Chapter Text
Draco Malfoy did not call out of work on a random Tuesday afternoon. Draco Malfoy did not call out of work, ever, for any reason. Not on his birthday, not on his mother’s birthday, not even the occasional Yule shift he was assigned. He did not even call out when his mother was hospitalized with dragonpox.
So it was, to say the least, odd when Draco Malfoy had called out of his shift at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
“Do you think we should check on him?” Harry asked, voice doing that small, panicked thing it did when he tried not to look like a mess. Draco had been Harry’s partner for three years, and the two were closer than Harry had ever been with Ron. Harry and Draco, or Drarry as the DMLE had lovingly started calling them behind their backs because where there was one, there was the other, were practically attached at the wand holster.
Hermione rolled her eyes, the tiniest, perfectly calibrated eye roll. Harry’s concern for Malfoy was cute, if a little infuriating, because he would not get out of her office so she could work, and he would not stop talking about his missing partner.
“Harry, I’m sure he’s fine.” Hermione moved to get up from her desk, but Harry stepped in front of her.
“But what if he’s not?” His voice hit that high anxious note. “What if he’s lying in a ditch dead?”
“Harry.” Hermione said, stern and exhausted. “Go check on him if you are so worried.”
Harry blinked, then said, “Will you do it?” so softly Hermione almost missed it.
She spun around. “Are you serious?”
“No, I’m Harry,” he said, because of course he made jokes at the wrong moment, and Hermione smacked him with a stack of papers headed for filing.
“Just go over there and check on him,” she said, pushing him gently toward the floo.
“You’re the one who still has an active floo connection to his house.” Harry grumbled in to the officer like a petulant child.
And Hermione huffed back “you’ll remember that you also had a floo connection in your office but you wouldn’t stop showing up randomly to use his pool!”
“That’s besides the point! He likes you better anyway,” Harry protested, kicking the carpet with his foot like a small, dramatic child.
“That is not true,” Hermione said, though the corners of her mouth twitched.
“It is!” Harry followed her out the door toward the filing room, arms windmilling. “Remember on your birthday he brought you those flowers, and the coffee, and when you said you loved it, he has had a coffee delivered to your desk every morning since. And flowers once a month!”
Hermione made a sound that was equal parts scoff and something fond. She kept walking at a breakneck pace, trying to avoid Harry seeing the smile blooming on her mouth.
“And!” Harry barked, cutting her off by grabbing her sleeve. “He got you those rare books for Christmas! All I got was a mug that says ‘you owe me a life debt’.”
“Those books were just sitting in the Malfoy library collecting dust. I gave them a better life,” Hermione said, and shoved him lightly.
“Hermione, please, do it for me. I cannot work not knowing if he is okay or not.”
Hermione dumped her paperwork on the filing assistant’s desk like a challenge. “Fine, Harry, I will go,” she said, sharp and marvelous. She jabbed a finger toward his face. “But if I get hexed, or worse, I am coming after you.”
And that was how Hermione found herself flooing into Draco Malfoy’s personal home at two in the afternoon on a random Tuesday.
The floo dropped her into a lavish foyer that felt like another world. Shadows lingered in every corner, and not a single light filled the home. The air was thick, quiet, enchanted in that way old wizarding homes often were. Hermione dusted the soot from her robes and began to step forward, ready to call out Draco’s name, when his voice echoed through the room and stopped her in her tracks.
“Tsk, tsk, pet. You know better than that.”
The words slithered through the darkness like silk. Her heart gave one startled thud before her breath stilled. Hermione’s eyes darted across the dark expanse of the foyer, searching for the source of the voice, but it came from everywhere and nowhere.
As she opened her mouth to speak, something unseen wrapped around her, a quiet, invisible restraint.
“Did I tell you that you could speak, pet?”
The tone was low, commanding, and threaded with an authority that pulled at something deep in her. A familiar tingle shot up her spine, the shiver of subspace, the trembling anticipation she had once been intimately familiar with.
“I’m disappointed in you, pet. Do I need to remind you how to enter my home? Shoes off.”
Her mind blurred under the weight of the command. Without hesitation, Hermione slipped off her stiletto heels and placed them neatly in the corner of the foyer. Her pulse fluttered like a trapped bird in her chest.
“And your stockings.”
Draco’s voice carried again, a velvet thread echoing through the air above her. If Hermione hadn’t already felt herself falling, her logical mind would have been cataloguing the sound for clues. A modified sonorus charm, perhaps? But thought slipped from her like smoke, replaced with the hum of surrender.
She couldn’t stop herself. Her fingers moved delicately, unhooking her stockings, easing them down her thighs and calves. She folded them with careful precision, setting them atop her shoes. The air around her seemed to vibrate, charged with unseen magic. The tingle up her spine amplified, spreading warmth through her body. Her breath came shorter, her thoughts scattered, her willingness to surrender control blooming like a long-forbidden spell.
And she didn’t even care that it was Draco Malfoy. She only knew she needed this.
She had been without a dom for almost a year. Charlie had returned to Romania after a short stint in England, and no amount of planning could have prepared her for the emptiness that followed. The silence of her flat, the ache of withdrawal, the weight of abandonment and shame. Each one had carved deeper into her until she barely recognized herself.
The worst of it was she had known Charlie would leave eventually. She had told herself she could handle it, and Charlie had prepared her for the drop she’d feel. But preparation and reality were never the same thing.
“Unbutton your blouse, but don’t remove it.”
Her fingers obeyed before her mind caught up, trembling slightly as she worked through the buttons. Each one seemed to echo in the stillness, her heart matching the rhythm. The adrenaline raced through her, heady and consuming.
“On your knees. Hands on your thighs. Palms up. Gaze down. Don’t move.”
The words were an invocation, ancient and irresistible. Her knees touched the cold marble floor, and she folded herself into position, spine straight, breathing shallow.
The silence that followed was thick. It pressed around her like fog. She waited.
Like a good girl.
He was going to tell her she was a good girl. The longer he made her wait, the deeper she sank into that space where thought gave way to sensation, where the world narrowed into obedience and pulse and the sound of his voice.
Seconds melted into minutes. Her knees began to ache, but she didn’t adjust. She didn’t dare.
I’m a good girl, she told herself. Sir will be so pleased with me. The mantra pulsed quietly in her mind.
“Such a good girl.”
Draco’s voice cut through the darkness, low and deliberate, and Hermione’s chest lifted with pride.
“You’re doing so well for me, pet.”
The words coiled around her like silk ribbons. She felt seen, known, claimed in a way that made her entire body hum.
She was a good girl. His good girl.
“Good girls get rewards. Touch yourself, pet. Touch yourself over your bra.”
Hermione’s hands rose instinctively, pressing against the maroon lace, breath trembling out of her in a soft exhale. The tension between control and release twisted tighter. The air itself seemed to pulse.
His voice deepened. “Oh, someone is a needy thing today. Touch yourself over your skirt, pet.”
Skirt? I’m wearing trousers. The thought flickered weakly in her mind, but the haze was stronger, magic and memory weaving around her until reality bent to it.
Her pulse quickened. The heat beneath her skin throbbed like magic building toward release.
“Would you like to finish, pet?”
She nodded fiercely, her breath hitching, her body trembling with energy that had nowhere to go.
“You may,” he said softly, his voice now almost gentle. “Say my name.”
The darkness seemed to shiver with power.
“Malfoy!”
The echo hung in the air and then a very different voice broke through. One of worry and confusion.
“Malfoy?”
Hermione froze. The sound of hurried footsteps followed, the heavy tread of dragonhide boots against marble.
“Granger?” Draco’s voice came again, sharp and utterly human. “Shit.”
She was still kneeling, her hands resting obediently on her thighs, her gaze downcast, trapped in the haze of subspace that clung to her mind like a spell.
Draco stopped short. His breath caught as he took in the sight before him. He had taken the day off at Astoria’s request because she had wanted to try the things he liked, to surrender for once.
He had thought it might save their relationship. To be not he same page sexually.
He had not expected this.
He ran a hand down his jaw, stunned, torn between disbelief and something darker. Astoria always filled the silence with questions, with nervous chatter. But this woman, this vision, had fallen into obedience without a sound.
This was not Astoria.
This was Hermione Granger.
And she had just come when he commanded.
Hermione only realized she was being pulled out of that subspace when she heard him calling her by name, her real name, and not the pet name he had been using.
“Hermione, please come back,” Draco pleaded.
When her glazed eyes finally cleared, she saw him crouched in front of her, balancing on the balls of his feet, gently brushing his fingertips across her cheeks. He exhaled a shaky breath of relief when he saw her starting to return.
“What’s wrong?” she asked weakly.
“Granger, I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice rough. “I didn’t realize it was you. We’ve got to get you up. Astoria’s going to be here any minute.”
Astoria? The name hit her like a slap. Astoria, not her.
Hermione’s chest constricted. She had just given herself over completely, body, mind, trust, and he was asking for someone else.
“Was I not good?” Her voice cracked on the words. “I can be better. I promise. Please sir.” Her hands moved from her thighs to his, desperate for grounding, for warmth, for any sign that he didn’t mean to cast her aside.
“Granger, please. I’m sorry. I really am. Can you stand?” His hands found her elbows, steady but hesitant. “We’ve got to get you home.”
But Hermione didn’t move. “I’m a good girl. I promise I can be so good for you,” she whispered, tears pricking her eyes. “Please don’t send me away, sir. I’m sorry. I can be better. I can be whatever you need.”
Her voice broke further, the words spilling out faster as panic rose in her throat. “Please, please don’t send me away, sir. I can be good, I promise, I can.” Over and over, repeating her plea.
Draco’s face crumpled. He let out a low groan, dragging his hands down his face with absolute dread, then he reached down to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Oh, Merlin. I don’t want to send you away,” he murmured. “But you’re not mine, kitten. You’re not meant to be here. Can you come back to yourself, Hermione? Please, Hermione.”
Her name. He said her name. Not the endearments, not the words that had made her feel small and safe. Just her name.
It was enough to break her.
Hermione blinked, and the haze lifted. Her body felt impossibly heavy, the exhaustion hitting all at once. She slumped sidewards from her knees on to her arse, the air leaving her lungs in one long, uneven breath.
Had she imagined all of it? Merlin, she hoped so. But the sight of Draco in front of her, pale and wrecked and too real, shattered the illusion completely.
“Fuck, Granger, I’m so sorry.”
Her throat burned. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him as she crawled toward her shoes and stockings, fingers trembling.
“Let me help,” he said, reaching out.
She recoiled, voice barely a whisper. “Don’t touch me.”
Pain flooded her tone, raw and fragile. Her body ached, her skin chilled, and tears gathered before she could stop them.
“Granger, Merlin, I really am sorry. Can I call someone? Where’s your dom?”
She pushed herself upright, bracing against the wall as she stood on unsteady legs. “There’s no one,” she said hoarsely. “He’s gone.”
Her fingers clutched the sides of her blouse, pulling it closed as shame crept up her throat. “I’m fine,” she whispered, mostly to herself. “I just need to get home.”
“Granger, you need aftercare. You’re crashing.”
She laughed, sharp and wet. “Yeah, well, whose fault is that?”
The tears came freely now. The shakes too. Not from fear, but from the heavy mix of guilt, rejection, and heartbreak twisting through her. The uncontrollable drop of a submissive with no aftercare.
“I’m sorry,” she breathed out, almost inaudible. “I just need,” She couldn’t finish because she didn’t want to be rejected further.
Draco took a step toward her, his voice gentling. “Granger, look at me.”
He hadn’t meant it to sound commanding, like a dom, but the tone carried something that still reached her. She lifted her eyes to meet his, tears shimmering in them like glass.
The hope there undid him completely. It crushed him, because he knew he couldn’t give her what she wanted, and she knew it too.
“I’m so sorry, Granger. I really am.”
Hermione’s gaze dropped again. Without another word, she stumbled toward the floo, clutching her shoes and stockings against her chest. Her movements were uneven, desperate, small.
She managed to grab the pot of floo powder and threw a handful into the grate. Her voice shook as she spoke. “Hermione Granger’s flat. Muggle London.”
And then she was gone, leaving only the faint shimmer of green embers and Draco Malfoy standing in the silence, staring at the space where she had been.