"Mum, I know, but this is a rare opportunity—yes, Draco is here, but that's not the point—please don't say that—Mum, he's not my—Mum? Are you still there?"
Hermione's voice drifted from the living room, gradually dropping to a mortified murmur.
In Draco's suite at the Wizarding Thermal Spa, a telephone cord stretched from the study to the sofa at the centre of the room, and Hermione sat at one end of it, attempting to reassure her parents.
Any parent of a thirteen-year-old girl could be expected to worry about their daughter spending the night away from home, however legitimate the reason.
"Dad—thank goodness, you picked up. It's like this: Felix Felicis has to be brewed away from sunlight, so it can only be done at night. I didn't plan to come home late, I promise—"
Her tone shifted as her father came on the line, and Draco, back in his study, smiled quietly to himself. She had clearly recovered.
He turned his attention to his correspondence. Blaise had attended a party with his mother and written three pages about other people's gossip. Pansy had got into an altercation with a wizard's daughter in the street and scratched her face—he wasn't certain whose. Crabbe had written to boast about the size of his lunch. Goyle had written, somewhat pitifully, to ask whether he might take a look at the homework.
Theodore, on the other hand, had successfully brewed a Hiccough Potion over the summer—well beyond what most third-years could manage—and had clearly felt the specific loneliness of having no one to tell. A few lines of genuine praise seemed warranted. Draco wrote them.
"Mum, can you please give the phone back to Dad—no, it really has nothing to do with him—why would I let him speak to you—do I seem like the sort of person who lies about Potions?" The volume from the living room was climbing again.
Draco paused his quill at the top of the next parchment and listened. There it was—the indignation, fully restored.
He finished his letters without great enthusiasm, then set his quill down and went to see whether the sulking girl needed anything.
She was sitting on the sofa with a ring of yellow ointment applied to her left eyelid, wearing what appeared to be an improvised eyepatch of sorts, holding the receiver between her ear and shoulder while trying to apply something to her right eye with a hand mirror. The ointment smelled faintly chemical—rather like petrol.
She caught sight of him over the top of the mirror and, with the particular expression of someone drowning in a conversation they can no longer control, silently mouthed: Help.
Draco sat down beside her, suppressing a smile at her ointment-smeared face, and took the receiver from between her ear and shoulder with the composure of someone doing something entirely routine. "Monica, it's Draco—yes. You can rest assured; I've booked her a room here. She can move in the moment we finish. If we're done early enough, I'll take her home myself. Of course. It's no trouble at all."
He set the receiver down and tapped the back of it twice with one finger. It slid, apparently of its own accord, back to the telephone base in the other room.
"There," he said, in the tone of someone who had solved a minor administrative problem. "She agreed immediately. It wasn't nearly as complicated as you made it sound."
"Because she was taken in by your face," Hermione said flatly. "My mother has always had an inexplicably good impression of you."
Draco was in excellent humour. He picked up a green apple from the fruit dish on the coffee table and turned it in his hand. "Want one?"
"No." She was studying her reflection with a disgruntled expression.
Her stomach chose that precise moment to make its opinion known. She went very still, then raised the hand mirror to cover her face entirely.
Draco retrieved a silver handbell from the coffee table—ornate, Baroque, clearly belonging to someone who enjoyed atmosphere—and rang it. A yellowed sheet of parchment shot in through the gap under the door and hung in the air before them.
"Your father treated me to dinner yesterday," he said, in the easy tone of someone stating a fact. "It would be rather ungracious to let his daughter go hungry in return. Order something—I'm starving as well. Keep me company."
He took a bite of the apple. The tartness was satisfying. He gestured at the floating parchment.
It was a menu, the names of dishes appearing and shifting across its surface. They had Slughorn's session in three hours. Nobody could be expected to survive a demanding Felix Felicis preparation on an empty stomach.
Hermione lowered her mirror, glanced at him—at the apple, at his expression of unconcerned contentment—and was evidently persuaded by his performance. She turned to the menu and studied it for a moment. "French onion soup, Brussels sprouts... cherry jam tart."
The parchment gave a small, confirmatory sway, and her selections appeared on the back.
"To drink?" Draco asked.
"Whatever you think."
In which case, he ordered her a large pitcher of chilled watermelon juice. She had, after all, told Slughorn that was the scent she smelled in the Amortentia—and she had said it with that particular colour in her face.
He ordered himself roast lamb cutlets, Yorkshire pudding, and a pot of Keemun black tea, and rang the bell again. The parchment whisked itself back under the door.
Hermione had picked up her mirror again and was inspecting her eyelids. "Where did this ointment come from? I've never encountered it before."
"Specialist supplier. It's been tested. Don't worry about it." He had absolute confidence in the Weasley twins' products—if their Extendable Ears could work through thick stone walls, reducing minor facial swelling was hardly a challenge. He simply saw no reason to explain the provenance.
"Do you think it'll work before nine?" she asked, turning her head slightly. "Be honest—is it better?"
"Come here," he said.
The light outside had gone dark while they'd been occupied, and the wall lamp had produced a warm, low candlelight. She shifted toward him; he took her chin in a few fingers and turned her face gently into the light to see properly.
She sat still and let him. Her eyes drifted over his face—without quite meaning to—taking in details she wouldn't usually have time to notice. The candlelight made his pale eyes deeper than usual. He'd grown out of the last of the roundness that had still been in his face in first year; what remained was quite well-defined, actually. His hair was loose—he hadn't been using the pomade that kept it slicked back at school—and it fell forward in pale, even strands, softening his expression considerably.
He looked, she thought, rather like a very composed cat.
"I like your hair like that," she said, forgetting to feel awkward.
His expression brightened—not dramatically, but in the particular way of someone genuinely pleased by a small thing. "Was that a compliment?" He studied her eyelids a moment longer, then lowered his hand. "The swelling's gone. You can't tell."
"Wonderful!" She checked the mirror, satisfied, then reached up to wipe off the residue.
Draco sat very still on the sofa, looking straight ahead.
The afternoon had accumulated a surprising number of incidents in which he had touched her face, held her hand, been closer to her than was entirely sensible—and he could no longer attribute any of it to the Amortentia, given that two hours had passed and the effects should have long since cleared.
He glanced at her sideways, quietly unsettled.
She wasn't wary of him in the slightest. She looked at him with the same easy trust she gave everything she decided was safe—and it produced, in him, an uncomfortable warmth that had no clean explanation.
He looked away. It was a problem to consider later.
A short while later, steaming dishes appeared on the table by the window. Through the floor-to-ceiling glass, the garden was alive with light—tiny fairies no bigger than a thumb drifting between the rose bushes, their wings catching the candlelight from their lanterns, humming something low and pleasant.
"It's like a dream," Hermione said softly, leaning toward the glass with bright eyes.
Draco smiled. He was thinking about what her expression would be if she ever saw the gardens at Malfoy Manor—the scale of them, the things living in them at night. He took a sip of tea and found himself quite looking forward to the hypothetical.
Hermione turned back from the window to say something, and caught him in the middle of that thought, his face unguarded and oddly warm.
She lost the sentence entirely. She picked up her spoon and turned to the onion soup.
A strand of hair immediately escaped and swung toward the bowl. Draco's hand moved first—brushing past her earlobe, catching the strand between his fingers before it could meet its fate.
She went quite red.
"Thank you." She looked up at him, startled.
He was still holding her hair. She appeared to suddenly remember something. "My hairband—I think I left it at Slughorn's workbench—"
"My hand will do for now," he said, in the tone of someone making a sensible practical observation.
This produced a peculiar sensation in his chest that he declined to examine. He looked at the Yorkshire pudding. His face felt warm. He focused on the pudding.
She murmured something—thanks, probably—and returned to her soup. He kept hold of her hair with his left hand, and they ate in silence, watching the fairies in the garden.
Time had a habit of passing quickly in pleasant company. By the time they had finished, it was nearly nine.
They arrived at Slughorn's rooms with anticipation and took their places at the workbench under his direction.
Tonight's work was the preparation of Felix Felicis ingredients—Belladonna extract, salamander eggs, Occamy eggshell powder, powdered Boomslang skin, and other rare components, each requiring precise handling. These were not the sort of materials one rushed through. Sourcing a complete set had taken Slughorn considerable effort, and there was no margin for waste through careless technique. He had entrusted them with the task based entirely on what he'd seen them do that afternoon with the Draught of Living Death. They were determined not to disappoint him.
Hermione found her hairband on the workbench, tied back her hair with focused efficiency, and said, "I don't want even one strand contaminating the samples."
"As it happens—" Draco paused for three seconds, then reached over and plucked a single strand from the back of her collar. "—one did."
"Oh—thank you." She immediately redid her hair.
"My pleasure," he said, and turned to his materials with an air of complete professionalism.
The next few hours were meticulous, absorbing work. The process of preparing the Occamy eggshell powder alone required careful temperature control at every stage. They fell back into their natural rhythm—the same quiet attunement that had impressed Slughorn that afternoon—communicating in half-sentences and glances, each anticipating where the other was in the process.
"Bright orange," Draco said, watching the crucible.
"Adding salamander eggs." Hermione began dispensing them, counting under her breath.
He counted silently alongside her.
"That's enough," he said—she stopped.
He kept stirring. The mixture shifted, and she said quietly: "It's turned red."
"Splendid!" Slughorn, who had worked his way through an entire jar of pineapple preserve, came over to examine it with great satisfaction. He tapped the cauldron's base with his wand, steadying the flame at its lowest setting. "That's the initial stage complete. Now it needs three days at a low, sustained heat." He looked at them with the benign approval of someone whose faith has been well placed. "Off to bed, both of you. Same time in three days."
The wall clock read half past midnight.
They nodded. The sustained focus of the evening had exhausted them, and neither had much to say as they made their way back through the corridors.
They discovered, on arriving at Hermione's room, that the key wouldn't work.
The door remained firmly closed despite several attempts. Alohomora was useless—every room in a magical establishment was protected by spells specifically designed to resist such charms, to ensure the privacy of guests.
The front desk, when they reached it, displayed a sign reading: Temporarily Closed. They waited for several minutes. Nobody appeared.
"I'm going to raise a formal complaint about this tomorrow," Draco said, tapping the counter with the flat of his fingers.
"Leave it for now." Hermione had wrapped her arms around herself; a cold draught was moving through the corridor, carrying the smell of rain. She sneezed.
"You'll stay in my room tonight," he said. "We'll sort the key out in the morning."
She looked as though she was going to object, then thought better of it and nodded.
The corridors back were dim, the candles guttering low in their sconces. Hermione moved quietly beside him. After a moment, her hand found his sleeve.
"You can hold my hand if you like," he said. He was half-asleep already; the dimness was having a soporific effect.
He took her hand without waiting for an answer. Her fingers were cool, and he closed his around them.
"I'm not frightened," she said. "I just don't know the way."
"Very reasonable," he said. He sounded on the verge of laughing.
Her face was warm. The dark was an advantage.
She could feel the slight difference in size between their hands—his palm broader, warmer, entirely matter-of-fact about the whole arrangement. On his ring finger was the small silver serpent, which she hadn't seen him without since his birthday.
"You're still wearing it," she said.
"I told you. I like it."
She walked beside him in the dark and felt an uncomplicated and thoroughly inconvenient happiness.
Back in the suite, Draco assessed the sofa with the expression of a person who already knew what the answer was going to be.
He took out his wand and attempted to extend it anyway.
Nothing. The furniture was under a protective charm—no doubt to prevent enterprising wizards from expanding a single room to accommodate an entire family.
He put his wand away and went to find spare bedding.
"Draco." Hermione followed him to the wardrobe. "I mean—it is a large bed." She was looking at the carpet. "There's room for two people, if you wanted to—you don't have to take the sofa. It seems unfair to put you on a sofa in your own room."
He turned around with an armful of blankets and pillows and stared at her.
"That sofa also looks extremely uncomfortable," she added.
"This is not gentlemanly behaviour," he said. His face had done something complicated.
"We're friends," she said, and looked up at him directly. "I trust you."
"Innocent girl," he said, with feeling. He was staring at her. "I don't entirely trust myself. What if I kick you in my sleep?"
"I'll kick back," she said. "You can have prior warning."
There was a moment of tired, slightly helpless amusement between them.
Draco looked at the pile of extra pillows in his arms and arrived at a solution. He arranged them down the centre of the bed—a definitive border, firm and clear.
"Acceptable?" he said.
"Very sensible," she agreed, sounding already half-asleep.
They took turns in the washroom. By three in the morning, both were lying on their respective sides of the pillow border, properly covered, and the day's accumulated exhaustion pulled them under within minutes.
Hermione dreamt of flying.
She always dreamt of flying when she was overtired—a dream that should have been frightening but never quite was, because in it she was never alone. She was holding on to someone, certain without looking that they wouldn't let her fall. The air had a clean, light scent that made her feel settled. She was less afraid than she ever was in waking life.
She woke slowly, registered a pleasant warmth, and became aware of a faint tickling at the tip of her nose.
She opened her eyes.
Platinum-blond hair. Very close. Several strands of it poking cheerfully against her face.
Half-conscious, she brushed them away with one hand. Soft. She noted this with the incurious acceptance of someone not yet properly awake. She found a more comfortable angle, closed her eyes, and breathed in.
Then the second hand completed approximately three hundred full rotations of awareness, and she sat bolt upright.
She was not on her side of the pillow border. She was very much on his side of the pillow border—or rather, the pillow border was nowhere to be found, having apparently migrated to the foot of the bed. She had been resting her head on his shoulder. Her hand had been on his chest. Her face had been approximately an inch from his ear.
He was asleep. His eyelashes made small shadows on his cheekbones in the morning light.
She grabbed two pillows, reinstated the border with great efficiency, wrapped herself in a blanket, and crept on silent feet to the kitchen for a glass of water.
Before leaving the bedroom, she looked back. He was lying exactly where he was supposed to be, expression peaceful, entirely composed, the blanket arranged correctly over him. To all appearances, he had slept without moving all night.
She told herself she had imagined everything, and went to get her water, and felt enormously relieved.
Draco had, in fact, been awake for some time.
He had opened his eyes to find her curled against him with the complete, trusting ease of someone who had done this many times before—her hair across his pillow, her head on his arm, her hand in a loose grip on his shirt. Her face was turned toward his neck, and he could feel, at intervals, the soft warmth of her breath.
His arm had been underneath her, and had apparently decided, at some point in the night, to hold her.
He had also—this was the part he was finding most difficult to come to terms with—buried his face in her hair.
Her hair, for what it was worth, smelled like green apples, and was extraordinarily soft, and he was aware of this with a clarity that was somewhat overwhelming at three in the morning.
He had spent a while looking at the ceiling, trying to be reasonable about things. He had tried once to quietly retrieve his arm. She had found him again immediately—turned into him, tightened her hold on his shirt, and settled back into sleep with an expression of perfect satisfaction.
At which point he had given up on the ceiling and looked at her instead.
This, he thought, was not helping. She trusted him—simply, completely, the way she trusted things she had decided were safe. She smiled at him differently now than she used to. She gave him her face to look at without guarding it.
He knew, with the quiet certainty of someone who had been honest with himself for long enough, what it was that he wanted.
He also knew—with the same quiet certainty—that he had no claim to it. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.
So he lay still. He stayed until she woke on her own, until he heard her breath change and felt her go still—felt the exact moment she understood where she was and sprang away from him. He kept his eyes closed. He heard the soft impact of the pillows being reassembled, heard her slip out of the room.
When the door had closed, he opened his eyes.
He exhaled very slowly, looking at the ceiling, and let the feeling—warm and aching in equal measure—settle where it had decided to live.