A/N: Why hello there! This fic will be around 150-200 chapters until complete, with chapters averaging around 8K words. If you guys like the fic, please comment, review, and send some Power Stones.
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Draco sat in his room, the silence deafening.
He'd been looking forward to the solitude just yesterday. The break, the quiet, the space to think. He had actual problems to solve, and no one to interrupt him.
That was before he found out Hermione wasn't going home. That she was two floors up, alone, probably tucked into a Gryffindor armchair with a book open on her lap.
He exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through his hair.
It was idiotic. So what if she was here? They'd been alone plenty — in the empty classroom, on the stairs before things went strange between them, in the Room of Requirement again and again and again, and, inescapably, in the same bed.
Nothing had happened. Nothing would happen. Nothing could.
With a frustrated exhale, he stood.
He wasn't going to find her. That would be absurd.
He was simply going for a walk.
Through the castle.
In the general vicinity of Gryffindor Tower.
For no particular reason.
He crossed the empty common room and opened the door — and stopped.
She was standing there, hand raised as if she'd been about to knock, eyes wide and mouth slightly open. Caught.
They stared at each other.
A part of Draco wondered if she'd been thinking about him as much as he'd been thinking about her.
"Granger," he said. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
Hermione's mouth closed. Her brows pulled together. "Why do you assume I came to find you? I might have been walking through the castle. I might have been going to tutor a first-year." She paused. "Did you say pleasure?"
Draco tilted his head, considering this. "I did," he admitted, as though it surprised him slightly too.
Hermione went still. Then she straightened her spine, lifting her chin. "Well. Thank you, I suppose."
"That didn't answer my question," he said, his voice dropping slightly.
Her lips parted with a reply already forming — and then she paused. Her gaze moved over him quickly, involuntarily. Almost instantly she looked away.
Draco's stomach tightened.
That was the way he looked at her. And if she was looking at him that way, he had noticed.
Hermione cleared her throat, smoothing both hands over the front of her blue jumper. "I was just—"
"Walking through the castle?" he offered.
"Exactly. Walking."
"Near the Slytherin dungeons."
Hermione narrowed her eyes. "It's not a restricted area."
"No," Draco said, and stepped slightly into her space. "I don't suppose it is."
Hermione's chin tilted upward. "And what were you doing? You looked like you were heading out."
He clicked his tongue. "Going for a walk." He shook his head in theatrical rueful regret, as if he'd entirely forgotten his previous plans.
"A walk?"
"Through the castle."
Hermione scoffed, and the small, warm smile she'd been keeping back let itself through, the crease between her brows relaxing. "Near Gryffindor Tower, by any chance?" she mused.
"Perhaps," he said, and he was grinning now, slightly, and he didn't bother to stop.
There it was again — that quick flutter of her gaze over his face, the tension in her posture releasing before catching itself.
"You weren't looking for me, were you, Granger?" His voice went quieter.
Hermione didn't answer immediately. She swallowed.
"Are you coming in?" he asked.
Her chin lifted. "No. I came to let you know I'd be in the Room of Requirement. Working on the cabinet. If you want to join." She said it with brisk, deliberate practicality.
Draco hesitated. Not because he didn't want to be with her — that was precisely the problem. After what Snape had said, after being asked point-blank whether Granger was involved — he ought to keep her out of it. It would be the sensible thing.
Then he saw the slight shift in her posture as his silence stretched. The almost imperceptible drop of her shoulders. The way her eyes moved down and away, as if she was reconsidering whether she should have come at all.
"Yeah," he said. "We can probably finish it before the new term."
She looked back at him, a little too quickly. "Good," she said, composing herself. "Because it's your project. I'm just helping. Let's go."
---
They had been working for three hours in near-total silence.
The only sounds were the occasional turning of pages and soft incantations.
Both of them were going slowly, quietly mad.
Draco kept glancing at her from the corner of his eye. She had come to his door. She had stood there looking at him in that particular way, and his chest had not been able to stop reacting to it.
Hermione sat with her skin standing on edge. She could feel his attention without looking — the way his gaze would drift toward her whenever she shifted.
"Draco." She set her book down and turned toward him.
His eyes came up. "Granger," he said, a little too evenly.
"You keep staring at me," she said.
"Was I?" He leaned back in his chair.
"Yes. Why?" She crossed the room to him.
Draco stood and moved, putting space between them. "I was thinking."
Hermione stopped. She'd noticed — the way he'd stepped back the moment she moved toward him. Something was wrong.
"You think?" she said, keeping her voice light. "That's new."
"Hilarious." He crossed his arms. "Yes, Granger, I think. What a shock. I know you're not accustomed to it, having spent most of your time with Weasley."
She tilted her head, watching him. He was being weird. She knew it with the kind of certainty that came from spending too much time with a person — which was an alarming thought in itself.
"What were you thinking about?" She took a step closer.
Draco stepped back again, and hit the coffee table.
He could hear Snape's warning clearly. Keep her out of this. He should have listened. He should have kept his distance from the start. But now she was standing here with that searching expression, and every time she got close he was fighting the impulse to close the distance rather than increase it.
Hermione's gaze moved from the table to his face. Something flickered across her features.
The wheels were turning. He could practically see them.
And then they stopped.
A small shadow crossed her expression. She looked away.
"Granger—" He stepped forward, and she immediately stepped back, turning.
She was gathering her things — moving with a sharp, uncharacteristic carelessness, shoving her books into her bag.
He knew. That was the only explanation she could land on. She'd slipped somewhere, and he'd worked it out. The strange distance was him trying to manage it. Trying to be kind about it.
"You're leaving?" he asked.
"Yes." She didn't look at him. "I have something."
"Something." Draco raised his brows. "Specific."
"Lunch."
"It's past lunchtime."
"Then an early dinner." She faced him, expression composed. "I lost track of time. I'm hungry."
And there it was. Malfoy. Not Draco.
The shift was small and unmistakeable and settled in his chest like a stone.
"I'll come back later," she said, turning for the door. "Leave you to your thinking."
---
Hermione sat in the kitchens, moving food around her plate without eating much of it.
"Does Miss not like her food?" Dobby appeared at her elbow, large eyes anxious. "Dobby can make Miss something else?"
Hermione looked up. "No, Dobby — thank you. It's not the food." She managed a small smile. "I've just got a lot on my mind."
Dobby's ears perked with eager concern. "Dobby can help! Dobby always wants to help Miss Hermione!"
"I know." She took a dutiful bite to reassure him. "I'm all right."
Her thoughts circled back to Draco.
Maybe she was wrong. It happened. Perhaps it wasn't about her feelings at all — perhaps something else entirely had shifted, something she didn't have the information to understand.
He'd been looking at her more. He'd asked her to call him by his first name. He'd been on his way to find her when she showed up at his door.
She looked over at Dobby, who had returned to his work. "Dobby," she said. "You used to work for the Malfoys."
Dobby froze, ears twitching. "Dobby was...yes, Miss. For a very long time."
"Then you'd have known Draco when he was younger."
"Yes, Miss Hermione." He watched her carefully.
She wanted to ask how to read him. To know whether the distance was about her, and why today had felt so different from all the other times they'd been alone.
But it wasn't right, asking Dobby to tell her things about Draco that he'd have no reason to want shared. Not even for this.
"I think he might know," she said quietly, almost to herself. "That I... fancy him."
Dobby was quiet for a long moment. "Dobby doesn't know what Mister Malfoy knows," he said at last. "But Dobby does know that Mister Malfoy is not always so good with feelings."
Hermione snorted softly. "Neither am I, apparently."
She stood, leaving her plate mostly untouched. "Thank you, Dobby. Lunch was lovely."
She leaned against the corridor wall outside the kitchens and closed her eyes.
If Dobby was right — and she thought he probably was — then there wasn't any reason to believe Draco had figured it out. She'd done nothing to give it away. So why the strange behaviour today?
She pushed off the wall and headed back toward the Room of Requirement.
---
Draco had been mid-charm when the door opened. He looked up, expecting the room itself, and found Hermione.
He adjusted his posture and cleared his throat. He'd anticipated her staying away longer. Perhaps for the rest of the day.
"Granger. Back already."
"I told you I'd help you finish this," Hermione said, setting her bag down near the bed. "And I keep my word. The sooner we fix it, the sooner I'll stop being in your way."
Draco's chest tightened. "What are you on about?"
Hermione blinked at him. "What?"
"The 'I'll be out of your life' speech. What's that about?"
Hermione looked at him as if he'd said something genuinely baffling. "You were stepping away from me every time I came within two feet of you. I assumed you were managing an unwanted situation."
Draco scoffed. "You're imagining things."
"I'm not imagining things." She crossed her arms. "You almost tripped over the coffee table."
"I didn't almost—"
"You did," she said flatly. "And if I've done something, or if you've realised something and it's made things... strange, then I'd rather know."
He laughed — a genuine one, though it had an edge. "I see. So now you're projecting an entire situation onto me."
"I'm not projecting!" she snapped. "If you don't want me here, just say so, and I'll go. I'm not going to stand here and pretend I don't notice you flinching every time I step toward you."
"You think I can't stand you."
"I think today was different from every other day, and you're standing there acting as though I'm imagining it."
He was smiling again — infuriatingly, that particular expression she always wanted to do something about.
"Stop smiling!" she said. "I'm trying to have a genuine conversation and you're — you're doing it because you know it drives me mad!"
"Are we having a conversation? I thought we were having an argument."
"We're having—" She stopped. Pressed her lips together. Started again. "You're incredibly difficult."
"And you thought that was going to change because we're friends?"
"I thought there was going to be some basic level of honesty! I thought if something was wrong, you'd tell me instead of retreating and leaving me to wonder what I'd done!"
The grin dropped.
She saw it — the moment the easy deflection left his face and something underneath it showed through. She'd said something real, and it had landed somewhere real.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. His hand moved almost imperceptibly toward his left arm — then stopped.
The arm. The sleeve. Whatever it was he couldn't tell her. Whatever it was that was always sitting between them without words.
"You don't catch dirty blood," Hermione said, her voice going low and sharp. "And if part of you still thinks otherwise, I'd rather you said it than flinched every time I—"
"Don't." The word came out very quietly. "Don't say that."
The ease had gone from his face entirely. He looked — for just a moment — like something had been stripped away, and what was underneath was very tired and very young, and not at all composed.
Hermione stopped.
"I didn't mean that," she said, and her voice came out smaller than she intended. "I don't think that. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—" She turned abruptly, and her boot caught the side of the cabinet.
The magic rattled violently through it, disturbed and angry at the contact.
Draco crossed the room in three strides and pulled her back by the arm, away from it, his grip firm but not hard.
Hermione stumbled into him slightly, steadying herself, looking down at his hand on her arm.
His grip eased. But he didn't let go.
"We're trying to fix it," he said. "Not antagonise it."
Hermione looked up at him. "Draco—"
"You don't have to take it back," he said. "If that's what you think of me — genuinely — it's better that I know."
"I don't think that," she said, firm this time. "I don't know what I was — I was upset, and I said something unkind because I knew it would hit somewhere, and that was a terrible thing to do." She exhaled. "I'm sorry."
The hand on her arm dropped.
"What I actually think," Hermione said, "is that you've been strange all day, and you won't tell me why, and I've been sitting with every possible explanation and none of them feel right."
Draco looked at her for a long moment. "Everyone's gone," he said at last. "It's the two of us, and there's no one to — to interrupt, or remark on how much time we spend together, or ask pointed questions about it." He paused. "I didn't know how to be around that."
Hermione's face shifted.
Hermione and her extraordinary, infuriating brain.
"So it's not about me specifically," she said slowly. "It's about us being alone without a buffer."
Draco said nothing. Which was its own answer.
"Well," Hermione said after a moment, and the sharp edges of her posture softened. "So what? We've been working alone this whole time, more or less. There's just no one waiting for either of us to check in with." She looked at him. "And for what it's worth — I have no plans to hex you."
Draco let out a breath that was nearly a laugh. "Right." He ran a hand over his face. "That's — yeah. That helps."
He watched her turn back toward the cabinet, running her fingers along the grain of the wood.
It hadn't been the hexing he was afraid of.
She looked over her shoulder at him. "Well, are you going to help or not?"
He picked up his wand.
---
"Alright," Draco said one morning, walking into the Room of Requirement and lifting Hermione's wand straight out of her hand.
Hermione spun around, already reaching for it. He held it up out of her reach.
"Malfoy, give it back."
"You've been in here more than I have," he said, "and it's my cabinet, not yours."
She stretched for it, undeterred.
"Tell me why you've practically moved in."
"I haven't moved in."
"You haven't seen your own dormitory since Tuesday."
"That is not—"
"Granger." He looked at her properly. "You look like you haven't slept in days. And I say that as someone who has watched you fall asleep on several different surfaces in this room because you're avoiding the bed."
Hermione stopped reaching and crossed her arms. "I'm not avoiding the bed. I'm just — I'm fine. I've handled late nights before. This is nothing new."
He didn't look convinced. He looked, if anything, more concerned. "You're genuinely going to run yourself into the ground."
"You think I'm weak," Hermione said, voice sharpening. "Because I'm—"
"I didn't say that," Draco said flatly, and his voice had that rare quality — the one without any performance in it. "Don't put things in my mouth. I think you're stubborn and obsessive and approximately one more sleepless night away from addressing the Vanishing Cabinet by name." He paused. "By tomorrow you'll be writing 'Malfoy is dreamy' in the margins of your notes."
Hermione made a noise of absolute revulsion. "I'd sooner let a Dementor Kiss me."
"You need a break." He hesitated, then crossed the room and set his hands gently on her shoulders. "Go. Eat something. Have a bath. Speak to a human being who isn't me. Come back in a few hours with your sanity at least partially intact."
Hermione's shoulders went slack on an exhale, the tension draining out before she'd entirely decided to let it go.
"Fine," she said. "But not because you said so."
"Understood." He stepped back and held out her wand.
She took it, turned to go, paused at the door. "Don't think about me in the bath, Malfoy."
Draco closed his eyes.
The door shut.
"Don't think about me in the bath," she'd said. As if he had been. As if he would.
Now, of course, he was.
Bloody Granger.
He turned back to the cabinet, raised his wand, and tried to focus. There were only so many hours, and this task wasn't going to complete itself through the power of distraction.
He pictured the incantation. The wood healing, grain by grain, the cracks closing. He did not picture her stepping out of her robes. He was not thinking about the steam, or the way her head would tilt back, or how her hair would—
He flicked his wand and muttered the spell.
The cabinet barely registered it. His magic stuttered weakly against the surface.
He tried again. The war. His parents. The task. Anything grounding, anything real.
That held for approximately thirty seconds.
The Room of Requirement, clearly sympathetic to absolutely no one, promptly conjured a softly candlelit bathroom tableau in the corner, complete with a filled tub and a folded towel.
Draco let out a sound that was entirely inarticulate, spun on his heel, and glared at it.
"You cannot be serious."
The Room remained unmoved.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. He was a Malfoy. He had control. He would simply—
He thought of the way her shoulders had gone soft under his hands.
No.
---
Halfway down the corridor, Hermione was smiling to herself.
She hadn't planned it. She'd said it on instinct, and the look on Draco's face — the sharp, unguarded alarm of someone caught off-balance — had been entirely, brilliantly worth it.
She was still quietly laughing to herself when she reached the Prefects' bathroom.
She turned on the taps and let the tub fill, steam curling up toward the ceiling, and sat on the edge and thought about him.
Draco, who had taken her wand just to make her rest. Draco, whose hands had settled on her shoulders with that quiet steadiness that had made all the tension run right out of her. Draco, who'd looked at her this morning in the doorway as though—
She stopped herself. Firmly. She pulled off her robes and lowered herself into the bath and did not think about him.
She lasted approximately three minutes.
She needed a break. Not from the cabinet, not from Harry and Ron, but from this — from Draco, from the constant, low-level awareness of him that had become inescapable. Today was supposed to have been Hogsmeade. She could have had an entire afternoon of distraction, of noise and cold air and butterbeer.
She looked out the window at the snow coming down in soft, heavy curtains and exhaled.
She'd think of something.
---
She was in the Great Hall at lunch, watching snow drift past the high windows, when she considered her options.
Harry would probably be somewhere conducting a one-man investigation of Draco. Ron would find a way to start an argument. She could find Ginny, but Ginny appeared to be in a difficult moment with Dean, and Hermione didn't want to be caught in the middle of that. Her new Slytherin friends were, inconveniently, also Draco's friends.
She was scanning the room with a growing sense of resignation when Pansy looked over from the Slytherin table and raised an eyebrow.
Hermione walked over and sat down. "Pans."
Pansy looked her over. "How pleasant. I believe the last time I actually saw you, you were in the middle of a small crisis about wanting to—"
"Pansy," Hermione said quietly, glancing at Theo and Blaise.
"We already know," Blaise offered.
"Daphne told me," Theo added.
"And Theo told me," Blaise confirmed.
Hermione rubbed her temples. "Wonderful. Delightful to know my personal life is common knowledge."
"Just the relevant people," Pansy said pleasantly, picking up a grape.
Theo snorted. "Meaning everyone who's been watching this particular disaster develop in real time."
Hermione levelled him with a look. "It is not a disaster. Nothing is happening."
"Because you decided you see him as a friend," Pansy said. "I prefer it this way, truthfully. I like having you as my friend and Draco as mine. Separately."
"Good. That's exactly what we are." Hermione reached for a roll.
Dumbledore rose to speak, and the hall quieted.
"Due to the approaching storm, today's Hogsmeade trip is cancelled. It will be rescheduled for after the holiday break."
The collective groan. Hermione exhaled slowly.
"So," Theo said, once the noise had settled. "What do you think?"
She looked at him. "About...?"
Pansy clicked her tongue. "Stop daydreaming and come back to ours. We'll find something to do. Hot chocolate. A game. Fire whiskey if hot chocolate proves insufficient."
Hermione turned the idea over. The Slytherin common room was warm, and secluded, and had the significant advantage of not being her own dormitory where she would sit with too many thoughts and too little to occupy herself. The significant disadvantage was that Draco was very likely to appear.
"I'm not sure—"
"Wonderful, I'm in." Ginny appeared behind Hermione and sat down. "Assuming I'm welcome."
Pansy gave her a brief assessment. "You'll do."
Ginny grinned. "Brilliant. She's coming too." She pointed at Hermione.
Hermione opened her mouth to object.
"Too late," Ginny said.
---
Ginny dragged Hermione down to the dungeons by the arm.
"This is a mistake," Hermione said.
"It's a party," Ginny said.
"It is not a party. It is a social event that involves Draco and therefore constitutes a very specific category of personal hazard."
"He's your friend," Ginny said. "You said so. Act like it."
"I do act like it. That's the problem."
Ginny tightened her grip and kept walking. "Ron doesn't run your life. Neither does Harry. Besides, I need a distraction, Dean and I rowed, and you're not allowed to leave me unsupported in this."
Hermione sighed. "Fine."
The password ("Selcouth") let them through, and they walked into the low-lit warmth of the Slytherin common room.
"Finally," Pansy called from the sofa, legs over Daphne's lap. "I was beginning to think you'd reconsidered."
"It was under active consideration," Hermione said, sitting.
Theo smirked from the armchair opposite, twirling a wand between his fingers. "We've got drinks, a game, and—" He gestured toward the corner where Blaise was settling a pot of something onto the table. "—hot chocolate for Granger. So she doesn't start in on our livers."
Ginny snorted. "Honestly, Hermione can out-drink all of you. What are we working with?"
Blaise conducted a solemn inventory. "Vodka, fire whiskey, and a deeply suspicious bottle from Theo that he maintains is safe."
"Define safe," Hermione said.
"It won't kill you," Theo said. "Got it off a bloke in Knockturn Alley."
"That's not reassuring."
"Relax, Granger." The sofa dipped as Draco vaulted over the back of it, dropping into the seat beside her, one arm slung along the back of the cushions just behind her shoulders. "If it kills us, at least we die together."
"What a comfort." Hermione stared at the ceiling briefly. "A death pact with Draco Malfoy. Just what I wanted for Christmas."
"What are we playing?" Ginny asked, having already located the fire whiskey.
"Veritaserum or Dare?" Daphne offered, with the look of someone who had been planning this for several minutes.
Hermione and Draco both sat up straight. "No," they said simultaneously.
Draco glanced at her. "What have you got to hide?"
"The same amount as you," she said. "Which is the entire problem."
"Fine. We play."
"Fine," she agreed.
Ginny was watching them with narrowed eyes. "Are they always like this?" she murmured to Blaise.
"You have genuinely no idea," he replied.
"Muggle game?" Pansy suggested, which caused Hermione to feel a distinct wave of gratitude.
Hermione explained poker — rules, betting structure, the particular dark art of keeping a neutral expression — and a few hands in, they were all adequately invested. The drinks helped. So did Theo's complete inability to bluff without announcing it through his face.
Hermione had two kings and was quietly pleased.
Pansy studied her cards with calculation. "I'll raise."
Theo called. Blaise, working with less, threw in to stay in the conversation.
"Malfoy," Hermione said.
"Raise," he said, pushing in a sizeable stack, his gaze crossing hers briefly over the table.
She matched him without flinching.
They played through several rounds. Theo dropped out first, muttering darkly about the nature of chance. Blaise followed. Pansy lasted longer before folding with a theatrical sigh.
That left Hermione, Draco, and Ginny.
Draco's face was utterly unreadable — the lazy ease of someone who had spent years learning to perform neutrality. But she'd been watching him across study tables and Potions classes and the dim warm light of the Room of Requirement for months now. She knew the particular quality of his focus when he was working through something.
He was bluffing.
"All in," he said.
Hermione studied him for a long moment. "All in," she said.
Ginny exhaled. "Well. It's just me then. I'll call."
Pansy dealt the final card.
Ginny flipped her hand. Full house. She laughed.
Draco scowled at his pair of twos. Hermione set down her kings. Neither came close.
"Weasley luck," Blaise muttered.
"This game is cursed," Draco announced.
"Get on with it," Blaise said. "Both of you."
"This is ridiculous," Hermione began, and then Draco had stood and hooked his thumbs in his waistband.
"Wait—" She was on her feet immediately. "This is — just, stop—"
The room looked at her.
Draco raised a brow. "Granger. If you wanted a private show, you simply had to ask."
Her face went scarlet. "That is not what I — I'm just saying that Ginny's won, she doesn't actually need—"
"It's really fine," Draco said.
"Malfoy—"
His hands moved again. Hermione grabbed the hem of her camisole and pulled it over her head, tossing it onto the sofa cushion behind her. "I lost too," she said. "There. We're even."
The room went quiet.
Draco's gaze moved to her before he could stop it — and stayed there one moment too long.
She was wearing a red bra. Lace. And the information landed somewhere in his chest and refused to move.
Hermione glanced over at him and knocked back a full glass of fire whiskey. "You'd think you'd never seen a girl in a bra," she said, with a steadiness she didn't entirely feel.
"I just didn't have you down as a lace woman, Granger," he said, recovering.
"I wasn't aware you'd given it thought," she replied.
And then — to the visible astonishment of every person in the room — Draco Malfoy stuttered. His mouth opened, words formed and failed to arrive, and for three full seconds he stood there looking like someone had hit him with a Confundus.
"I — I didn't — that's not — I wasn't—"
Ginny stared.
"Well," Ginny said, filling the silence with brisk decision. "Bed for all of us, I think. Big day tomorrow. Lots of resting to be done."
Hermione reached for her camisole and pulled it back on with dignified efficiency. "Agreed. Excellent game, everyone."
She did not look directly at Draco again.
He watched her go.
Daphne watched him watching her, and smiled into her drink.
---
Harry and Hermione were in the library the following evening, a comfortable quiet between them until Harry broke it.
"He's at perfect liberty to snog whoever he likes," Hermione said, turning a page. "I've told you that already."
"You've told me a lot of things," Harry said. "That doesn't mean I believe them."
Hermione exhaled. "I'm not discussing this, Harry."
"You never discuss it. You change the subject."
"Because there's nothing to discuss." She set her book down and turned to face him. "I'm over it. I'm over Ron. I need you to believe me."
Harry looked at her steadily.
"Alright," he said, after a moment. "Let's say I believe you. If you're over it — why can't you stand to be in the same room as him?"
"Because it's — because he's—" Hermione pressed her lips together. "Because if you were snogging someone in every corner of the castle, I'd be avoiding you too."
"So you do still care."
"Harry." She kept her voice low, mindful of Madam Pince's watchful silence. "I do not have feelings for Ron anymore. I want you to hear me say that clearly."
Harry studied her.
"I've moved on," Hermione said.
"To what?"
She hesitated.
Harry's eyes sharpened. That small, telling pause. It was all he needed.
"Hermione," he said carefully. "Who?"
She scoffed. "No one. To my studies. My NEWTs. Stop looking at me like that."
"Ginny said Malfoy looked like he'd forgotten how to breathe last night."
Hermione's fingers curled around her book. "Ginny needs to learn to mind her own business."
"So she wasn't wrong?"
A beat.
"I didn't say that," Hermione said, very quietly.
"You didn't deny it either."
Hermione rubbed her temples. "Harry. Malfoy does not fancy me."
"I never said he did." He leaned forward. "Tell me you don't fancy Draco Malfoy."
Hermione opened her mouth.
One.
Two.
"Oh my god." Harry was on his feet.
Hermione grabbed his wrist and pulled him back down with considerable force. "Would you please keep your voice down?" she hissed.
Madam Pince looked over from across the library. A first-year at the next table pretended to be deeply absorbed in their textbook.
Harry stared at her. His voice dropped. "You fancy Malfoy."
"I don't," she said.
"You did it again — you just sat there—"
"I was thinking!" she whispered.
"Do you fancy Draco Malfoy?"
A very long silence.
"No," Hermione said.
"Hermione."
"I said no!"
"You paused for four seconds!"
"I was formulating my answer!"
Harry shook his head. "This is Malfoy. He's a Death Eater."
"He is not a Death Eater, Harry. He is not. I need you to stop saying that."
Harry opened his mouth.
"There are more pressing things to worry about," Hermione said, overriding him. "Like the fact that Romilda Vane and at least eleven other girls have been discussing how to slip you a love potion. They want an invitation to Slughorn's Christmas party, and I have reason to believe some of them have obtained something effective from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes—"
"Why didn't you confiscate them?"
"They didn't have the potions on their persons. They were discussing strategy." Hermione sighed. "Just invite someone. That stops the speculation. The party's tomorrow night."
Harry dragged a hand through his hair. "There isn't anyone I want to ask."
Hermione looked at him steadily.
He scowled. "I don't know, Hermione. Is that why you keep finding reasons to spend time with Malfoy?"
"That's entirely different."
"Because you're bonding over, what — Arithmancy? The ethical dimensions of house-elf legislation?"
"We have genuinely interesting conversations," Hermione said coolly. "More interesting than conversations that begin and end with Quidditch."
Harry snorted. "Right. None of which explains why Malfoy apparently looked like he'd been hit by a Bludger at some point last night."
"Is that who you're taking? To Slughorn's?"
"Don't be ridiculous."
"He didn't ask?"
"I hope someone slips you a love potion and you spend the entire party talking about Quidditch."
---
The Great Hall the following morning was considerably noisier than usual, the prospect of Slughorn's party settling over the school like a charge of anticipatory electricity.
McGonagall had them working on human Transfiguration, and the arrangement of the classroom placed Hermione directly beside Ron. Things deteriorated in the particular way they always did when Ron had decided to perform his irritation rather than simply feel it.
It ended with Hermione leaving the classroom before the bell had properly finished, her face flushed and her jaw set.
Harry found her outside a bathroom on the floor below, Pansy with her, one hand moving in small circles on Hermione's back.
"Potter," Pansy said, when she saw him.
"Parkinson." He held out Hermione's book bag. "You forgot this."
"Thank you," Hermione said softly. She took it, turning slightly to press the back of her hand to her eyes.
Pansy's gaze moved between them without offering comment. She nodded once — a small, precise acknowledgement — and that was that.
"I should go," Hermione said, composing herself. "I've got—" She paused.
"Theo's waiting for you at the pitch," Pansy said, without missing a beat. "His Care of Magical Creatures assignment."
"Right. Yes." Hermione smoothed her expression into something more certain and walked away.
Harry watched her go. "Weasley managed to find a new way to be thoughtless."
Pansy said nothing to that. She watched the corridor for a moment. "She's fine," she said at last, though it was less reassurance and more assessment. "She's stronger than she lets anyone see."
"I know," Harry said.
A beat of silence passed between them.
"How would you like to come to Slughorn's party with me tonight?" The question arrived in his mouth before he'd reviewed it.
Pansy turned and looked at him.
The look she gave him could have etched glass. "With you," she said. "To Slughorn's party."
"Yes." Harry kept his voice reasonable. "I thought — you and Hermione are friends now. If it helped her somehow—"
"You think that's how this works," Pansy said. "One social event, and Weasley stops being a prat and Hermione stops being hurt." A pause. "You really are that optimistic."
"You could just say no," Harry offered.
Pansy exhaled. "Fine," she said. "I'll come. It's last minute, so I'll need to find something to wear."
"No worries, I completely—"
"Wear a black tie, Potter."
Harry blinked. "A black—"
"Eight o'clock. You collect me from my dormitory." She turned and walked away. "Don't be late."
Harry stared at the empty corridor.
---
Ron, at dinner, looked at Harry as though he'd reported a personal injury. "Anyone. Literally anyone in the school. And you chose Parkinson."
Harry turned his food over with his fork. "It seemed reasonable at the time."
"It really, really didn't." Ron shook his head. "What were you thinking?"
Ginny pointed her fork at Ron. "Didn't you say — back in September, I think — that you thought Pansy was—"
"I genuinely don't remember that," Ron said.
"She's actually rather good once you get to know her," Ginny said, with the easy authority of someone who had arrived at this conclusion through first-hand experience and wasn't particularly interested in being argued out of it.
Ron's expression suggested this information made things worse, not better.
Lavender and Parvati arrived, and the conversation shifted. Parvati looked across at Harry. "Where's Hermione?"
"Here," Hermione said, sliding into the seat across from Parvati. "Hello, Parvati. Are you going to Slughorn's tonight?"
"No invitation." Parvati sighed. "I'd love to, though. You are, aren't you?"
"Yes." Hermione folded her napkin neatly in her lap. "I'm meeting Cormac at eight — we're walking up together."
The noise Ron made was not entirely human.
Hermione continued, to Parvati.
"Cormac?" Parvati brightened. "McLaggen? That Cormac?"
"The very one," Hermione said pleasantly. "The one who very nearly made Gryffindor Keeper."
"You do love a Quidditch player," Parvati said with a small laugh. "Krum, then Vaisey, now McLaggen—"
"Only the best," Hermione agreed.
Ron's fork found his plate with considerable force. "McLaggen?" He stared at her. "You're going with McLaggen? Seriously?"
"Completely seriously," Hermione said. "And I don't see why it's anyone's concern."
"It's a concern because he's—" Ron appeared to be trying to assemble his objections into a sentence. "He's McLaggen."
"And on that thoughtful note," Hermione said, rising, "I need to go and get ready. I told Daphne I'd come to her room." She gathered her things and left.
Ron watched her go. Harry put his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand.
"Right," Harry said.
---
In Daphne's room, Hermione submitted to having her hair managed while Daphne maintained a running commentary.
"I could send word to Draco," Daphne said, with the mild practicality of someone suggesting a perfectly sensible alternative. "He'd be ready in ten minutes."
"I've already arranged to go with Cormac," Hermione said, for what she felt was at least the third time.
"Yes, but Cormac is—" Daphne considered. "—Cormac. Whereas Draco is approximately six feet of exactly what you need, and you know it."
Hermione's face did something involuntary. "I don't need—"
"You told me, verbatim—" Daphne began.
"You are absolutely not going to—"
"—that you thought about his hair more often than you considered reasonable—"
Hermione covered her face with both hands. "Please stop talking."
"—and that the way he looks at you when you're arguing was—"
"Daphne!"
"Fine," Daphne said, entirely unperturbed, and returned her attention to Hermione's hair. "Go with Cormac. It's your evening."
The door opened and Pansy walked in, dressed, composed, entirely herself.
Hermione and Daphne both turned.
"Where are you going?" Hermione asked.
"Out," Pansy said pleasantly.
"You don't have an invitation," Daphne said.
"Not all arrangements involve formal invitations." Pansy checked her reflection, dealing with a single stray strand of hair.
"Blaise?" Daphne guessed.
"No." Pansy picked up her bag. "Someone asked me. It's nothing dramatic."
A knock. Pansy opened the door to find Theo.
"Ready, Daphne?"
"You've made an effort," Daphne said, looking him over with a smile.
"High praise."
"Don't let it go to your head."
Hermione stood. "I'll meet you all there. I said I'd find Cormac outside Gryffindor." She gathered her things, smoothed her dress, and headed for the door.
Pansy and Daphne both looked at her.
"Cormac McLaggen," Daphne said, with the expression of someone reviewing a poor decision. "Really."
"It's just someone to go with," Hermione said firmly. "You both said you didn't want me going alone."
"I said I wanted you to go with Draco," Daphne replied. "Tall, blonde, very obviously—"
"I know who Draco is," Hermione said, and left before Daphne could finish the sentence.
The knock came just after she'd gone. Pansy crossed the room and opened the door.
Harry stood there. Black tie. Hair its usual magnificent disaster.
"Parkinson," he said.
Pansy looked at him for a long moment. "Potter," she said, and picked up her bag. She stepped past him into the corridor.
"Potter?!" Daphne and Theo said, together.
---
Slughorn's extended office was everything the man considered festive — which was to say, a great deal of everything, all of it expensive, most of it glittering, and the whole arrangement designed to convey that Horace Slughorn had excellent connections and wasn't above letting people know it.
Hermione stood near the edge of a conversation with Cormac, nodding at intervals, and let her gaze move discreetly around the room. Daphne and Theo had arrived a few minutes ago. Harry was somewhere — she'd lost him. Pansy she still hadn't accounted for.
"— and the thing about a really great Keeper," Cormac was saying, "is that it's less about the reflexes and more about the read. You have to know where the Quaffle's going before the Chaser does—"
"Mm," Hermione said.
She spotted him before she'd decided to look for him.
Draco, near the door, with Blaise just behind him. Dark suit. Hair perfect. The expression he wore in public — unimpressed, evaluating, somewhere between present and thoroughly absent.
His gaze moved over the room and found hers. His jaw tightened by a fraction.
Hermione looked away.
"Cormac," she said, with something approaching decisive action. "I can see some friends of mine — shall we go and say hello?"
Cormac, somewhat reluctantly, allowed himself to be steered toward Daphne and Theo.
Daphne turned as she approached, eyes moving briefly to Cormac with an expression that conveyed a great deal without saying anything.
"Enjoying yourself?" she asked.
"Thoroughly," Hermione said.
Theo nodded at Cormac. "McLaggen. I heard you nearly made Keeper this year. Pity about Weasley."
"Yeah, if Potter wasn't so biased—" Cormac's arm found its way around Hermione's waist, and she resisted the very specific impulse to remove it.
"Such a shame," Theo said agreeably. "Though at least you don't have to deal with the pressure of the actual season."
Cormac grinned. "Oh, I wouldn't worry about pressure. I handle it rather well." He looked at Hermione with what he probably thought was a smouldering expression.
Hermione smiled with her face and not her eyes.
"Granger."
The voice arrived at her other side, quiet, unhurried, as though Draco had simply materialised there.
She looked at him. He looked at her, and his expression did the thing she'd stopped being able to pretend wasn't there — the subtle, private shift. Just for a moment. There and then gone.
"Blue suits you," he said, low enough that it was meant for her alone.
Hermione felt the real smile come before she could consider it. "Thank you. Draco."
Something moved through his eyes.
Daphne made a small, satisfied sound into her glass.
Cormac looked between them with an expression that had gone noticeably cooler. "Since when do you hand out compliments, Malfoy?"
"Less a compliment than an observation," Draco said. His gaze moved to the hand at Hermione's waist. "You do tend to reach for the most trying option available, don't you, Granger."
"If that were true," Hermione said, before she could stop herself, "I'd be here with you."
Silence.
Theo quietly choked on his drink.
Daphne looked as though she might actually weep with happiness.
Hermione considered the practical implications of simply ceasing to exist.
Draco's mouth curved. His gaze went briefly, fractionally sideways — as though he needed a moment. "Touché," he said.
Cormac's jaw had set. "Excuse me?"
Blaise appeared from the periphery. "He means, in the most technical sense, that if Hermione genuinely had the absolute worst taste imaginable, she'd be standing next to Draco right now instead of you. So, by that logic—" He gestured encouragingly. "Take it as a compliment."
Draco's expression settled into something quiet and considering. "Exactly." He looked at Hermione. "Still deciding whether to be offended."
"Somewhere quieter," Cormac said, tightly. His eyes hadn't left Draco. "Hermione?"
"Yes," Hermione said, with a performance of enthusiasm she didn't feel. "Let's."
She turned.
Draco's hand closed very gently around her wrist.
Hermione stopped.
The touch was barely anything — careful, uncertain, as though he wasn't sure of his own intention. She looked down at his fingers. She looked up at his face. He was looking back at her, and whatever he'd meant to say, he seemed to have lost it.
"Granger—" He let go. He turned back to the others.
Hermione left with Cormac.
Blaise shook his head. "Truly, genuinely pitiful."
Daphne hit Draco's arm. "You grabbed her and then what? Just — let her go?"
Draco caught her hand. "Do you want me to duel McLaggen in the middle of the party?"
"Yes," Daphne said, flatly.
"It would've been memorable," Theo admitted.
"She was making it abundantly clear she wanted you to stop her," Daphne said, pulling free. "The way she looked at you when you took her wrist—"
"She made her choice," Draco said.
"She made her choice while waiting for you to give her a reason to unmake it!"
"What's happened?" Pansy said, arriving at the edge of the group with Harry a step behind, each of them holding a drink.
Draco stared. "You came with Potter?"
"He asked," Pansy said. "It seemed practical."
Blaise looked at Harry. "Why?"
"I thought Hermione could use a friendly face," Harry said, with reasonable composure. "I didn't realise you'd all be here."
Draco's mouth pressed into a thin line. "Stay out of it, Potter."
"I'd love to," Harry said. "Genuinely. But she's my best friend, and apparently you've just let her walk off with McLaggen."
"She's not a child—"
"No," Harry said. "She's not. But that doesn't mean she should have to manage this on her own while you stand here doing nothing."
Theo, quietly: "You do know what McLaggen's actually hoping for tonight."
Draco's fingers tensed. "I'm aware," he said, and his voice had gone very flat.
He'd grabbed her. Without thinking, without planning. And she'd looked at him, and he had known — for one single moment — exactly what he could have said.
'Don't go.'
Two words.
And he'd said nothing.
"She's yours to deal with," he said to Harry, and walked away.
Pansy watched him go, then looked at Harry. "I told you Ginny wasn't exaggerating."
---
Cormac had moved on to a comparative analysis of Keeper statistics across the last three seasons of the British and Irish Quidditch League, and Hermione had given up actively following the thread and was simply maintaining eye contact and making affirmative noises at plausible intervals.
She was thinking about Draco's hand on her wrist.
"— which is why the Falmouth Falcons, statistically speaking—"
"Right," Hermione said.
They rounded a quiet corner, and she looked up. Above them, a small sprig of mistletoe.
Of course.
"Well," Cormac said, in a tone she found she actively disliked. "Tradition, after all."
Hermione swallowed. "Right," she said. "Tradition."
---
Harry had been extracted from a conversation with Eldred Worple and a vampire named Sanguini by Pansy, who had done it with such smooth economy that he'd been genuinely grateful, which was a strange sensation.
"That was very well done," he said, when they'd moved to the edge of the room.
"I know," she said.
"I'm not sure whether to be impressed or suspicious."
"Both," she said pleasantly. "I redirected them to Draco, by the way. He's better positioned to handle that particular conversation — family name, tragic story, all of it. Worple will be thrilled."
Harry looked at her. "That was either thoughtful or calculated."
"Can't it be both?"
A beat.
"You actually care about Hermione," Harry said. "Don't you."
"She's my friend," Pansy said simply.
Harry turned it over. He'd been wrong about Pansy, he was realising. Not completely — she was still sharp and watchful and approximately one layer removed from a Slytherin chess piece at all times — but wrong about the essentials.
"You could have come to me," he said. "About Malfoy. About whatever's going on."
"And you would have done what, exactly?" Pansy said. "Charged in and made everything worse? Potter, with the greatest possible respect — you're not subtle. You never have been."
Harry couldn't argue with that.
"I brought Hermione in because I was worried about Draco," Pansy said, more quietly. "I thought she'd see what I was seeing. Help him — or at least figure out what he'd got himself into. I didn't plan for either of them to—" She stopped. "I underestimated them both."
"I don't want him near her," Harry said. It was honest.
"I know," Pansy said. "But wanting something and making it happen are different things. And if you go at this the wrong way, you'll push her closer to him."
Harry looked at the far end of the room, where he couldn't see either Hermione or Draco.
"Then what do we do?"
Pansy was quiet for a moment. "We watch. And when the right moment comes, we're ready."
Hermione appeared at Harry's elbow, slightly dishevelled, hair slightly undone, with the expression of someone who had recently escaped a situation through sheer determination.
"Harry." She exhaled. "Thank Merlin."
Harry looked her over. "What happened?"
"I've just—left Cormac." She smoothed her hair. "Under the mistletoe," she added, in case any further explanation was needed.
Harry's expression said everything.
"I thought he'd irritate Ron," Hermione said.
"Did it work?"
"The irritating Ron part, yes. Everything else, no." She looked between Harry and Pansy. "What is this?"
"Convenient arrangement," Pansy said.
"Harry." Hermione looked at him.
"She offered," Harry said.
"He asked," Pansy said.
Hermione pressed her fingers to her forehead. "I cannot process this right now. Cormac is—" She spotted him across the room and stepped very quickly sideways. "Right. Moving."
They moved.
"I need somewhere to stand that is not near Cormac or—" She stopped. She didn't finish the sentence. "Just somewhere quiet."
"I'll deal with Cormac," Pansy said, and moved off with an efficiency that suggested she'd been looking forward to it.
Harry fell into step beside Hermione. "For what it's worth—"
"Please don't."
"I was just going to say you look nice tonight."
Hermione blinked. "Oh." She exhaled. "Thank you, Harry."
They found a quieter pocket of the room. Hermione's shoulders dropped by a fraction.
And then — because the evening had not quite run its course — she opened a storage cupboard to see if it was empty, stepped inside, and discovered it wasn't.
A hand covered her mouth for one second before releasing it. "Shut up," a familiar voice said quietly. "I've just escaped Worple and Sanguini. If your noise gets me caught and I have to discuss my father for another twenty minutes, I'll hex you."
Hermione's hand dropped away from her wand. She breathed.
Draco.
She moved to the far end of the cupboard — which was really more of a closet, she was discovering, and with both of them in it there was barely a foot between them and the shelves of dusty bottles and folded party linens.
"You frightened me half to death," she whispered. She pushed his arm, not hard.
He smiled in the dim light from the door crack. Actually smiled.
"You're the one who walked in on me," he said, keeping his voice low.
Hermione felt colour in her cheeks. "I needed to get away from Cormac."
"Right." Draco leaned against the wall behind him, arms easy at his sides. "How did that go?"
"Between the Quidditch and the mistletoe — not brilliantly."
His jaw tightened by a fraction. He ran his gaze over a shelf of bottles rather than at her. "Lucky he didn't try anything more."
"Worried about me, Malfoy?" she said softly.
Draco stilled. "You called me Draco," he said. "Earlier. At the party."
"Did I?"
"You do that now." His voice was quiet. Not accusing. Something else.
Hermione's heart turned over quietly. "I... didn't notice." She shrugged, keeping her voice light. "I'll watch myself."
"Call me Draco."
The words were out before he'd decided on them.
Hermione looked up at him. "What?"
"Call me Draco." Steadier now, though his eyes in the thin light said something more uncertain.
She'd done it already. In this room, in the Room of Requirement, at the party tonight. More times than she'd consciously counted.
"Why?" she asked.
He exhaled. He looked at the bottles on the shelf.
Because I like how it sounds. Because I want you to see me differently.
"We're friends," he said. "Isn't that what you wanted?"
It was. It had been.
She repeated it to herself every night. Told it to everyone who asked.
And it hurt, every time he said it.
"Friends," she said, with a small smile that she mostly meant. "I suppose I can try. But don't think that gives you licence to start calling me Hermione."
The corner of his mouth moved. "Wouldn't dream of it."
She rested her chin on her knees, the cold of the floor coming up through her dress. "Did you see Harry and Pansy? I nearly had a cardiac event."
Draco let out a breath close to a laugh. "Don't remind me. Repulsive."
"They're not actually — Harry just needed someone who wouldn't make it a whole thing. And Pansy wanted an invitation."
Draco snorted. "Pansy would sooner date the Giant Squid than Potter."
"At this point I rather wish I'd brought the Giant Squid." She paused. "Why are you hiding from Worple and Sanguini?"
He exhaled. "They want to buy the rights to my father's story. Some variation on Malfoy: Fallen from Grace."
Hermione considered this. "Not very catchy. What about Malfoy: Moribund and Malevolent?"
"Moribund?"
"Approaching death. As in the family's reputation."
"I know what moribund means. I'm not Weasley."
"Had to check." Her laugh was quiet and real. "I try not to assume vocabulary."
"Machiavellian and Malevolent?" he tried.
"Machiavellian and Melancholy," she countered.
He almost smiled. "Fine. You can have the title. But only if you agree to edit it."
"Done." She glanced toward the door. "Do you think it's safe to leave?"
"Probably not. But we can't stay here indefinitely." He straightened up. "Go first. I'll follow in a moment."
Hermione stood, smoothed her dress. "And what would people say, exactly? If we left together?"
Draco tilted his head.
She felt her face warm. "Right." She turned toward the door.
"Granger." His voice was quiet. "You really do look lovely tonight."
She paused. She looked back over her shoulder. "You picked the dress," she said, and walked out.
He watched the door for a moment after she'd gone.
Then he stepped out — and was immediately seized by the back of his jacket.
"What the—" He spun, and found Snape.
"Have you lost your mind?" Snape asked, in the measured tone of someone who was being very controlled about how furious they were.
"You just grabbed me out of a party," Draco said, shaking his robes back into place. "I'd question who's lost what."
"You are supposed to be focused on the cabinet. Not socialising."
"By Salazar—" Draco pinched the bridge of his nose. "Don't say it like that."
Snape's patience was clearly at the very end of its rope. "The Dark Lord does not reward delays. You are running out of time."
"I'm working on it." Draco's voice dropped. "I took one evening off in months. I was working until—"
"And what is your plan?"
Draco's mouth closed.
Snape looked at him. "Well?"
Draco set his jaw. "It doesn't concern you. I have all the help I need."
"Who is helping you?"
"Blaise," Draco said immediately.
Snape did not look impressed. A pause. "Not Granger?"
Draco kept his expression neutral. "Why would Granger be involved?"
"Because," Snape said, with measured quiet, "I watched the two of you leave a storage cupboard this evening. Separately. With a brief interval between."
His mind assembled a response without haste. He rolled his eyes, adjusted his cufflinks. "Granger was hiding from McLaggen. I was hiding from Worple and Sanguini. We ran into each other." A shrug. "That's all."
Snape's gaze held his for a long, calculating moment.
"You have been spending a considerable amount of time with her."
"Pansy befriended her," Draco said. "I happen to be present. It's nothing."
Snape did not look convinced. But he moved on to what concerned him more: the timeline, the Dark Lord's patience, and what would happen if Draco continued to fall short.
Draco stood in the corridor after Snape had gone, his robes still slightly off-kilter, the noise of the party muffled through the walls.
She was going to be the death of him.
He straightened his jacket, and went back inside.
---
Pansy and Harry, meanwhile, were in the process of making their exit from the party when Pansy said quietly: "I can't find Draco."
"Hermione went quiet on me ten minutes ago," Harry said. "I've been looking."
Pansy looked at him. "They're probably in the same place."
"Don't."
"I'm just—"
"I know what you're doing."
They walked into the corridor, the sounds of the party receding behind them.
"Can you at least agree," Harry said, "that whatever is happening between them needs to be managed carefully?"
"I've been managing it carefully for months," Pansy said. "You've been here for about forty-eight hours."
"I overheard things," Harry said. "At the party. Malfoy and Snape."
Pansy went very still.
"Snape mentioned an Unbreakable Vow," Harry said. "And something called a cabinet."
Pansy was quiet for a long moment. They turned a corner and kept walking.
"The cabinet," she said, carefully, "is something Draco has been working on. I don't know what it does. I don't know what it's for. I do know he hasn't told any of us, which means it's significant."
"And Hermione?"
"Hermione is helping him," Pansy said quietly. "I think. I don't know how much she knows."
Harry's expression tightened. "She should have told me."
"She probably doesn't have the full picture."
"She should still have told me." He exhaled through his nose. "I need to talk to her."
"Not tonight," Pansy said. "You're going to look like you're about to arrest her, and she'll close up entirely. Let me speak to her tomorrow."
Harry wanted to argue. He could see the sense in it, which was irritating.
"Fine," he said.
They were still walking, somewhere in the argument over who was responsible for this situation, when the distance between them collapsed with no particular warning and their mouths met.
Unplanned. Inconvenient. Neither of them pulled away.
Pansy's fingers gripped the front of Harry's robes. He tasted like fire whiskey and months of accumulated frustration, and she hated — specifically, with great precision — how right it felt.
His hands found her waist. They stumbled toward the nearest staircase without separating. She managed the Fat Lady's password into his mouth, which was objectively impressive given the circumstances.
They made it through the portrait hole. They made it up the stairs. The dormitory door closed.
---
Later, Pansy sat up.
She dressed with her usual efficiency, smoothed the fabric, found her shoes.
"I can feel you staring," she said.
"I'm not," Harry said.
"You are." She stood, crossed to the mirror, assessed her reflection.
"You don't have to go," Harry said.
A beat. The words hung in the room awkwardly.
Pansy turned. She looked at him with an expression that was unreadable in a deliberate way. "Don't," she said. "Don't make this something it isn't."
"I wasn't—"
"You were thinking it." She bent to fasten her heels. "I can tell."
Harry sat up against the headboard, watching her. There was something in the absolute self-possession of her — the way she moved through even this with complete composure — that he couldn't stop looking at.
She straightened. One last glance at her reflection. She turned for the door.
"Pansy." Her name came out before he'd decided to say it.
She stopped.
"Did you—" He stopped. "Never mind."
Pansy turned. She looked at him for a moment, and something in her face said she knew exactly what the question had been going to be and had decided not to hear it.
"I'm going to pretend," she said very evenly, "that you didn't almost ask me that. Because you've done something marginally decent tonight and I'd rather not hex you to cap it off." She tilted her head — a small gesture that encompassed the room and everything that had happened in it. Then she turned, and left.
Harry lay back. Stared at the ceiling.
He tried, with considerable effort, not to think about the way she'd said his name.
He failed.
---
The common room was still occupied when Pansy came back. They all looked up.
Daphne's brows rose. "You're not in our dormitory."
Blaise grinned. "Walk of shame?"
"I have no shame," Pansy said simply, crossing to the sofa and helping herself to an apple from the bowl on the table.
Theo put down his quill. "So that's a yes." He leaned forward. "Who was it?"
Pansy bit into the apple.
Daphne studied her face.
For a moment, Pansy thought about Harry — rumpled, green-eyed, looking at her afterward like she was something he hadn't yet worked out how to hold.
She hated that look.
"It's clearly bad news if you won't say," Blaise observed. "Should we wake Draco?"
"No," Pansy said, with more force than she'd meant to.
Blaise and Theo looked at each other.
"Noted," Theo said.
---
"You're going to miss the train!" Hermione called up from the bottom of the Gryffindor stairs the next morning.
Harry came down with his trunk, looking considerably worse than she'd expected. "What are you? Our mother?"
"If I were, you'd have been at the station an hour ago." She looked at him properly. "Did you sleep?"
"I slept." He had. A bit. His thoughts had looped — the overheard conversation, Hermione and the cabinet, and, with persistent, unwanted frequency, Pansy.
Ron came down behind him, half a piece of toast in his mouth, trunk thumping on every step.
"Relax," he said around it. "Loads of time."
"Twenty minutes," Hermione said.
"Plenty," Ron confirmed.
Harry stopped beside her. "Are you sure you won't come? You'll be all on your own here."
"That's the idea," Hermione said, with a small, tired smile.
"It's Christmas," Harry said.
"I'll owl," she said. "I promise. Go and have a lovely time at the Burrow."
Harry searched her face. "Is Malfoy staying?"
"I wouldn't know," she said, her expression settling into careful neutral.
Harry didn't believe a word of it. But Ron was already at the door, and the castle steps were icy, and the train wouldn't wait.
He nodded. "Owl," he said. "Properly."
"I will."
He followed Ron out.
The platform was cold and busy in the way of last-minute departures, students dragging trunks over snow, smoke rising from the train in great white billows.
Hermione watched from a short distance. She was scanning without meaning to — until she spotted Blaise with Draco some way down, and then the bright surprise of Ginny's hair, apparently already in conversation with them.
Ginny caught Hermione's eye across the crowd and waved.
Hermione made her way over.
"Recruiting?" she asked.
"She found us," Draco said.
"Ah." Hermione looked at Ginny. "Is Dean heading home?"
Ginny blinked. "Dean. Right. I should—" She looked at Draco and Blaise. "I'll see you after. Safe holiday." She disappeared into the crowd.
Hermione blinked after her, then turned back. "Where are Daphne and Theo?"
"Rowed about something," Blaise said. "Theo's on the train already. Daphne's with Pansy." He checked his watch. "Which means I should be going." He looked between Hermione and Draco with an expression that conveyed quite a lot without saying any of it, and headed for the train.
The whistle sounded.
And then it was just the two of them on the quickly emptying platform.
Draco looked at her. His gaze moved to her jumper.
"Blue," he said.
Hermione frowned. "Sorry?"
"You're wearing blue again."
She looked down. The blue jumper. She'd reached for it without thinking, she genuinely had, she'd completely forgotten that — that he'd said—
"Coincidence," she said.
Draco smiled, just slightly, and tucked his hands into his coat.
"Your mother must be expecting you," Hermione said, keeping her voice measured. "You shouldn't miss the train."
"I'm not going home."
Her heart did something immediate and unhelpful. "What?"
"I'm staying here." He shrugged. "At Hogwarts."
Hermione looked at him, working through it. Lucius in Azkaban. Narcissa at home alone. Draco staying at school.
"Why?" she asked, and she hadn't managed to make it sound casual at all.
He almost laughed. "Does it matter that much to you?"
Harry appeared at her elbow. "We're leaving." He looked at Draco — brief, flat, unreadable. "Malfoy."
Draco's gaze moved from Harry to Hermione. Something flickered in it.
"I'll owl," Hermione told Harry.
Harry nodded. He got on the train.
The whistle sounded again, long and final. The platform cleared. The train began to pull away, its carriages rolling past one by one until there was nothing left but open track and grey December sky.
The snow was coming down softly. The silence settled around them, complete.
They stood there — not quite facing each other, not quite looking away — with barely a foot of space between them.
Neither of them spoke.
Two weeks stretched out ahead, and everything unsaid stretched out with it.