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In a way, Draco had always been attracted to Hermione Granger. He was attracted to her like he thought Hippogriffs were very graceful and lovely. Which is to say, he’d never admit it to anyone and barely admitted it himself because they were both vicious and objectively terrible.
It was terrible when she testified for him following the war and helped keep his sentence light.
It was terrible during their final year at Hogwarts when she was nothing but kind.
It wasn’t until he heard about his father’s dance with Granger at a Ministry gala that things went from terrible to “Oh, what the fuck?”
He heard it from Blaise who was invited to these things because of his neutral stance during the war and because Blaise was absurdly rich and was always on the prowl to buy power because of boredom or something.
Slughorn did it. You know how Slughorn is. He somehow maneuvered Granger and your father into dancing while your mother looked on horrified.
Oh fuck, was it a disaster?
No.
What do you mean no?
They were speaking the whole time and they looked angry but they danced beautifully. Bet your father would totally fuc–
What the fuck, Blaise!
Anyway, then it was over, and your father looked disturbed. Then your mother looked disturbed. And I bet you’re going to get an owl soon.
Draco did indeed receive a summons from his father, and Lucius proceeded to tell him that he should do everything in his power to align himself and the family with Granger. His father told Draco that he would be assured a job in the DIMC. With Granger, of course.
When Draco tried to interrupt, because why wouldn’t he, his father cut him off.
Do it.
But why?
If you can earn Miss Granger’s loyalty, she’ll do right by you. She’ll do everything she can to ensure that. Our name is in the gutter— an alliance with Granger would only benefit this family.
You figured that out from one dance?
Yes. Do it.
So, he did. It’s not like he had anything better to do.
Of course, Draco acknowledged this was a serious, unhealthy event in his life, and that he should probably see a Mind Healer immediately. But, well.
Draco got a job being an international liaison for the DIMC.
He was good at it. Why wouldn’t he be? He was charming, intelligent, and he knew how to play games and manipulate.
And then there was Granger. Granger didn’t know how to play games. Like the Gryffindor she was, she went charging in with her moral compass and was often shut down despite her war heroine status.
He told his father as much. Certainly he’d surpass Granger soon by climbing the ranks.
Lucius was not pleased.
Help her.
Wait, why?
Miss Granger needs to be doing well for you to do well.
Well, oh fucking kay.
What about my own merit, Father?
Lucius waved a hand.
That was never in doubt.
That was nice to hear, at least.
—
Granger pushed for an international treaty regarding persons affected by Lupinism. A term and assignation she came up with because she didn’t want the personhood taken away from werewolves. They were people and they were people who needed the full support from the Ministry and on an international level. Wolfsbane needed to be cheap and easily accessible. Programs needed to be developed to educate the larger population, blah blah.
Granger would go on about this in meetings, excitable, passionate, waving her hands around, fidgeting, working up a sweat, glowing under the lights, her hair seemingly growing larger and more untenable and looking strangely fuckable…
Anyway. No one gave a shit.
The Ministry was still very much run by the old guard, and Granger simply did not know how to deal with them.
She was whining about it to one of their coworkers one day after a particularly long meeting, and Draco decided this was the time to help her.
Draco cleared his throat. “You know, Granger, you might be more effective—” He paused and peered at Clara or Connie or—
“Yes, Malfoy?” Granger asked. No defensiveness, no hint of derision or suspicion. He expected all three. But she just looked at him with wide-eyed curiosity and it shocked him for a moment.
“Ah, um.” His eyes darted around before landing on Granger again. “Do you want to have lunch with me? To discuss.”
Granger blinked slowly. “Today?”
“Yes?”
“Now? In the canteen? It’s Salisbury steak day!” She said.
Draco was appalled. “Um, yes?”
“Certainly,” she said before addressing Candace again. “Thank you for listening!”
“Er, sure,” the other witch said, and it was clear she had in fact not been listening.
A short time later, in the Ministry canteen, which he had never stepped foot in other than his first day with the DIMC, Granger happily ate what was some approximation of beef.
She dabbed a napkin against her lips. “You’re not going to eat?”
“I had a big breakfast,” Draco lied. “Incidentally, I’m not alone in thinking your werewolf legislation is a worthy cause.”
He didn’t actually care.
“Oh?”
Draco was trying to be tactful about this and it pained him. What he wanted to say was “You are terrible at this and here’s why,” but that just wouldn’t do.
“Granger, you are terrible at this.”
Well. Fuck.
“I mean. That’s to say—”
“I know.”
“What?”
Granger’s shoulders sagged and she seemed to curl around herself, staring down at her empty tray. “I can admit to my faults, Malfoy,” she said quietly to the tray in front of her, and he had to strain to listen around the clamor of noise surrounding them. “I know no one is hearing me. I thought I’d earned the honor of being listened to, respected, but that’s just not the case and I was naive to think otherwise.”
Draco was absolutely stunned at this show of vulnerability. She may as well have stretched her neck out to be mauled.
It was a pretty neck. A neck worthy of mauling. No, wait.
“Well, Granger. I can help you with that,” he said gently. He hadn’t anticipated being gentle, but there it was.
She looked up from the tray and her eyes were so big, brown, and hopeful. “Oh?”
Draco was struck unexpectedly with a feeling of pride. Unbridled, earnest pride. A feeling that he normally associated with the praise of his father when he was young and …well, hopeful. He hadn’t experienced it for a long, long time. On the heels of this pride was confidence and a sense that he was doing exactly what he was meant to be doing.
He leaned forward and smirked. “Time to start thinking like a Slytherin, Granger.”
He didn’t know then that that was the moment he would begin the process of losing himself to her completely.
—
It wasn’t easy getting Granger to see things from his point of view — manipulation, bribery, and blackmail, however subtle, were things she apparently had a problem with.
At the start, anyway.
It turned out Granger had a streak of viciousness in her that he was completely unaware of.
(Lie, Hermione Granger was a fucking Hippogriff through and through.)
When she used the tools she’d originally balked at, she was unstoppable, and he was always behind her.
Six months after he first approached her, the werewolf legislation was passed and sweeping change followed suit in other countries they acted as liaisons for. Slowly, but it happened. When Bulgaria adopted a version of her Wolfsbane measure, she burst into tears and said it was more exciting than when she rode a dragon out of Gringotts.
He had a lot of questions and thoughts about that, some very unsavory, but his mind went blank when she threw his arms around him.
His parents were pleased. His reputation was pristine and lauded in the shadow of her victories. His social circle had unaccountably grown to include Potters, Weasleys, and a slew of other Order members.
He and Granger were friends. Work friends.
—
And really, Draco firmly maintained their work friendship status for a long time.
It didn’t matter that she made him incandescently happy. Didn’t matter that she made him fulfilled and stimulated intellectually and emotionally. Didn’t matter that she had the biggest doe eyes, the freckles scattered across her nose, the perfect brown skin touched inexplicably with a hint of gold. The tits. The wide hips. The hair.
All incidental, really. She wasn’t his type and they made each other very angry all the time in a way that didn’t make him want to have her begging him for release with his head between her plush thighs.
Until it happened.
He managed to convince her to have lunch at a posh place in Diagon Alley.
But it’s turkey day!
Granger— good fucking Merlin, please. There is better food out there.
Walking out of the restaurant, she sniffed and ran her hands down her Ministry robes primly and said, “Yes, I suppose the duck a l’orange was quite good.”
He shook his head and was about to respond when the words “Death Eater scum!” sailed through the air and a rather gaunt and irate wizard approached them.
Draco rolled his eyes. This wasn’t uncommon. It happened, oh, perhaps every few months or so, but he was particularly irritated and ashamed that it was happening with Granger at his side.
Usually, he ignored the vitriol and sidestepped around whatever wizard or witch the Death Eaters and Voldemort had wronged in some way. Their anger was valid but somewhat misplaced.
Maybe not misplaced. Draco did tend to come out of these situations feeling a great sense of shame that led to an inevitable existential crisis that he’d eventually come out of a few days later.
But this time…
Granger already had the wizard pinned against the brick wall of the restaurant with the tip of her wand pressed against his neck.
“You were saying?” she snarled, simultaneously lifting her left hand casting a wordless, wandless notice-me-not charm around them.
Later, when he went over this in his mind repeatedly, he would marvel. His heart would beat fast every time he thought of it.
But for now.
“Granger…” he pleaded.
“You were saying?”
The wizard spluttered an apology and Granger lowered her wand. The wizard ran. She huffed out a breath of irritation, quite similar to the one she loosed when she ran out of ink.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Draco said. He was alarmed, shocked, fucking dismayed. He was so ashamed.
Granger spun to face him and hissed, “I don’t have to do anything but I’ll always try to do the right thing.”
“I’m not—”
“Yes. Yes you are,” she said, holstering her wand. “You’re good, Draco.”
She devastated him in that moment.
It couldn’t be helped. There it was. The fact, the one that had been nudging at him for a long time, barreled into his brain. It was loud and persistent now. It was screaming.
Draco was in love with Hermione Granger.
It was objectively the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Worse than being maimed by a Hippogriff.
He was so fucked.
—
He survived being in love with Granger for a few months until it blew up in his face.
In the end, Draco would always blame Luna Lovegood.
He sat across from Pansy in one of the Parkinson sitting rooms.
“You said this was an emergency.”
“Not really, but I say a lot of things,” she said.
Well, he couldn’t disagree with that. “Wait.”
“PAISLEY,” Pansy screeched in the way pure-blood witches had been screeching for house-elves since the beginning of time.
A particularly tiny elf wearing a handkerchief with a floral pattern popped into the room. Draco peered closely and saw the words PRADA printed on the corner.
“...wait.”
“Yes, Miss Pansy!”
“Bring me my cards and two glasses of red. Surprise me,” Pansy ordered.
The little elf disappeared and then reappeared in an instant. She placed two glasses of a deep red wine before them and then a purple drawstring bag in front of Pansy. “Your cards. And Mouton Rothschild 1992, miss!”
Pansy beamed, “A cabernet! Perfect, Paisley. Thank you.”
The little elf practically glowed at the praise and disappeared.
“You –”
“Oh shut up, Draco. You’re not the only one whose attitudes have changed toward house-elves. And I didn’t even do it to impress someone I want to fuck.”
Draco put a hand to his chest. “Rude.”
“Now,” Pansy said, ignoring him completely and reaching for the drawstring bag. She opened it and pulled out a thick deck of cards. “These are why I’ve asked you here today.”
He frowned. “Those are tarot cards?”
“Yes,” she said while shuffling the deck before placing it on the small table between them and then cutting it into three neat piles.
“Draw from each,” she said, waving her hand over them, nails always perfectly manicured and French tipped and never failing to remind him of claws.
“You said this was an emergency,” Draco repeated.
“I suppose in a manner of speaking, it is.”
“Pansy, what the fuck?”
“Draco,” she said. “You are an emergency. Your whole life is a fucking emergency. You’re working a plebian job, hanging out with Gryffindors on a regular basis, and you joined the Ministry book club. All for Granger. I can’t take the pining anymore! No one can! Blaise has started drinking!”
“...Blaise has been drinking since we were 16.”
“HEAVILY,” Pansy screeched, again, and Paisley popped back into the room very attuned to her mistress, apparently.
“Is Miss needing anything?”
“No, Paisley, darling. I’m just dealing with an idiot,” Pansy crooned.
Paisley looked Draco up and down, then nodded, and disappeared again.
Draco sighed. “Fine.”
He drew a card from the three piles in quick succession. He had no desire to draw this out.
“There,” he said, not bothering to look at them while glaring at his friend.
Pansy looked at the cards and blinked once, twice. “Oh,” she said quietly.
“Well?” Draco looked. Seven of… something, The Chariot, and The World.
He didn’t know what any of it meant. He didn’t do this Divination shite. He and Granger had that in common. He suppressed a smile at the thought. Watching Granger try not to lose her mind during Monday staff meetings while their coworkers read their daily horoscopes out loud in The Prophet never failed to amuse him. Sometimes he’d read his own to rile her up.
Pansy tapped the first card. “Seven of Cups. Disillusionment. Daydreams. Putting desires on a pedestal and chasing them like an idiot. Which we’ve established you are. An idiot, I mean.”
Draco scowled.
She tapped the second card. “But this, The Chariot.” Then she tapped the third. “And then The World…” she trailed off.
Pansy looked at him with wonder in her eyes, maybe even a fucking twinkle, and he was very startled and afraid.
“You haven’t mentioned Granger returning your feelings—”
“She doesn’t,” Draco snapped. “She won’t.”
Pansy sat back in her chair, eyeing the cards and then him.
“The Chariot is such a Gryffindor card,” she said, finally. It seemed Pansy didn’t want to play the vitriolic loud bitch anymore. Concerning.
Draco was irritated. So he decided to fill in the empty space.“You’ve been spending too much time with Lovegood. She’s rubbing off on you, but probably not in the way you’d like.”
That was a mistake. He knew it was a mistake as soon as the words left his mouth. Since Draco was the consummate Slytherin, self-preservation and such, he immediately leapt up and darted to the fireplace, grabbing a handful of Floo Powder and screaming the first location that came to his mind.
“THE BURROW!”
Pansy would never want to follow him there and if she did, the Weasleys would protect him. Maybe. Hopefully. Okay, probably not, but there were enough of them around at all times that he could throw them in her way.
He disappeared into green fire before a stinging hex could hit him.
—
On Monday morning, Draco was still alive.
Though, in addition to Pansy’s bullshit intervention card reading, he’d had to endure three Weasleys. Mrs Weasley made him eat his weight in ham and potato casserole (truly peasant food that made him want to take a nap after he was done inhaling it).
Mr Weasley made him endure a very long lecture about “mobile phones” (the talk of a crazy person) while telling Draco what a nice young man he turned out to be (Mr Weasley was not well).
And George Weasley — well, he did nothing other than say hello. Draco knew that meant something would literally blow up in his face sooner or later.
But for now, he snatched the Prophet from Cassandra or Callie or whatever her name was and read his daily horoscope out loud, “Gemini. You've got a fabulous energy for social connections today. Whoever you encounter will be charmed by your quick wit and bright smile and if they aren’t, they aren’t worth your time!”
He eyed Granger over the paper. She was writing something down on a long length of parchment, pretending to ignore him.
He waited. 3, 2,1…
“I’m not worth your time, Malfoy,” she muttered without taking her eyes off her work.
Draco was delighted, as usual. He tossed the paper back at Carol.
Later, Granger would come bustling into his office as she did every Monday after the staff meeting and go over her week’s schedule with him. She’d look over his planner and roll her eyes over the notes he left for her perusal. Depending on whatever crisis the DIMC was dealing with that week, she’d either wail in despair or say, “No problem.” No in-between.
Then she’d drag him to lunch in the Ministry canteen and they’d enjoy a shitty meal together. Sometimes Weasley and Potter would plop down next to them when they weren’t working in the field, sometimes it was Finch-Fletchey, occasionally one of the Patil twins (it was only actually one Patil twin but he was too afraid to ask which one at this point).
But mostly, it was just Granger and him.
He loved her. He fucking loved her.
His friends knew, of course. The Slytherin ones, anyway, because they knew him best. Pansy always thought it was because Granger was unattainable and Draco always expected to, well, attain anything and anyone he wanted.
Blaise thought it was clearly a sexual thing and that they should just fuck. It was always a sexual thing for Blaise.
Theo thought it was because Draco and Granger were both a special kind of arrogant and insufferable and those sort of people just had to be together because there was no one else for either of them.
And then there was Greg.
You fancy her. Why does it have to be anything else?
He didn’t let on that he loved her, despite their encouragement that he should do so immediately so they could all move on from this dark time in their lives.
Very dramatic, his friends.
Pansy’s recent attempt was particularly unique and bold but he couldn’t say it was ineffective. Draco kept thinking about the three cards and Pansy’s bewilderment and awe of them. Almost as if she was surprised, as if she expected a different outcome.
Pansy hung out with Lovegood too much, and that was that, as far as Draco was concerned.
Lovegood was editor-in-chief for The Quibbler. The Prophet was just sensationalism, gossip, and Ministry-approved news fodder. The Quibbler often reported on happenings which would scandalize the wizarding world but it had too few subscribers, despite how important it had been as a source of news during the war. It was still considered an absurd periodical with occasional spatterings of actual journalism.
Then, a year ago, Lovegood offered an aimless Pansy a job as a writer.
You’re a person that seems like they can get the truth out of people.
Pansy had scoffed while telling the story of how she ran into Lovegood at a boudoir in Diagon Alley, of all places. Pansy had been scandalized at Lovegood’s lingerie choices. (And you know how difficult it is to scandalize me!)
But apparently Pansy thought about it. Then she gave it a chance. Now The Quibbler was the go-to periodical for many, many more forward-thinking wizards and witches.
So Pansy was a truth teller, yes.
Draco gritted his teeth while organizing paperwork at his desk.
Seven of Cups. Disillusionment. Daydreams. Putting desires on a pedestal and chasing them like an idiot.
His hand froze over a document he was about to file. A simple requisition form from Granger. She had terrible handwriting and it amused him to no end but it was unique and it was hers.
Draco filed the requisition form and didn’t daydream about any party invitations she might draw up for all the things they’d host as a couple with her stupid, messy handwriting.
FUCK.
—-
The next Monday meeting, he didn’t tease Granger. He didn’t read his daily horoscope to her.
Stay on your toes, Twin. During today’s stressful square between the egocentric Sun and unpredictable Uranus, another person might try to play you like a fiddle.
He wanted to say, “Now who would be wanting to play me like a fiddle?”
And she would say, “No one, Malfoy. Ever.”
But none of that happened.
When she walked into his office afterwards, she looked unsure. He arched an eyebrow.
She fidgeted and laid the usual pile of paperwork on his desk. He didn’t have his planner on his desk for her to peruse.
“Everything all right, Malfoy?” She asked quietly.
“Of course. Just trying to get more organized like you always tell me to do,” he answered, documenting except not really. He was just writing Granger-Malfoy and My life is a joke over and over in his tiny, neat print. He hovered over it so she wouldn’t see.
“Oh.”
“Mmm,” he murmured. His fingers twitched. His brow twitched. He was fucking twitchy.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“No!” he yelped. Yelped.
“Draco?”
Oh, this little fucking brat. She rarely used his first name and it undid him every time. He knew she knew that.
“Granger,” he said on an exhale as if her surname was a part of the whole breathing process. It was. “I need space?”
She frowned and her nose scrunched. “Ah... let me know if I can do anything for you?”
And he knew she meant that with all of her heart and she’d do anything.
“I will.”
He listened to her gather her things and leave.
—
On Tuesday, she asked him to go to lunch with her as usual.
“I can’t.”
“But it’s brunch day!”
Brunch day consisted of soggy rashers, rubbery eggs, and cold chips. “I just can’t today?”
She pouted. Granger rarely pouted and that full bottom lip pushing forward just there waiting for him to nip at and nibble and sucked…
“I just can’t! I have an errand to run. Uh, important Malfoy business, you know.”
“Oh, alright… perhaps tomorrow?”
“Yes, yes.”
—
On Wednesday, he owled in. His father’s favorite peacock was deathly ill. Tragedy. A very trying time.
Granger got wind of it somehow and sent him and his family a condolence letter and a bouquet of white lilies the same day. Very heartfelt, all of it.
Rest in peace, Chauncy. Fly high. My deepest regards to you and your family, Draco.
- Hermione
Draco watched Chauncy try to eat a rock and sighed.
—
On Thursday, Draco was still on bereavement leave. Lucius was bereft, after all.
—
He returned to work on Friday, and Granger hugged him as she always did, completely open and soft. For a moment he let himself believe the peacock did die (last he saw, Chauncy was walking into a brick wall) and that and everything else wrong in his life was cured by her embrace.
He pushed her away gently and claimed he needed more space. Granger acquiesced.
“Will you join us tonight?” she asked before she left his office. “I think it would be good for you.”
“We’ll see.”
She smiled at him and left.
That wasn’t so bad. He’d made it a whole week and had spurned her at every turn! Kind of. He didn’t have to obsess over her. The next time he saw Pansy he could tell her and her cards to fuck off.
—
That Friday evening was their once-a-month get-together at a new-ish bar in Diagon Alley called Truly.
Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan opened the establishment together and it was unapologetically Gryffindor. There were all manner of areas set up for both Muggle and wizarding bar games. There were large black mirrors everywhere that played Muggle sports. Granger had a tizzy over it during their soft opening night.
Dean, how, and more importantly, why? This incorporation of Muggle technology could be better used elsewhere for more charitable and educational purposes!
Get off your soapbox, Hermione. Just appreciate it.
Eventually, girl Weasley had to shut Granger up with copious amounts of alcohol and salacious gossip lest she literally summon a soapbox to lecture them all from.
Draco wouldn’t have minded watching Granger lecture. It was kind of his thing.
Regardless, Truly was always a very good, raucous time. Draco looked forward to it every month.
And this evening he was excited to test out his newfound lack of disillusionment.
It went well for about two hours. He left Weasley, Greg, and Blaise yelling at each other very loudly about a Muggle football game (whatever that was) and made his way to the bar for another firewhisky.
Then Granger pounced.
She slid between the stool he was sitting on and the unoccupied stool next to him, nudging it over with one of her (shapely, rounded) hips.
“Hi, Malfoy.”
Oh, she was so close and she was so lovely and her hair was so — so big and everywhere and she always smelled vaguely of roses and Draco knew the smell of roses, every variation and then some and Granger still managed to smell like a better and more elusive rose and he love love—
Draco cleared his throat. “Hey, Granger.”
Granger stepped closer to him and nudged his legs apart so that she was in between his thighs. She was so fucking drunk but it was difficult to acknowledge that when she played with the hair at the nape of his neck. His hand went to her hips to brace himself.
“You’re too dressed up for a place like this,” she slurred. “You’re too dressed up everywhere you go.”
“What would you prefer I wear?” He asked the question smoothly but realistically he was going to die from her attentions. And what a fucking way to go.
She leaned forward and kissed his jaw, just under his left ear. “Nothing,” she said against his skin. “Don’t you know? Everyone wonders what’s under your robes and three-piece suits.”
His jaw dropped, closed, dropped again while she leaned back, considering him. She wrapped her fingers around his wrists. His hands were still on her hips.
“You want me, Granger?”
She let him go and hopped up on the stool she was leaning against and turned away from him.
“Cranberry vodka, please,” Granger said.
So, what should he do? What he wanted to do was sink to his knees before her. He wanted to trace “Draco” against her skin with his tongue until she never forgot to say his name.
He wanted to do a lot of things. He always had but…
He stood from his stool just as Granger got her drink. She held the cool glass with both hands as she turned toward him. “Will you come home with me?” she asked.
The Chariot is such a Gryffindor card.
“Why would you ask that?”
Granger almost downed the drink in one go. “Because I want you,” she said. “So let's go?”
Draco panicked.
“You’re drunk, Granger,” he said, missing what she felt like resting in between his thighs. “If you still want me, ask me later when you’re sober.”
Granger took a sip of what was left of her cranberry vodka and smiled. “Deal.”
“Deal? Granger—”
“I appreciate you honoring my ability to consent, Malfoy,” she said, leaping up from the stool and leaning forward to press her lips against his cheek. “I’m gonna go make sure Harry and Theo haven’t turned the darts on each other like last time. Join me?”
She was stumbling away before he could answer.
He did not join her. Slytherin self-preservation and all that.
—
On Sunday, Luna Lovegood requested entrance to Malfoy Manor.
Draco was wary.
He received her in the brightest, cheeriest sitting room in the manor.
“This room is very yellow and happy,” Lovegood observed, sitting on a plush, ivory-coloured chaise. She ran her hands over it, her eyes fluttering closed and then open. “It’s lovely, really. I remember it was terribly dingy and uncomfortable the last time I was here.”
She’d been imprisoned and tortured the last time she was here.
“Lovegood, I’m—”
“Call me, Luna, please.”
“Luna,” he affirmed quietly.
She nodded. “As you know, Pansy is in love with me.”
“Er, I thought that was just conjec—”
“And I am in love with her.”
Draco shook his head and smiled. “I’m happy for the both of you.”
“That being said, my Pansy did you a great disservice the other day,” Luna said.
“How’s that?”
“The cards, Draco. She left you fearful.”
“Well, I don’t really believe in any of that.”
“She didn’t explain The World. I think it startled her.”
“Why? Pansy doesn’t startle.”
Luna drew and waved her wand in delicate movements and a tarot card in golden light appeared in the space between them. It was The World, a dark-haired woman wrapped in iridescent purple cloth, spinning and dancing, grasping and twirling two wands in both hands.
Draco was enthralled.
Luna waved her wand again and the image disappeared. “The World is the last card of the Major Arcana. It’s completion. The end of a long and difficult journey. Pansy took it to mean that you and Hermione are meant to be.”
Draco stared and sat straight in his high-backed chair. “Can you tell me more about the Seven of Cups?”
Luna smiled. “That you even ask seems like a step away from it.”
“Luna, please. What do the cards mean? That’s why you’re here, right? To finish Pansy’s reading. Knock it off with the cryptic shite.”
Lovegood looked far too amused but then again, she always looked that way, as if she knew things people didn’t at all times. No wonder Pansy was in love with her. Pansy always prided herself on knowing everything and Lovegood was someone who was two or three steps ahead. Someone for Pansy to keep pace with. The thought of it made Draco happy. But more importantly, he was irritated with all this nonsense in this moment.
“The Seven of Cups is about wishful thinking and projection. I know Pansy said as much.”
Draco snorted. “She did, rudely.”
“It wasn’t an unexpected card.”
“Rude.”
Luna laughed and it sounded like tinkling bells. “Don’t worry. Hermione will take care of things as she always does and then you’ll both be happy.”
“I see.”
He didn’t see.
“Are you in love with Hermione, Draco?”
No one had ever asked. They just assumed.
But lying to Luna Lovegood seemed like a bad idea. Self-fucking-preservation.
“Yes.”
—
On Monday, during their weekly staff meeting, Granger just arched an eyebrow when he caught her gaze.
This deeply unsettled Draco while simultaneously arousing him. Deeply.
Needless to say, he didn’t pay attention during the meeting.
He was overwrought with trying to decide if he should go to Granger’s office as usual after the meeting. Yes. He should. He was a man and a wizard. He’d accomplished — things. That were important. Probably.
He burst into Granger’s office.
Granger wasn’t behind her desk sitting. She was in front of her desk, leaning against it, chewing on a quill, looking over some documentation.
She wasn’t surprised to see him when she looked up upon his abrupt arrival. She lowered the quill and smiled. “Hello. I was waiting for you.”
He swallowed. “Were you?”
“Would you like to go to lunch with me today? I wanted to continue our conversation from the other evening. It should be done off the clock.”
“What clock?”
She giggled in a way he’d never heard before and he was overcome with the desire to hire very expensive wedding planners so Granger could tell them all they were insufficient. “Never mind. Muggle saying. So, lunch?”
He could only nod helplessly. “Yes.”
—
“I’m not sure what I’m in the mood for,” Granger hummed, looking over her menu.
Draco hadn’t even bothered to pick his menu up. How could he even think about food at a time like this? How could she? What was even happening?
“Why are we here?” Draco asked.
“Can we order first? I’m quite hungry, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Yes, you are. I’ll order for you,” she said as the server approached. After she ordered him the chicken special, he realized he was indeed hungry and yes, that sounded amazing.
She was so irritating.
After their menus were taken and beverages were delivered, Granger cleared her throat delicately. “We’re here for two reasons,” she said. “One, I apologize for my behavior the other night. I was quite drunk—”
“Oh, that—”
“And two, why were you so unpleasant and unlike yourself last week? Are you alright? I know Chauncy passed… but let’s be serious, that was your father’s loss, not yours. I know you didn’t like Chauncy. Or did you just feel the need to be an absolute arse for no reason? Which of course isn’t unlike you, but last week was particularly trying, Malfoy. It hurt my feelings, a bit.”
“I’m—”
“I consider us friends, you know. Good friends. Best friends. And well, after my untoward behavior on Friday, there’s really no point in denying I fancy you and I thought you might fancy me too. Do you?”
What?
“I—”
“Or did I read it completely wrong? That’s possi–”
“HERMIONE!” Draco snapped, loudly. The restaurant grew quiet. Draco glared. Patrons looked away quickly. Granger stared at him wide-eyed.
Draco sighed and said, “You—”
Their server arrived with their food.
“Oh, this looks delicious!” Hermione enthused and the server beamed at her and Draco was very, very close to flipping the table over and giving up on everything. Just everything. Life, in particular. His parents wouldn’t be happy because some obscure cousin stood to inherit if the line died with him, but his father would figure something out to prevent that, surely.
“Eat, Draco,” she said softly. “You get so peaky and irritable when you’re hungry. Was that the problem last week? Are you dieting or something? I can’t imagine why.”
Draco cast a Muffliato around their table. “No, I’m not dieting for Merlin’s fuck’s sake!”
“Merlin’s fuck’s sake, indeed,” Granger said, her lips twitching.
“Hush, Granger!”
Granger hushed and waited, an eyebrow arched which was something she’d gleaned from him because they spent so much time together. She was—
Draco clenched his jaw. “Chauncy isn’t dead.”
“Wha–”
“I lied.”
“Oh.”
“I love you and it’s fucking agonizing.”
No arching brows or smirks, no calculating looks. Her expression softened and she was pure Hermione, lovely and brave. “I love you, too.”
“Good to know,” he muttered, sawing into his chicken and taking a bite. Excellent. Excellent chicken.
He took another bite.
“I could take a longer lunch break. Perhaps the day off,” she said.
Another bite. Draco was spiraling. “You could.”
“You could, too,” she said.
His asparagus was overcooked and he was annoyed. “I could.”
“We could go to my flat.”
“We could.”
“And we could have sex?”
Draco dropped his silverware and the last minute of conversation caught up to him.
“You love me?” he squeaked. “Flat? Sex!”
Granger laughed and he decided their children could take her maiden name. He threw his napkin on his plate and shoved out of his chair which crashed into a witch sitting behind him. She yelled. People scrambled. He didn’t care.
“Let’s go.”
—
He followed her to her flat.
Granger jumped him. She growled when she struggled with pulling his clothes off and wandlessly vanished them with a flick of her wrist. Granger was really very good at wandless magic. He was completely naked when she pushed him down onto her sofa and knelt before him, worship in her eyes.
The Chariot is such a Gryffindor card.
She kissed the tops of his thighs, then the insides, hands trailing down his torso and hips.
“You’re more beautiful than I imagined,” she whispered, reverent and adoring. She devastated him. She always did. He didn’t deserve any of it but he would take it. He’d take anything she gave him.
She took his cock into her hand and fisted him while licking the tip and he hissed and lifted his hips off the sofa while she took most of him into her mouth. The head of his cock hit the back of her throat. She gagged visibly and audibly, her whole body shuddering and tensing, and then opened and took him deeper. He fisted her hair close to her scalp.
“You’re so good. You’re so fucking good,” he groaned, fucking her mouth.
She hummed and with a cock in her mouth, she still sounded prim, uppity, and sure of herself.
He pulled her off of him by her hair.
“Brat,” he panted. “Enough.”
She licked her lips and smiled.
Draco leaned forward and grasped her by her upper arms and stood with her. He kissed her hard.
“Bedroom. Now.”
She led him to her room and he undressed her slowly, kissing inches and expanses of skin that glowed under sunlight. He laid her down and worshiped all of her body. He ran his thumb up and down her slit and then pressed it against her clit. She was so wet.
He sucked on the tendon of her neck while he slid one finger, then two inside her, thumb still working her clit.
Even after all the love declarations, there was still something he’d been holding back until this moment. Something he’d kept tucked away, hidden because it didn’t occur to him that he could let it go. Self-preservation, always self-preservation. But now…
She kept saying his name over and over, lifting her hips, whimpering. He curled his fingers inside her, the deepest pressure he could give and then he let up all at once.
Hermione whined, thrust her hips. “Please, please.”
Draco let go.
“Do you want to come?” he purred against her throat.
“Yes!”
“Tell me who you belong to.”
“Please.”
Draco stopped stroking her with his thumb, his fingers still easing in and out of her cunt at a slow pace.
“Tell me.”
“You,” she whined.
He rewarded her by curling his fingers inside of her, lightly.
“Say it.”
“I belong to you. Please, Draco, please.”
He gave her what she wanted and she came, body arched, a silent scream. He crawled over her and thrust his cock inside her to the hilt before she could relax and fucked her to another orgasm, her nails running down his back, legs wrapped tightly around his hips. He kissed her hard as he spilled inside her, groaning, and she tasted his pleasure like she knew it was hers.
“You’re mine, Draco,” she whispered a little later, after they caught their breaths, sweat evaporating, and he clung to her.
“I am,” he said without hesitation, but then he did hesitate. “You’re—”
She turned in his arms to face him.
“Hm?” she said, eyes bright in the sunlight, waiting, and he wanted nothing more than to wrap her in purple silk.
“You’re my world.”
—
Months later, they attended a Ministry gala together.
He bought her purple dress robes for the occasion and she was perfect. Hermione had fussed, of course, but he fucked her quiet.
Sort of. Okay, he didn’t.
“I don’t understand your obsession with purple? Well, with me in purple?”
“Pops out with all the… brown.”
“I see.”
“If you really want to know, it’s because of a tarot card reading.”
Hermione laughed at this. Just another Monday and a daily zodiac reading in her mind.
“Ha,” he said and that was the end of it.
Draco watched Pansy and Luna flit about the large room, hand in hand, probably ruining other people’s lives with the truth.
Draco’s father asked Granger for a dance during his musings about divination, fate, true love, and lesbian sex.
They really did dance beautifully.
Draco glanced at a figure sauntering up to his side out of his periphery as he watched the love of his life probably charm his father into giving up the whole family fortune to the house-elves they employed.
“Your father totally wants to fuck Granger.”
“I hate you, Blaise.”