Work Text
Hermione drained her fourth cup of tea, setting the empty cup back down on its saucer with perhaps more of a clatter than was necessary, and picked up her quill to start writing again. The worst thing about being an Unspeakable, she reflected, was the sheer volume of fucking paperwork. The past month’s assignment had unfortunately flown by; Skye was lovely in early spring, cold and windy with a promise in the air of flowers. She had eventually unraveled the series of curses on the ring of standing stones, the local witches would be able to have their equinox party, and everyone was happy with her work. Except for Hermione, now that she had to fill out all these damned forms about it. List any Dark spells used in the curse-breaking process here, the form demanded, and Hermione sighed. A former curse-breaker turned Unspeakable, she often was assigned these half-curse-breaking, half-Unspeakable type of jobs, and she loved the work, she really did. The problems started when people wanted to know about her spells, particularly any Dark ones. In a sense, every spell she cast was Dark, coming from the dragon heartstring and walnut wand that she now carried. Her old vinewood wand was carefully wrapped in a scarf and stowed in a drawer of her dresser in her bedroom at Grimmauld Place; sometimes she missed it, especially when it came to charm work. But after the war, the walnut wand that she had taken from Bellatrix Lestrange had always worked far better for her. And ever practical, she saw no sense in denying that and forcing herself to cast subpar (for her) spells with her old, uncooperative wand. The other problem with her spells was that a lot of them were homebrewed, and therefore not on any Ministry classification list, Dark or otherwise. They were neither Dark nor not-Dark, and it irked her more than a little that there was, therefore, no entirely accurate way to answer questions like these. It irked her a lot that she had to write these reports in the first place. Which was why, when she heard footsteps in the usually quiet hall leading to her office, she was more than ready for a break. Even if said break came in the form of a conversation with Draco Malfoy, bane of her school years turned coworker who if she wasn’t exactly on friendly terms with, was at the least not an enemy anymore, and was irritatingly easy on the eyes. Healing from the events of her sixth and seventh year of school had been a long road, but immersing herself into her work as a curse-breaker and then Unspeakable had really helped, as had the weekly pub nights turned group therapy sessions that she and her friends had held for years.Now, at age thirty-four, Hermione barely thought of the war. The scar on her arm had turned out to be permanent, as curse scars tended to be, and did ache from time to time. But with every year that passed, the pain was less intense and less frequent, and these days months went by without it bothering her once. She liked her job; she lived with her friends, and life was good. As for Malfoy, from what Hermione knew, he had spent a month in Azkaban, dropped off the radar of magical society for a little while, then following the death of Lucius, returned to Wizarding society and improbably, trained and qualified as an Auror. She hadn’t been on any field assignments with him yet, but she’d spoken to other Unspeakables who had, and they had nothing but respect for his spellwork and professionalism. She knew from her conversations with Ginny and Luna that Narcissa had at some point moved to France; this had apparently made something of a stir in pureblood society when he had officially become lord of Malfoy Manor at age 24, but every time Ginny tried to explain why this was unusual it went straight over Hermione’s head. She just didn’t care about any of that; she knew Gin only kept tabs on the goings-on of the rest of the Sacred 28 because she and Harry were vaguely convinced that if another dark lord were to rise, the first rumblings of it would come from that circle. The past was the past; Hermione was content to leave it there. “Unspeakable Granger,” Malfoy began, pausing in the doorway to her office. “I was wondering if you could help me with a bit of a problem that we have at my home.” His voice was light, but there was something conflicted in his eyes, and Hermione did not need more reasons to look at his eyes. “Oh?” Hermione looked up from her case notes. “What kind of problem?” “Cursed book,” he said, raking a hand through his hair, which was longer than she remembered seeing it. “At first it just wouldn’t open, and now it’s sort of humming and glowing at all the other books. Makes it impossible to get anything done in the library.” Of course he had a private library at Malfoy Manor, she thought. It was probably an incredible library, full of rare things that even the Restricted section at Hogwarts didn’t have. Hermione quashed a quick flare of jealousy, and considered the question.It was worth it to take the job just to get a crack at that library, she decided quickly. And to get away from the interminable boredom of filling out post-assignment reports. “Do you have coordinates for an apparition point?” She asked, knowing it would be impossible to apparate directly into the manor. “Yes,” Malfoy said, looking startled. “You’ll do it?” “Of course,” Hermione replied. “I’d actually welcome the distraction today. I’ve been stuck filling out reports ever since I got back from my case in Skye.”“May I borrow a quill?” Malfoy asked, and Hermione handed hers over. She didn’t miss the way his eyebrow twitched a little when her hand brushed his, but decided it wasn’t worth commenting on. “These are muggle GPS coordinates, but I think you know how those work?” Malfoy asked, handing over a scrap of parchment with a set of coordinates hastily but neatly written on them. “I do, but I’m surprised that you know about them,” she said, accepting the paper and studying it. “Weasley started using them for Auror work a few years ago, and they got popular,” he said with a shrug. “Awfully convenient for coordinating group apparition when there’s no time to arrange portkeys. Not entirely sure how she learned about them, but I’d guess from Potter.” “Interesting,” Hermione said. “Well, I wouldn’t mind going now. It would be a good break from this report.” She stood and, checking that her wand was still in its shoulder holster, stretched her shoulders. “Shall we?” Malfoy seemed a bit startled, and stepped back into the hallway. “You…want to walk down to the apparition point with me?” He asked, his voice cautious. Despite the caution, there was a flash of something oddly hopeful in his storm-gray eyes.“Why not? We can’t apparate until we get to the atrium, and we’re obviously going to the same place, so it only makes sense,” she replied. Hermione locked her office with a silent colloportus, not missing the way Malfoy’s cheeks went pink as she cast it. Whatever that was about, she hoped it wouldn’t get in the way of her curse breaking. “Of course,” Malfoy murmured, and followed her down the hall. The Ministry atrium still had that statue that annoyed Hermione endlessly, but it was the closest point that the wards would allow apparition from, so to the atrium they went. She didn’t miss his slight smile when she couldn’t resist rolling her eyes at it as they walked past, and chose to ignore the whispers of the scattered people taking their lunch breaks at the atrium’s tables and benches. She was long past caring about something as silly as who saw her talking to whom, and as far as she was concerned, Malfoy had paid his debt to society. He was no different than any other Auror that she might collaborate on an assignment with. “See you there,” she said to Malfoy, and fixing the coordinates in her mind, disappeared with a crack. – – The coordinates sent her to the outer gates of the Manor grounds, and when Hermione arrived, Malfoy was already there. She chose not to comment on the likely provenance of his ability to apparate faster than her. “The wards will not allow anyone but a Malfoy to apparate directly inside, but I can open them for you from here,” he said, inclining his head slightly to the gates. “That’s fine,” she said. “If you would, put a hand on the gate somewhere, and I will tell the wards to admit you,” Malfoy said. The wrought metal of the gate was cooler under her hand than she had expected, given the brightness of the late-morning Wiltshire sunlight.“Þil cuman,” Malfoy murmured, and the gates swung open silently. Hermione paused, looking at the expanse of gardens before them, and beyond that, the stone towers of Malfoy Manor. The scar on her left arm, so long dormant, twinged beneath the sleeve of her robe, and unthinking, she rubbed at it with her other hand. “If–” Malfoy paused, letting out what was clearly a measured breath. “If being here is difficult for you–” “No, it’s fine,” Hermione said, too quickly. “It was a long time ago. Show me the library? I’m looking forward to seeing it.” “Of course,” Malfoy said, seemingly surprised by the lightness of her tone. “Follow me, please.” He lead her down a gravel path through manicured gardens sprinkles with hedges and patches of wildflowers to the manor entrance, and though a chill went through her at the first step of her foot on the marble steps up to the heavy oak doors, Hermione squared her shoulders and followed Malfoy into the Manor. Inside, it was nothing like her memories. The walls were in the same places, but other than that, it could have been an entirely different manor. There was a brightness to the rooms, and maybe it had been the darkness of her memories but the windows seemed taller than she remembered. The Slytherin green chaise and wall hanging in the foyer looked comfortable rather than forbidding, and even the hallway with portraits of Malfoy ancestors long past seemed to have a lightness to it that surprised her. The library was the first room on the left past the foyer, and Malfoy pulled open the door, holding it open with a slight bow. Another surprise. Courtesy, from him? She thought that was reserved for other pureblood wizards. Maybe there was more to this older version of Malfoy than she knew. She knew she shouldn’t indulge her curiosity about him personally - it was very unlikely to be relevant to the curse she was there to break - but the curiosity remained. The library was glorious, as she had hoped it would be. The ceilings were even higher than those in the foyer, and the bookshelves covered every wall, reaching all the way to the ceiling. An enormous crystal chandelier bathed the room in soft light, and what she suspected were actual emeralds twinkled among the candles it held. Velvet, deep green sofas and chairs were scattered throughout the room, each with its own tiny table and candle, most of which were lit. The books…oh, the books. She had been right to suspect the Malfoy library would be incredible. Some were obviously incredibly old; some were new, and all were beautiful.“Enjoying yourself?” Malfoy asked, and there was a note of genuine curiosity in his voice.“It’s beautiful,” Hermione admitted. It was a little sad to think that after she broke the curse, she wouldn’t see this library again, but she shook her head a little, trying to get her thoughts back on track. Her scar burned, and she gasped, shocked. It had been over a decade since it had acted up this dramatically and this often. Maybe being back at Malfoy Manor for the first time in so long was going to be harder than she had expected. “Are you alright?” “I’m fine,” Hermione said firmly. “I’m guessing that’s the book in question?” She gestured at the far corner of the library, where a slim, ancient-looking volume in the middle of a shelf at about her eye level was glowing, faint golden sparks falling from it in a shower that dissipated before they reached the shiny parquet floor. “It is,” Malfoy agreed.The book glowed brighter as they approached, and when she was close enough to touch it, the book started humming. It wasn’t an unpleasant sound, she thought, just…loud. She could see how it would be hard to concentrate after even a few moments of that droning in the background. “You see the problem,” he said, waving at it, then putting his hands in his pockets and slouching against a nearby shelf. “It gets loud every time anyone walks by it. Can’t get a thing done in here.” “Hmm,” Hermione said, walking around the shelf in a semicircle. “I have some spells I can cast that might give us more information, and then we can go from there.” “Sounds good,” Malfoy nodded, hands still in his pockets. He cast a wandless levitation charm and the book floated off of the shelf and hovered in the air between them. It fell open to a page somewhere in the middle, and the glow intensified. “Odd,” he said, frowning at the book. “It didn’t get brighter last time I did this.” Her scar flashed with pain again, and Hermione glared down at her arm. Why did Draco fucking Malfoy of all people have to be able to cast a wandless wingardium? It was unfairly attractive. The Malfoy she remembered from school would have been far too lazy to master that kind of wandless magic, but the Malfoy from school was very clearly not the same person as the irritatingly good looking wizard standing opposite her. “Any idea what kind of curse it’s got on it?” Hermione eyed the book. “I might, in a moment,” she said, pulling her wand from her shoulder holster and casting her usual battery of diagnostic spells in rapid succession. A shower of gold, silver, and green sparks flowed from the book, and Hermione frowned as they swirled through the air, twining around herself and Malfoy. “That was a fourth degree Chkartashvili’s Discerning Warmth, Randall’s Anti-Hex, Fraser’s Half Translation, some variant of a revelio, and at least three other things I didn’t recognize, which means they must be homebrewed,” Malfoy said, and she could hear how impressed he was in his voice. “Baise-moi.” “Excuse me?” “Most wizards couldn’t manage more than two spells of that difficulty in an hour, and you just cast about seven of them in one breath,” Malfoy said, his voice sounding a little strained. “I’m an Unspeakable and former curse-breaker,” Hermione reminded him, not turning from studying the shower of sparks that still hung in the air over the book. “It’s sort of my job.” “Right,” he agreed vaguely. “Of course it is.” She stepped to the side, still focused intently on the spark pattern. Most common curses could be categorized into, well, for lack of a better term, what she thought of as curse families, and each family had a signature pattern to the sparks that she recognized. That usually gave her at least a hint of where to start with breaking a curse. This one, however, defied categorization. There was something slippery and twisty about its magic, something that tried to conceal itself from her the more closely she tried to inspect it. In her experience, curses usually didn’t have the level of semi-sentience required to be able to do something like that–which narrowed the field of possible curse families considerably. “Have you seen any other books acting the same way?” She asked. If there were others, maybe the subject of the books would give some kind of a hint about the nature of the curse.“No,” Malfoy said. “Hmm.” She leaned a little closer to the book and poked at its corner with the tip of her wand.The book’s cover flew open, pages rifling in a conjured breeze that seemed to emanate from the book itself, and a soft golden light flowed out of the book towards Hermione and Malfoy, looking like it would splash over them both. Or would have, had Malfoy not dodged in front of her and pushed her out of the way. The golden light hit him, flared briefly brighter, and then disappeared entirely. Hermione steadied herself on the nearest bookcase. In the brief silence that followed, the book thunked to the ground, and the remaining sparks from Hermione’s diagnostic spells fizzled out of existence. Hermione stared at Malfoy, stunned.
“Salazar, Granger, don’t they teach you to dodge curses at whatever passes for Unspeakable school these days?” Malfoy snapped. “Did you just take a curse for me?” She asked, incredulous. “Sorry, who are you and what have you done with Draco Malfoy?” “It shouldn’t have been the first curse I’ve taken for you in this manor, Granger,” Malfoy muttered darkly, and she stared at him. “Malfoy, what are you talking about?” Hermione asked. There was something strange in his voice, some tenor to it that hadn’t been there before that she couldn’t quite place. “I heard it all, when she did it,” Malfoy growled.And Hermione wasn’t sure if the air was growing uncomfortably warm or if that was her, but the scar on her arm that had been getting steadily more achy the longer she’d been on the grounds of Malfoy Manor was getting harder and harder to ignore. Her hand spasmed to cover it, though she knew it wasn’t visible beneath the sleeves of her work robes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, fighting to keep her voice level as she lied. “Can I show you?” Malfoy asked, and stepped closer to her. “I should be casting diagnostics on you, to try and figure out what that book hit you with,” Hermione said. “In fact…just let me have a minute, okay? And then you can show me whatever you want.” The last bit came out a little distracted, as she began the wandwork for her usual battery of curse diagnostic spells before she finished speaking. She decided not to comment on the way Malfoy’s cheeks flamed at that last bit. “Okay, elevated heart rate, elevated temperature, something that trips my generic ‘weird shit ahoy’ flag but doesn’t hit any of the specific curse families I’ve recently seen..” Hermione trailed off, eyeing Malfoy speculatively. “How does it feel?” “Like I’m burning up,” he breathed, stepping closer to her. “Like I’m going to tell you things I’ve never wanted to tell anyone else. Like I’m dying, like I’m coming up for air for the first time.” “Well, that sounds uncomfortably intense,” Hermione said mildly. “You have no idea,” Malfoy breathed, closing his eyes and sinking to his knees on the shiny wood floor. And dammit, that did something to her that, if she was honest about it, she had long suspected, but seeing Draco Malfoy on his knees in front of her eyes was much more intense than anything she had more than once (but would categorically refuse to admit to have) fantasized about. “Do you mind if I just…” Hermione gestured at him with her wand. “I want to check something a little more closely.” “Granger, you can do anything you want to me,” Malfoy groaned, opening his eyes again. “Oh, merde, I didn’t mean it to sound like that.” Hermione slipped two fingers under his jaw, looking for a pulse, and tipped his chin upwards so she could study his expression a little more closely. “Sacré, your hands,” he breathed, then turned instantly scarlet. “I didn’t–” “No, I know you didn’t,” Hermione said, clearing her throat. “I’ve–um, I think I’ve read about these. I think I know what we’re dealing with,” she said, and dammit, she could feel her own cheeks heating up in a mirror to Malfoy’s. If she was right, there was precious little time before they both became rapidly less coherent. “Yeah?” “Yes, well…there’s no delicate way to ask this, but Malfoy, are you–aroused?” Hermione asked, feeling the words spill out of her mouth before she could figure out a better way to put it, a way that didn’t sound so…so. Malfoy laughed, but it wasn’t the cold laugh that she remembered from school. “Are you asking if I want you, Granger? Merde, I always want you.” “Ah.” Hermione paused. “Well, that confirms it, then. I think there was a succession curse on that book.” And evidently Malfoy either recognized the name or he’d figured out for himself what it entailed based on his…symptoms, because he nodded. “Merde.” “Quite. It seems to have attached itself to you now, unfortunately.” She took a deep breath, stowing her wand back in its shoulder holster. “Anyway, those tend to have a nasty habit of sticking around, sometimes for weeks, until the terms of the curse are fulfilled.” Malfoy groaned. “I won’t ask you to help me with that,” he said. His left hand flexed again, as he fought to resist the impulses of the curse, which Hermione was increasingly sure were telling him to do some very specific things to her.
Things that made her cheeks flood with color, in spite of the now burning pain in her scarred arm. “You aren’t asking,” Hermione whispered, running a finger along his jawline. His eyes fluttered briefly shut. “I’m offering.” “If…if we do this,” Malfoy swallowed. “If we do this, the curse will affect you too.” “If we do this, the curse will burn itself out faster,” Hermione corrected. His right hand clenched and unclened slowly, and Malfoy shook his head. “Granger, I can’t. Not in this house, not to you. Not here where so much had already been taken from you.” “You’ve not taking anything I’m not giving you willingly,” Hermione said, and kissed him. It started as a delicate brush of her lips against his, not pushing towards anything, but a question. An offering. For a breath, she thought it wouldn’t work. That he’d refuse, the stubborn man. That he had been right when he’d said he couldn’t do it, in spite of that I always want you that she already knew she would be revisiting when she had some alone time…but then Malfoy moaned a little and suddenly he was kissing her back like a man starved for oxygen. Like he had been underwater and she was air. Like he had been in the dark and she was sunlight. He hadn’t been touching her before but now his hands were around her waist, pulling her down so she was even with him, both of them kneeling on the library floor, and her magic, her blood, everything was on fire as the curse burned through her. He tasted of mint and smoke and something dark, and Hermione groaned. “I need-”“Please tell me you don’t care much about these robes,” Malfoy gasped. “Nope,” Hermione agreed. And damn, up close his eyes were an even more entracing almost silvery gray, especially when they had such a delicious pleading expression in them. “Thank Merlin,” he breathed, vanishing both her robes and his own with a breath of wandless magic. And she had known in an academic sort of way what she was in for with a succession curse, of course she did; they were uncommon enough that she’d never run into one at work but had read about them. None of that had prepared her for the intensity of it. The way her skin burned deliciously when, suddenly robe-less, her chest brushed against his as they both lost their balance and fell inelegantly to the library’s shiny parquet floor. But instead of the hard floor, Hermione felt the softness of his forearm underneath her, cradling her head.“Granger, I–Hermione, please,” he begged, and she knew what he was asking, what they both needed, what they were both burning up for–“Yes, yes, now please, yes,” Hermione gasped, and somewhere in the back of her brain she disagreed with what the rest of her body was apparently saying, because hello, had this man ever heard of foreplay, she could feel him hard against her thigh and he was far too big for this to be a good idea, and this was probably going to hurt–But he was inside her before she could finish the thought, and it was impossibly good. That tiny rational corner of he brain reminded her that it wouldn’t always be like this with him, this was the succession curse trying to make sure they did what it wanted, but she wasn’t going to think about that, not with the angle that Malfoy was at, where he was just hitting the exact right spot with each thrust –“Am I–are you–ohhhhh tu vas me tuer,” Malfoy groaned. “Pourquoi es-tu si parfait?” One of his hands was between them, searching for her clit, and Hermione let her head fall back to rest on his other arm, hooking a leg around his and pulling him closer. “More, please,” Hermione agreed. “I’m so close to–” He came first, the first pulses of his come within her pushing Hermione over the edge after him, gasping and clenching around him, waves and waves of pleasure singing through her body. Malfoy laughed nervously. “Hermione, we just came within about three seconds of each other after having sex for about ten seconds, which I don’t know about you but that’s a new experience for me and last I checked I’m still inside you, can we please give up on the last names?” “Draco,” she breathed, and he groaned. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted–” he trailed off, distracted by the kisses he was peppering down her neck, pulling out with a moan so that he could reach her breast. “Fuck,” she gasped, eyes fluttering closed. “More of that, I need-” And he knew, somehow–probably through the magic of the curse, the tiny fraction of her brain that was still thinking rationally supplied what she couldn’t manage to string enough words together to actually say, and bit down gently on the softness above her nipple. If she screamed, she’d never admit it to anyone else, she swore to herself, but then the curse was flaring up again, and–her eyes flew open, as she suddenly needed more, needed to be in control. “Mine,” Hermione hissed, pushing Draco off of her and onto his back. “I want–” his hands grasped for her hips as she straddled him before he could finish the thought, pulling her to himself as she sank down onto him again, they both groaned. “Let me?” She asked, meeting his thrusts. “Oh please, fuck me,” Draco gasped, and Hermione laughed. “That is–” she started, but was cut off by an unexpected moan as Draco’s cock hit somewhere new, deeper– “completely not the way I ever thought I would hear you say those words,” she finished, moving against him. Impossibly, he laughed too, and sat up, pushing her back until she slammed against the bookshelf. The change in position shifted his cock in her and she moaned, and then–“Again? How am I–,” Hermione started, but the breathy moan she couldn’t suppress swallowed up the rest of her sentence as she came, impossibly, harder the second time. “Good, because then I don’t have to feel–ah–ungentlemanly for this,” Draco growled, pulling out and then pushing back inside, burying himself as deep as he could and coming again.When they both started to come down a little bit, he withdrew as gently as he could, sitting back on his knees in front of her. “Fuck,” Hermione said, looking down at the mess between her thighs. Some of his come had already started dripping from her, and it felt like there was an impossible amount still inside. “We probably only have a minute of relative sanity before the curse notices we’re not having sex and fires up again,” she said. “I didn’t hurt you, did I? When I practically threw you into a bookshelf?”“This is something I never thought I would say but Draco, you can throw me into a bookshelf anytime you want,” Hermione said, trying and failing to keep a straight face. “I’m uh…” Draco waved at his cock, which had started to thicken again, “thinking we’re about out of time.” Hermione bit her lip. “I know it’s the curse but seeing you hard for me, it’s–” Delicious, she wanted to say, but couldn’t finish because he was kissing her again, his lips soft and tasting slightly of mint and something dark, and then he was kissing a trail down her body, pausing at her chest to press a delicate kiss to one nipple, and then lower, down her belly to–“What are you–” She tried to ask, but then his lips were on her, pressing a kiss to the inside of her leg. “I can’t help it,” he said, looking up at her from where he was lying between her legs with a wicked grin. “The curse is making me,” and his fingers were on her clit and his tongue was almost inside her as he licked and sucked, and Hermione didn’t bother trying to keep her moans inside. “You lying Slytherin, that is not what succession curses try to make people do! I’m not going to last any–” she gasped, and felt herself carried along a cresting wave of pleasure.Draco hummed, not taking his mouth off of her until her orgasm had ebbed, then propped his chin in his hands and looked at her with eyes that sparkled with adoration. “That might have been the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said. “You didn’t come,” she gasped. “How are you so–ah–” she paused as he leaned forward and kissed her cunt again– “rational?” “I most definitely did come,” Draco said, “we’re both just covered in so much already you didn’t see. And if you tease me about it I will hex you.”“You won’t,” she said fondly, grabbing his wrist, meaning to pull him up as he laughed so that she could kiss him again, when suddenly his voice hitched. “Please don’t,” he said hoarsely, looking down at the scars on his arm, an inch above where she was touching him. “Draco, what is this?” Hermione asked, studying his forearm curiously. There was the Dark Mark, of course, but on top of it..layers of scars, some thick, gnarled things, others thin and precise looking, a cross hatched mess of silvery scarred skin above the black tattoo, which somehow had lost none of its shape and definition despite the scars crisscrossing it. “It’s my Dark Mark,” he said, his voice bleak and vicious. “You’ve seen it before.” “That’s not what I meant,” Hermione said. “Oh–not now, damn you!” She glared at the almost-forgotten book that was lying on the floor next to Draco, feeling a new wave of arousal hit. “I didn’t want you to see–” he gasped, struggling to his feet and pulling her up after him. “I’m s–” Hermione grabbed him by his Marked arm, pulling him to herself. “Later,” she gasped, and he nodded, hitching one of her legs around his hip and pushing all of himself into her in one long thrust. “I need–” he moaned, pulling her against himself, pushing her up, off her feet, until she was speared on his cock and crushed between his chest and the bookshelf. Her hand clenched around his Marked arm, and she felt his fingers digging into her hip as he thrust, and the bookshelf was rattling a little behind them as she hit it on a particularly hard and deep one, and felt everything that was wound up within her suddenly give. “Draco–” she gasped, and he was coming too, pulsing deep inside her as they came together, faces streaming with tears from the intensity of it. When it ended, he closed his eyes and lowered his forehead to hers, gently setting her down on her feet. Almost in unison, they both collapsed to the floor in exhaustion. “I think we did it,” Draco mumbled, and Hermione could hear the exhaustion clouding his voice.
“We satisfied the curse.” “We are so too old to be sleeping on this floor but I absolutely do not have it in me to get up or apparate anywhere,” Hermione yawned. “If you’ll let me side-along you, I’ll apparate us to my bed, and we can sleep there,” Draco offered. “It’s just…” His voice grew quieter. Regretful. “It’ll be Death Eater apparition, I know,” Hermione said. “Do it.”His apparition was so silent that she barely registered when they disappeared. They appeared atop cool sheets in a swirl of black smoke, and sinking back against an impossibly soft pillow, Hermione sighed. “Je regrette trop,” Draco whispered, pressing a hilariously innocent kiss to her cheek.“Don’t,” Hermione said. There was something unraveling here that felt important to her, but she also felt herself losing the battle with sleep, and drifted off.– – Hermione blinked awake, her eyes feeling grainy and weirdly itchy. “Please tell me you are alright,” Draco said, his face suddenly very close to hers, his eyes a perfect storm-cloud gray that did something to her that she suspected she would have to examine very soon. “Where’s my wand?” Hermione mumbled sleepily, patting the duvet around them until she found it, then casting her all purpose curse-breaking diagnostic charm over them both. “Hermione, please,” Draco begged. “I must know–” “Looks like I’m not pregnant, you’re not pregnant, and neither of us are still cursed, so other than a lingering bit of what I assume is run-of-the-mill soreness, I think I’m alright,” Hermione said, sitting up and reading the sparks that floated above their heads. Draco made a slightly strangled noise. “Sorry, I’m not pregnant? Was that a possibility?”“Hmm?” Hermione asked, snuggling back down against Draco. “Oh, yes, it could have gone either way. I think my muggle contraceptive implant might have confused the spell on my end, but historically, this category of curse has resulted in at least fifteen documented cases of male pregnancy in the last eight hundred years. A couple of them from your own lineage, if I remember correctly.” His face really was a charming shade of violet, Hermione thought, suppressing a giggle. A few minutes of deep breathing later, during which apparently Draco processed the danger he had unwittingly been in, he tried again. “I must know if I’ve hurt you,” he insisted, his voice oddly stiff and formal. “Draco Malfoy, are you trying to apologize for the best sex I’ve ever had?” Hermione asked, shaking her head. “I am fine. More than fine. That thing you did with your tongue…” She hummed appreciatively. “You didn’t hurt me. I wanted it just as much as you did. Merlin, I wanted you.” Apparently stunned into silence a second time in as many minutes, Draco blinked slowly. For the first time since waking up, she saw genuine relief on his face. Then Draco smirked, a softer version of the look she remembered so well from school. “Well. Should I do it again?”“I’m covered in your come!” She protested, but couldn’t keep the desire from her voice. “Then good thing it’s my lips that will be on you, my tongue that will be inside you,” Draco growled, pushing the duvet back and sliding down to kiss her hip. If anything, it was better without the curse. They slept for the rest of the day and through the night, and when Hermione finally woke for the second time, an early dawn was peeking through the vaulted windows of Draco’s bedroom. “You’ve had some owls,” Draco said, opening the door to what she assumed must be a bathroom, from the copious amounts of steam billowing out behind him. He was dressed more casually than she had ever seen him before, in a pair of sweatpants so dark green that they looked black and a black long sleeved tee. His hair was slightly damp, and she was suddenly aware of how much she wanted to touch it. “Oh?” Hermione sat up, pushing the cream duvet off of herself and tucking a wayward curl behind her ear. “I’m pretty sure Potter and Weasley think I’ve kidnapped you, though how they know you’re here is beyond me,” he admitted. “Ah. Right. The tracking spell,” Hermione groaned, flopping back onto the bed. “Oh, kill me now. Or do that thing with your tongue again. One of those.” “Do I get to pick? I know which one I want,” Draco whispered, pressing a kiss to her temple. “What tracking spell?” “At the end of the war, when the three of us were briefly Aurors, all partnered with different people, and spending all our time apart, chasing Death Eaters up and down the country, we put tracking spells on each other,” Hermione explained. “So we’d know instantly if any of us died or got captured.” Again, she didn’t say, but she could feel Draco’s sharp gaze snap to her arm anyway. “So they know you’ve been at Malfoy Manor, a place none of the three of you have set foot in for over fifteen years, for oh, about–” he cast a wandless tempus– “thirty hours, and haven’t attempted to contact either of them. They probably think I’ve abducted you to finish what my aunt started.” His voice darkened with regret. “Oh, just hand me my wand,” Hermione grumbled. “I’ll send them something to get them off our backs.” He reached across the bed for her wand, then dropped it as if burnt. “This is–” he snarled, shaking his head sharply. “It’s Bellatrix’s old one, I’m sorry, I thought you knew,” Hermione said softly, catching the wand as he dropped it. “The vinewood wand never worked properly for me again, after I got it back, after….Well, after everything, and this one always has. I don’t really even think of where it came from much anymore. It’s core is dragon heartstring, like the vinewood wand, but something about the walnut is more…right for who I am now.” She twitched the wand, and a tiny parchment appeared in front of her, words burning themselves into it in fire:
I’m fine. Give me some privacy, you wankers.
She tapped the parchment, and it split into two smaller, identical messages which promptly disappeared. “I am so–” Draco began, but choked on the words. He shook his head. “I will never be able to–”“Draco,” Hermione interrupted. “I know you are drowning in guilt right now but how about you show me the ridiculous bathroom that I am sure you have instead, because I desperately need a shower. Or a bath. Or a shower and then a bath, preferably with whatever kind of completely over the top magical bubbles that I will be frankly shocked if you don’t have.” He blinked, then swallowed hard. “Right. Yes. Come on,” he said, reaching out a hand and helping her to her feet. Hermione followed, wrapping a blanket from the top of the bed around herself as she did. “This is the biggest bathroom I’ve ever seen,” Hermione admired, taking in the cathedral ceilings, the tall windows, and the vast expanse of the white marble sink and bathtub shot through with veins of mossy green and green tile floor. “Don’t you live in Grimmauld Place with Potter and the competent Weasley and their kids? That’s an ancient wizarding house too, it should be halfway decent,” Draco asked.“Grimmauld Place absolutely hates us,” Hermione said with a grimace. “Me, for obvious reasons,” she raised her left arm, refusing to acknowledge Draco’s stricken expression, “and Harry’s always hated it there because of how much Sirius hated it, and I think the house picks up on that. Ginny and Albus and James like it, which is probably the only thing keeping the place halfway habitable. So no, that’s the long way to say that the bathrooms at Grimmauld Place in no way compare to this absolute palace that is, I suspect, merely one of many in your house.” If she didn’t know better she would have sworn the bathroom brightened at her words. Draco rolled his eyes. “Oh, now it’s going to be insufferable. This house already liked you. Pretty soon it’s going to be in love with you too.” “Oh?” Hermione asked, following Draco to the shower, which turned itself on and promptly filled with a fragrant, light green mist as she dropped the blanket she was wrapped in and stepped under the stream of water. “I–it talked to me, during the war. I don’t know if you know that about the oldest wizarding houses, that they will talk sometimes?” Draco asked from just outside the shower, his voice cautiously light. “I didn’t,” Hermione said, grabbing a bottle of whatever was closest and massaging it through her hair. “Yes, well, you…impressed the house. A house that’s been in a Slytherin family for a literal millennium and hadn’t spoken to any of us in a quarter of that was suddenly whispering to me all kinds of practically Gryffindor sounding nonsense about how brave you were and how much it enjoyed how skilled you were at lying,” Draco said, a weird mix of despair, shame, and affection in his voice. “I–it got me thinking about some things.” Rinsing the last of whatever was in that bottle from her hair, Hermione noticed a second bottle slowly scooting across the shower floor to her. With a smile, she picked it up, poured a bit in her hand, and sniffed. “Oh! This is what you used to always smell like at school,” she mused. “Merlin, I hated you. Or thought I did.” “Didn’t you?” Draco’s sudden curiosity banished some of the shame from his voice.“I mostly did, but sometimes I just wanted to talk to you,” she admitted. “You were good at potions from the beginning, and I don’t know if you know this about my two best friends, but they are absolute shit at potions. I wanted somebody to talk to about all these ideas that I had and trying to talk to the two of them about potions and arithmancy theory was like trying to talk to a brick wall.” Finishing with the shower gel, she whispered a quick thanks to the house under her breath, and stepped out of the shower. What was the point of bothering with a towel and modesty when they’d spent at least half of the past thirty hours having sex, anyway? “Now show me that bath,” she instructed, braiding her hair and tying it off. Draco glanced at her, a dusting of pink spreading across his nose. “Don’t know why I bothered to get dressed,” he muttered. “Maybe because you knew I would love to help you get undressed,” Hermione teased, plucking at the hem of his shirt, feeling the coolness of his skin underneath. “How can you want–” Draco broke off, blinking furiously and drawing in a deep breath. “Show me how your ridiculous magical bathtub works first, and then I will indulge the unnecessary guilt spiral that you are so obviously on the brink of once we’re naked and warm and bubbly,” Hermione suggested, but her voice was soft. “It just sort of goes on its own,” Draco muttered, waving a hand at the bath tub. “There really isn’t anything to show.” A pipe somewhere under their feet creaked alarmingly in what clearly sounded like a reproach, and then warm water rushed into the tub, filling it impossibly quickly. When it was full, the same green mist floated over the top, and Hermione dipped a toe into it, leaning over the side. “It’s perfect, thank you,” she said, patting the side of the tub.Draco raised an eyebrow. “What? I did learn some things about how to address magical constructs in Unspeakable school, as you call it,” she added, slightly defensively. “Now get in here with me.” Regret was plain on his face as he slipped his pants off, then pulled the shirt off, arms over his head, angled away from her. Angled intentionally so that she couldn’t see his Dark Mark, or the scars on top of it, she realized. The scars on his chest, though…She decided not to press–yet.She slipped over the side of the tub, settling until the water came up to her shoulders. There was a distinct sense of space stretching, and then suddenly there was room for Draco too, and he quietly settled behind her. “Lean against me?” He asked, his voice quiet. Hermione shifted, letting her weight fall back against him until she felt his chest against her back. She let her eyes fall closed, enjoying the warmth of the water and the slight scent of cedarwood, the heat from his hands as they settled around her hips under the water, pulling her back against himself. “Well, here we are. Do your worst,” she said. And if she wiggled her own hips a tiny bit, felt him stir a little underneath her…well. Slytherins weren’t the only ones who could be devious. “I dragged you into this weird sex curse unknowingly and I don’t want you feel trapped now that it’s happened and I know it’s been years but I know that scar has been bothering you today and I didn’t do anything to stop it!” His voice got deeper and quieter as he let loose the leash on his panic, Hermione noticed.
Was that a Slytherin thing or just a Draco thing? “That’s all?” She asked, turning a little so she could press a kiss to the side of his neck. She felt him let out a long, steady breath. “And I think I’ve been in love with you since you told Bellatrix to fuck off,” he whispered. “Wandless, alone, and throwing powerless muggle curses at the scariest witch alive. You took me completely by surprise,” he admitted. “Scariest witch alive, huh?” Hermione grinned. “You really need to spend more time talking to Molly Weasley if you think that.” “Really, that’s the part that you want to talk about?” “What is there to say about the rest of it?” Hermione asked, turning around completely so she could look him in the eyes. “I don’t know,” Draco admitted, not meeting her gaze. “You could curse me, curse the house, snap my wand while I’m asleep, find something you want to carve into my other arm? I’ll teach you the curse that does it, if you don’t already know it.”“I know the curse,” Hermione said steadily. “I tried to use it on Bellatrix actually, but couldn’t. It didn’t work for me.”“Ah.” “Why would I curse your house? I think your house and I are starting to be friends,” she continued, patting the side of the bathtub, which shivered almost imperceptibly under her hand. “And I suspect that snapping your wand would be pointless, given the amount of wandless magic I’ve seen you do over the past thirty hours. Which, frankly, is fucking hot. What gives you the right, Draco Malfoy?” Hermione teased. He hummed, noncommittal. She turned again, leaning into his warmth. He brought his hands to her shoulders and slowly, obviously trying to telegraph every movement to give her time to push him away, started to rub the top of her back in circles. Hermione sighed. For a few moments, the only sound was the quiet lap of water between them as he rubbed her back. “Going to tell me about those scars?” She asked. “Nothing to tell,” Draco said, his voice tight. “I wanted it gone. I failed. Many times. Many different ways, magical and muggle.” “I know how you got the other scars, you know,” she said eventually. “Harry didn’t know what that curse did before he cast it, which of course does not excuse him at all, and on our camping trip from hell I had to hear constantly about how much he regretted what he did to you.” “I deserved it.” Draco’s voice was flat, black. “I think not,” Hermione said lightly. “You were backed into a corner, we all were. We all were pushed to make decisions that teenagers shouldn’t have to make.” “I made the wrong ones. The Unforgiveable ones,” Draco whispered, dropping his head to her shoulder, kissing the space between her shoulder blades softly, reverently.Hermione turned around, slipping her legs over his until she sat on him, hands on his shoulders. “Draco,” she began, voice a little unsteady. “I want you. I want this you, scars and Marks and all.” She reached for his Marked arm, lifting it from where he had let it fall into the bath, and pressed a kiss to the top of his wrist. Then another and another, a little higher each time, until she had kissed everything he had tried to hide from her. “Hermione, please–” his desperation was quieter than it had been in the library, but no less intense. “I need you.” “You have me,” she whispered, sinking down all the way onto him, sighing at the delicious stretch as he filled her. His thrusts were gentler, slower this time, but no less deep; he bent his head to kiss her breast and Hermione pushed down onto him, plunging him even deeper into her cunt. His Marked arm drifted lower, his fingers seeking for her clit, and she gasped as he found it, pushing against the sensitive bud as he sought with his other hand for where they were joined, pushing two fingers into her. They rocked together, the intensity building until–“Please,” she sobbed, suddenly overwhelmed with sensation, and he pulled her forward, burying his face in her chest as her head fell to his shoulder, as her cunt clenched around him, and then they were both coming again, and somehow there was a tiny pinprick of burning pain on her left finger, but Hermione was too distracted by the delicious feeling of him pulsing within her as she gasped through the last wave of her orgasm to think about it. Slowly, the sensation faded, and she let out a shaky breath. “That was–ah–unexpected,” she breathed, as he slid out of her, pressing kisses to her collarbone. “Which part,” Draco asked, amused, “the bathtub sex or the betrothal?” “Weird things just really will not stop happening, will they?” Hermione asked. “What betrothal? Pretend you’re talking to someone who doesn’t know anything about weird pureblood magic.” In reply, Draco lifted her left hand, where a tiny, grass-green snake tattoo wound across her ring finger between the lowest knuckle and where the finger met her hand. He kissed it chastely, then held up his own left hand, where an identical snake now rested. The magic wasn’t finished with them. As she watched, a silver light flared over each of their hands, and when it was gone, she could see tiny letters at the tail of each snake– DLM on her own snake; HJG on his. “The magic has to make it obvious, in case anyone had any doubt,” Draco explained, amused. “I hope it is not unwanted, but if it is I swear I will find out how we can undo this–”“Draco,” Hermione interrupted, her voice fond but stern. “What part of we have had sex so many times I’ve lost track in the past thirty hours makes you think I don’t want you?” “It doesn’t mean you want to be tied to me. To this name, to this house,” he said. “I’m being realistic. I don’t know how much you know about old Wizarding houses, but as lord of Malfoy Manor I am bound to this house and these grounds as long as I live. If you keep this betrothal, you will be as well. It’s not like I can’t leave, I mean, you see me at work all the time, but–” “What a terrible fate, to have to see this hideous bathroom every morning,” Hermione agreed, with a whispered I don’t mean it, you are beautiful to the tub. “I’m keeping you, Malfoy,” she said confidently. “Get used to it.” The mixture of shock and bone-melting relief on his face as his gray eyes fluttered briefly shut was something she knew she would remember for a long, long time. Hermione was about to speak when a single pane of glass in the bathroom’s floor-to-ceiling window popped open and an envelope in a familiar, unpleasant shade of red swooped inside to hover before her face. “HERMIONE WHAT THE HELL THAT WAS CRYPTIC AS FUCK AND SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE WHAT YOU WOULD SAY IF YOU WERE A HOSTAGE SOMEHOW IF YOU DON’T COME TO GRIMMAULD PLACE FOR LUNCH BY NOON GIN AND I ARE COMING TO GET YOU OUT OF THERE, DO NOT WORRY WE WON’T ABANDON YOU,” the Howler yelled in Harry Potter’s unmistakeable voice. Hermione sighed. “Do you see what I’m dealing with?” She demanded, rubbing at her forehead with a bubble covered hand. Draco shook with either silent laughter or silent tears, she wasn’t sure. He cast a wandless, nonverbal tempus charm, and the time hovered in front of them both: fifteen minutes to noon. “You don’t have much time,” he said, and she could hear the grimace in his voice. “Hey,” Hermione said, turning around again and wrapping her arms around his neck. “Come with me to meet them for lunch.” “Their house is Unplottable, everyone knows that, and I highly doubt they want to see the Death Eater who kidnapped their friend,” Draco said dryly.“Yes, it’s Unplottable,” Hermione agreed. “And I’m one of the Secret-Keepers. And I want you there.” He didn’t argue, but stood and climbed out of the bath, making the process look much more elegant than Hermione felt it would when it was her turn to climb over the high bathtub sides. A towel floated itself towards him, and he allowed it to wind around his waist. “I’m really starting to regret letting you vanish my clothes,” Hermione commented as she stepped out of the bath, allowing the fluffy, cream colored towel that hovered in the air before her to wrap itself around her. Draco found his wand on the bathroom counter, waved it at his hair, and suddenly looked much more put together than she felt. “What spell was that? Do me next,” Hermione asked curiously. “Malfoy family secret,” Draco teased, but he did. “And about the clothes…come with me.” He held out a hand and she took it, letting him lead her from the bathroom into his (cavernous, of course) closet.Like the bathroom, Draco’s closet was bigger than most of the rooms in Grimmauld Place, and impeccably organized. His shirts hung on neat rails, organized by color, so that a gradient of shirts perfectly white near the door darkened into green so dark she would have sworn they were black at the very back, and ties of every shade of green were folded neatly on a shelf above what looked like fifty pairs of identical black dress pants. Draco murmured a gentle sounding spell, and when she turned back to look at him, he was fully dressed, the lines of his pants pressed immaculately, and a dark green shirt tucked perfectly into the waistband. “You can have something of mine to wear, if that’s…if you don’t mind being seen in my clothes,” Draco offered. “I know a few tailoring spells and I have something in mind that I think would really suit you.”Hermione paused her examination of the closet to stare at him. “Draco Malfoy, are you trying to pick out my clothes for me?” Her voice sparkled with delight. “I just think you’d look really good in green,” he said, ducking his head and not succeeding at all in hiding the blush that bloomed across his nose. “Take anything - whatever fabric you like the best and I’ll work from there. It doesn’t have to be green,” he conceded. Partly because she was curious and partly because she knew it would please him, Hermione took her time looking through his shirts and dress robes, touching everything, until she settled on a sea green button up shirt that might have been the softest thing she’d ever felt, outside of the sheets on his magnificent bed.“This,” Hermione said, holding out a sleeve. “What is this?” “Acromantula silk,” he said. “Still want it?” “It’s unbelievably soft,” Hermione said, lifting the edge of the sleeve to her cheek. “And it’s Ron who’s got the spider phobia, not me.” “Good,” Draco said. “It’s not exactly the same as a protego, but clothing tailored by the master of a wizarding house does confer a…. degree of protection to the wearer. And Acromantula silk holds the enchantment a bit longer than most other things. You have a good eye.” “So that’s why you know tailoring spells,” Hermione said. “I was going to say, that doesn’t really fit with my image of what ridiculous pureblood wizards get up to in their free time.” Draco laughed. “Well, if you refuse to humor my desire for you to carve something into my skin in revenge, the least you can do is let me spoil you a tiny bit with some really good tailoring,” he grumbled, pulling an emerald green tie from a shelf, then kneeling to lay it out on the floor. Hermione was beginning to suspect Draco had a bit of a thing for being on his knees.“That might be the most Slytherin thing I’ve ever heard you say,” she said, smothering a laugh. “Good. Now hold still, this part is a little fussy,” he grumbled, jabbing his wand at the emerald green silk tie on the floor at her feet. It shimmered briefly, then vanished, but in its place…“Oh, you are wicked,” Hermione breathed, letting her towel drop so that she could run her hand across the green silk panties that she now wore. “Turn, please,” Draco said mildly. “I want to see that I got it right. Never actually done that one before.” He hummed approvingly as she turned, and when her back was to him, swiftly leaned in closer and pressed a kiss to her lower back, just above the top of the green silk. “It’ll do,” he said. “I regret that I don’t know how to make a bra, though.” “Let’s skip it,” Hermione said, looking back over her shoulder at him. “Less to take off later.”“Unbelievable,” Draco muttered. “Were you always this…” “Into you? For quite a while, I’m afraid,” she admitted. “Now the dress,” he said, handing her the sea green shirt. “Put this on, and you don’t have to button it.” Hermione slipped the shirt over her shoulders; it was vastly too big, but the silk was cool and soft all at once and she had to suppress a sigh. “When?” Draco’s voice was quiet as he sat back on his heels, studying the way the hem of the shirt fell against her legs.“You probably expect me to say something like oh, it was when that petition of Luna’s went through the Ministry about house elf rights last year and I saw that you were the first of the Sacred 28 to sign it,” Hermione said, “but it was earlier. My first day as an Unspeakable I was late to work, and you stopped and held the door to the Ministry atrium for me. I was surprised you were even willing to walk through that room, with its ridiculous statue, but that you’d stop and hold the door even though you knew I was behind you…”“Even though?” Draco echoed, his voice incredulous. “Even though you saw me, someone who definitely should have testified for you at your trial but chose not to.” Her voice was steady, but there was no hiding the current of regret. “I knew Harry would testify for you so I told myself that would be enough to spare you Azkaban, which I really didn’t think you deserved, even right after the war, when I was angriest with you, but really I just couldn’t face seeing you again so soon after….after. I had a lot of trouble with my scar, back in those days.” Draco muttered something and did a complicated-looking series of loops with his wand, and the unbuttoned shirt became a comfortable wrap dress, the Acromantula silk shimmering softly. “You didn’t have to testify for me,” he said softly. “You didn’t owe me that. Or anything. Now turn again please, so I know if I got this one right.” Hermione turned, suddenly blinking furiously. “Honestly, how dare you, Draco,” she said, her voice choking a little on his name. “You were an absolute git at school and a decade and a half later, you’ve become the most thoughtful man I’ve ever met.” “All done,” he said, rising to his feet. “As I said, it’s not exactly the same as a protego, but you’ll be impervious to most minor hexes and jinxes while wearing it, and if you spell tea or anything else, the dress will repel it.” “Of course one of your protection spells would include that,” Hermione said, shaking her head. “You lot are a tiny bit ridiculous sometimes, you know that?” He inclined his head slightly, the picture of composure. “I’ll give you coordinates to Number Eleven, Grimmauld Place,” Hermione said. “Apparating there will get you close enough, and then I can share the secret with you when we arrive. I think that will probably shock them less than you just showing up right at Number Twelve alone, since you’re going to get there a moment before me.” Because you’ll always have Death Eater apparition, and that is faster than normal apparition, she didn’t say. “Of course.” His voice was even, but Hermione caught that grimace that flashed across his face, disappearing as fast as it came. “Then let’s go,” Hermione said, fastening her wand shoulder holster and sticking the walnut wand into it. She disappeared with a crack; he disappeared in a swirl of smoke. When she appeared on the sidewalk in front of Number Eleven, Grimmauld Place, Draco was already there, and Harry and Ginny were waiting on the walk a few feet away, Harry looking concerned, Ginny looking bored.“Hermione! Oh thank Merlin you’re okay,” Harry said, crushing Hermione to himself in a hug. “Yeah, I’m fine, Harry,” Hermione said when she could breathe again. “Just a little er…side project. Unspeakable business, I can’t bore you with the details.” Harry let her go and scrutinized her face. “You’re lying,” he said. “Since when did you become a Legillimens?” Herminoe grumbled, smoothing down the front of her dress.“Since when do you wear green?” Harry shot back. Hermione rolled her eyes. “Malfoy,” Ginny said with a short nod, but her tone was friendly. “Weasley,” he returned the greeting, and Hermione could hear the wariness in his voice. “Well,” Hermione said. “Are we going inside or what?” Harry eyed Draco suspiciously, but nodded and turned to open a door that Hermione knew Draco still couldn’t see. “Draco,” she said softly, turning to face him, “Harry Potter lives at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place,” and they followed Ginny and Harry across the threshold. “I have to be honest, I didn’t actually make anything for lunch because I thought the chances of you showing up here were nil,” Harry admitted as they followed him down the hallway, past the angrily muttering portrait of Walburga Black.The portrait shrieked when Draco walked by it. “Blood traitor! Besmirching the traditions of our house! May your name be curs–” “Shut up,” Draco snarled, drawing his wand and flicking it at the portrait. “You’re dead, you don’t get any say about the future of our house. And I’ve been cursed enough today already, thank you.” To everyone’s surprise, Walburga pressed her lips shut, glaring daggers at Draco. Hermione suppressed a smile. It shouldn’t have been funny, but…with the amount of time she and most of the Order had spent trying to get that portrait to shut up, it was a relief to see that someone actually existed who could. She looked at Ginny, who had stood rooted in place, eyes flickering rapidly between Herminoe and Draco. Hermione saw the exact moment Ginny figured out what was between herself and Draco. “Hey Hermione, got any news you want to share?” Ginny’s voice was so aggressively casual that Hermione had to grin. “Sounds like I don’t, since you clearly figured it out already,” Hermione teased. “What’s that?” Harry called from the kitchen, sticking his head around the doorway. “Why are you guys still in the hallway?” “Just discussing wedding plans,” Ginny called airily, and Draco choked. “We’re already married, Gin,” Harry called back. Hermione could see the tension in Draco’s shoulders lessen a little with that. “Come on, partner, into the kitchen and you can explain to my husband who is also your mortal enemy why you are marrying my best friend,” Ginny said cheerfully, hooking an elbow though one of Draco’s and steering Hermione and Draco ahead of her into the kitchen. “Partner?” Harry yelped. Draco took a deep breath. “We’ve been partners at work ever since O’Brien retired,” he said. “I thought…I assumed you knew.” He glanced at Ginny, who shrugged. “That was a YEAR AND A HALF AGO,” Harry yelled, startling Hermione. “And she clearly was right not to tell you, since you’re being completely silly about it,” Hermione said sternly. “And you,” Harry said, turning to Hermione, “Did Malfoy–” Harry demanded, stopping when Hermione glared at him. Everyone present knew how it would end anyway. “Be careful what you say to my fiancée, Potter,” Draco said, his voice low and dangerous.Ginny high-fived Hermione, while Harry and Draco glared at each other, and all in all, Hermione thought this introduction had gone a lot better than she’d expected. “I don’t love it,” Harry sighed, scrubbing a hand through his perpetually messy hair. “But I know that’s more about my inability to not think Malfoy is up to something than anything else, and I swear I’m working on that.” “He really is,” Ginny chimed in, eyes sparkling. “Last week he told me that he thought you were spying on me at work,” she said to Draco. “We share an office,” he said, unsmiling. “I don’t have to spy on you.” “Oh Merlin you share an office, is there only one desk?” Harry groaned, then seeming to get collect himself a bit, waved a hand. “No, no, don’t answer that.” “You’re doing great, Harry, really,” Hermione said with a laugh. “But now that we’ve indulged your paranoia a little, Draco and I have somewhere to be.” “We do?” He asked, and Hermione stepped on his foot. “Gross,” Ginny said, but her smile was fond. “I’m happy for both of you, now ignore my husband and get out of my house.”Hermione saw the instant that Draco hesitated – he didn’t want to Disapparate in front of them, not when they would see the telltale haze of black smoke that characterized Death Eater Apparation. She laced her fingers through his, and returning the grateful squeeze of his fingers, Disapparated with a crack. “Oh, this isn’t right,” Hermione frowned, looking around at the gates to Malfoy Manor. “I meant for us to land in the library so I could check that book out one more time.”“For the purposes of the wards, you’re not quite a Malfoy yet,” Draco said. “I’ll take us the rest of the way.” A swirl of black smoke, and they were in the library. “Now let’s make sure you don’t get up to any more mischief,” Hermione said, crossing the room to the back bookshelf and casing a quick nonverbal wingardium at the offending book, which was still lying on the floor, looking deceptively innocent. The book floated up to her eye level; she cast her usual battery of diagnostic spells, studying the pattern of sparks. “I think we’re in the clear,” she said. “There doesn’t seem to be anything left on it. I wish there was a trace of something, to be honest,” she said. “I’d really like to know where that spell came from.” “Is it bad that I don’t really care?” Draco asked, walking over behind Hermione and wrapping his arms around her shoulders. “I got you out of it. I should be thanking the curse.” The candlelight in the nearest wall sconce flickered; Hermine huffed a laugh. “Do you think that was the house admitting to orchestrating the curse?” She wondered. The book, still floating in front of her, snapped close with a gentle pfft of pages and slid itself back to its place on the shelf. “Pretty sure that’s a yes,” Draco said, amused. Hermione smiled, leaning back against Draco and tilting her face up to kiss him on the cheek. “Well. Thank you, house.”