley, much of which would create more jobs, especially for creatures, but would in the end benefit all of us.”

“Do you really have a price,” Aloysius scoffs, and Hermione flinches slightly. This is not the way to convince them - she has learnt that. 

“If this legislation passes, Malfoy Capital will provide one billion galleons to the Diagon Alley project.”

This succeeds in halting the growing mutterings, before restarting them again. Even Hermione inhales sharply in shock. He told her he had this much money, but to hear it, in context, suddenly makes it real. She glances towards him, and he stares at her. Raises one eyebrow, as if to say ‘and?’ 

She turns back, regains her composure. They don’t speak.

“Regardless of the cost, we ought to diversify. Let more than one person contribute  - we’re not cutting Malfoy out. We’re just saying, the way the legislation stands, it makes it ripe for exploitation from individuals with a singular interest. Let us redraft with this in mind.”

Hermione could kiss Aloycius for pivoting so quickly, for not letting the murmurs continue in the wave of the Malfoy generosity. 

“What if the firm pledges more money?”

Draco gives a small nod, as if to confirm he would. Hermione sits as impassively as she can, as she watches members of the council eye him with a mix of interest, fear and suspicion.

“We are not talking about the funding of a new government department,” Aloysius says. “We are talking about building the future of the wizarding world. Creatures will become enfranchised as equals, Diagon Alley will expand, the world will continue to grow. The question is not whether these things will happen, but how. Do we want to allow one singular family to control this expansion - or do we want to empower many to own their own future? To share in the prosperity to come?” 

Aloysius continues, but Hermione can see the expressions on the council members. How close it is. 

They go to vote.

Each time Hermione had drafted and re-drafted this legislation it hinged on one central point. The fact that it is the right thing to do. She watches, holds herself still by force, as she waits to see if this time, the right thing to do will be the reason it is rejected. 

“Vote in favour - raise your hands.”

She tries to count as the air is filled with palms, squinting across in the dim light to see. She blinks as she realises. 

“53-47. The Bill is approved.” 

It passes. The sting of her failure still makes her close her eyes in disappointment, even as she had steeled herself for this to happen. She swallows. Draco relaxes next to her, his arm brushes against hers for the first time in minutes as he takes one, deep, breath in. She expects him to try to get up but he doesn’t, just waits for her, as the courtroom fills with mutters and murmurs and glances, all trying to figure out why she doesn’t look happy when six years of work has finally paid off.

“Order, please. Let us continue - we have one more on the docket for today. Mallory Whitman, you are bringing a proposal for the establishment of the Wizarding Competition Markets Authority. You have the floor.”

Another inhale from Draco next to her, this one sharp and shocked. And despite the disappointment, despite the frustration with how this has gone so far, Hermione allows herself a small smile. 

He thought he had won. 

But Hermione has not finished playing. 

“Thank you, Chief Warlock. In the light of rapid new expansions within the wizarding world, and an increase in inspiration from the muggle world, especially regarding financial innovations, we think it is important to establish a board who have legislative powers and oversight over all wizarding mergers, acquisitions, and general financial activity in order to protect consumers, the economy, and businesses.”

Hermione knew that with Draco’s backing she would probably pass the legislation. She has finally learned that most people have a price, and while she wasn’t expecting him to promise quite so much, she knew it would be difficult to reject.

And so she needed Aloysius to go first even if he did lose, to introduce all of the concerns that they had, to let the people of the council, even if there was the tiniest part of them that was motivated by goodness, to listen to what might go wrong were Draco allowed to continue unfettered. It did not, in reality, matter that Aloysius was not successful. It did not matter that Draco was. The WCMA would outmaneuver them all. Whitman continues, but she does not need to - this time Hermione can tell. The gleam in the eyes of the Council is unmistakable.

“Let us vote.” 

The announcer calls out 81-19, but it is not necessary. The Wizengamot becomes a wall of raised hands as the new committee members are announced. 

Mallory Whitman. Aloysius Greengrass. The goblin, and Merjak’s father, Cirec. Chiron, Firenze’s centaur candidate. The Troll second-in-command, Nokken. Mipsy, a house elf Hermione knows from her campaigns. And overseeing them all -

“Hermione Jean Malfoy as Head of the WCMA.” 

---

The press conference is held in the atrium in the Ministry of Magic. Hermione doesn’t see Draco, he disappears relatively quickly after the hearings, no doubt to speak with Merjak and Percy, no doubt to get some space from the cloying, intense atmosphere of the courtroom. She is quickly pushed to the front, helped up onto the podium and questions are demanded of her. Why did she not appear happy after her legislation passed? Does she have a new job? What is the WCMA’s first objective?

She holds a hand up to silence them. 

“Thank you,” she begins, taking a breath, taking her time. A slight movement in the corner of her eye and she knows her husband is there. She glances to him, sees his face, tight and nervous, hand in a pocket, clutching his wand. She holds his eye for a beat too long - she can’t help it. Can’t help but soak this moment in. “Thank you,” she repeats, turning her attention back to the crowd, most of whom are craning their heads to see what she was looking at. “As Head of the new Wizarding Competition Markets Authority, our main role is to ensure that no single person controls the majority of the investment in the wizarding world. As the legislation I have been working tirelessly to pass shows,” chuckles ring out at this, “diversity is our strength. We intend to ensure this diversity is supported in every area of our world, and that starts with the financial. And yes, our first aim will be ensuring that Malfoy Capital Llc is limited in their ability to solely fund the expansion of Diagon Alley. Any other investors who are interested - send us an owl.” She pauses as people laugh again, takes a deep breath. Draco stares at her, smiling ruefully. “This would not have been possible without the support of my team. Tilly, Hannah, Margaret, James and Tori - thank you for all your support. Thanks to Mallory Whitman and Aloysius Greengrass in their help bringing this to vote, and thanks to my colleagues in the WCMA who I will be working closely with in the future. And finally,” she takes a deep breath. “I would like to thank my husband, Draco Malfoy.” They stare at each other over the sea of people, and his surprise opens his expression, makes him look like he looks to her now - unguarded and hopeful. “Without you none of this would have been possible.” She hopes he can see how much she means it. “Even if I am about to make your life very difficult,” more laughter rings out around them, he’s grinning at her, she knows she is grinning back, “I am terribly glad I married you. And I love you. Very much.” Her voice chokes on the last. She takes a breath that seems to suspend in the room, she’s staring at him and no one else matters, and her heart thuds in time to his, she knows it. She knows. “Thank you for making me brave.”

The party at Malfoy Capital Llc is an uncertain one, because no one can quite work out who has won. As such, people are very drunk. Hermione and Draco have stolen away, sitting on the sofa in his office, her feet in his lap, Heka dozing on his office cat tree. They will rejoin the others eventually. But right now, this moment is for them. 

“Thank you,” she tells him. “It means a lot to me that you came.”

He pauses for a moment, she sees the shadow of stress in his jaw.

“It wasn’t so bad,” he lies. She snorts. 

“Of course.”

“I want to support you,” he says after a moment. “I do. I don’t want you to think that I’m not proud. I know I’ve been a bit…” he trails off. Hermione doesn’t fill in the blank out of kindness. 

“We’re never going to see eye to eye on it,” she tells him. “I love you anyway.” 

He blushes when she says it, suddenly looks very young, boyish again with the pleasure of hearing those words. It is as though he can’t quite bear to look at her when she says them, so he stares at her feet, his hands making manacles around her ankles. 

“I should have known you wouldn’t have put all your eggs in one basket,” he says softly, shaking his head. “You were right. I was underestimating you.”

“I like it when you do,” she tells him, taking a sip of her champagne. “Makes your surprise much more enjoyable.”

He sighs, chuckles, shrugs at her. 

“Any more surprises then? When do you start the new job?”

“Next month. And I do, actually. Have another surprise.”

“Oh, God,” he moans. “What is it?” She smiles. Takes her wand, brings out a stack of papers from her jacket, spell courtesy of Narcissa Malfoy. “What is that,” he asks, suddenly wary.