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It wasn’t that she was still mourning their relationship.
It wasn’t even that he’d brought a date.
It was that the date was Lavender Brown, and Hermione was now neck-deep in a special brand of irritation she hadn’t felt since sixth year.
Harry winced into his drink as a particularly strident ‘Won-Won’ carried to them from the next table. “Sorry,” he murmured to her, “I didn’t know.”
“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.” Hermione shoved a canapé into her mouth, chewing with more force than was strictly necessary.
Ginny was out of town, so she had agreed to be Harry’s date to the annual DMLE holiday party. She was the obvious choice: she knew enough people in the department that she didn’t need babysitting, and their friendship was old enough and well-publicized enough that Witch Weekly had finally stopped speculating that they were having an affair every time they were photographed together. And she really didn’t mind giving up her Friday night to make polite conversation and applaud when annual departmental awards were announced. Even if this year’s awardee was Malfoy.
But neither of them had counted on Ron, who was currently slightly unsteady on his feet as he listened to Lavender coo.
With a sigh, Hermione stepped back from the little table they had claimed. “I’m going to get another drink. Do you want anything?”
Harry gestured to the double Firewhiskey in front of him with a shake of his head.
The best thing about most Ministry events was the catering. Morning conferences were made palatable with hot scones. Lunchtime lectures came with sandwiches or, once, a spectacular baked potato bar that lined the conference room wall with toppings. Holiday parties invariably had tiny appetizers and an open bar.
Hermione was ordering what would be her third glass of Sauv Blanc when an all-too-familiar voice spoke from over her left shoulder.
“Indulging ourselves tonight, are we, Granger?”
She sighed. “I don’t have the energy for this tonight, Malfoy.”
“Long week?” He came to stand by her side, leaning slightly on the bar. “Or, perhaps,” he added, looking back the way she’d come, “more immediate sorrows to drown?”
She shot him a look, then wished she hadn’t. The problem with Malfoy was that sometime around the time he’d joined the DMLE and stopped gelling his hair and started rolling his sleeves up to the elbow when he was working, he’d managed to become extremely attractive. Thankfully, he’d never stopped teasing her, even after becoming inexplicable friends with Harry and Ron. The slight agitation that he continually caused her was enough to remind Hermione that there were reasons why he was in the look-but-don’t-touch category.
He was waiting for an answer, and there was a slight softness in his eyes despite the sardonic grin that made her want to scream and run the other way.
Or kiss him.
Which wouldn’t be wise.
“I don’t see the point of acknowledging the obvious, Malfoy,” she finally said.
He nodded, still looking down at her. “It’s been almost a year, hasn’t it?”
She sighed into her wine glass. “I’m fine, Malfoy. It was mutual. And it was over a year ago, we just waited until after the holidays to tell anyone.”
Unaccountably, he snorted. “Of course you did.”
She stared at him. “Excuse me?”
“Of course you waited. Instead of ruining Christmas for his family. You couldn’t even break up selfishly, could you? That Gryffindor nobility will get you every time.”
Two and a half glasses of wine over a random smattering of free appetizers. Hermione wasn’t quite drunk, but she was tired and tipsy and unprepared for Malfoy’s bullshit. Her voice was bitter as she snapped, “What should we have done, then? Screamed in the streets? Made our friends pick sides? Taken out his-and-hers slam ads in the Prophet? Is that what a good Slytherin like you’d have done?”
“No,” he said, and he still hadn’t looked away. “But then, I wouldn’t have broken up with you, either.”
Her wine glass paused halfway to her mouth while her brain tried to catch up. Draco Malfoy had just said something genuinely nice to her. Something flirtatious, or at least something with unexpectedly flirtatious connotations.
“What?” said the brightest witch of her age.
“I don’t know the details. Weasley hasn’t been particularly forthcoming. But knowing him, and knowing you, I’m assuming there were many conversations preceding the unhappy event. I’d assume that you asked him to change some of the more irritating elements of his behavior, and he didn’t.” He shrugged. “I’m somewhat of an expert in changing behavior.” When she didn’t seem to have a response to that, he repeated himself, “I wouldn’t have let things escalate to the point where you’d have to break up with me. But then, I suppose this is all academic.”
She stared. “What exactly are you suggesting?”
“At the moment, I’m not suggesting anything. Why?” he asked, the innocence of his eyes belayed by the wickedness of his crooked grin, “Would you like me to?”
Hermione was experiencing something akin to the time she’d stepped in the trick step on one of the Hogwarts staircases -- the sudden, strange sensation of the ground being somewhat unstable, of reaching out for anything that would help her catch her balance. She wasn’t sure exactly what reality she’d entered, in which Draco Malfoy was imagining what a relationship with her might look like, but she was tired and annoyed and had just chugged most of a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.
She finished the glass and set it down. “I’m going to say something. And if it’s not what you meant me to say, you will never speak of this again.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Do you want to get out of here?” The words came out too fast, too breathy, a bit embarrassing for a woman of her age. But then again, she’d never said anything like them before.
“I’ll get our coats.”
It took all of two minutes to say goodnight to Harry, snag another bite of bruschetta on the way to the door, take her coat from a silent Malfoy, and leave the party.
It took all of three minutes before Malfoy had her pinned to the wall outside the conference room door.
She let out a little exhalation of surprise before his lips were on hers, one hand on her hip to pull her tight against the thigh he’d slipped between her legs. She felt her feet adjust themselves, making room for him as he leaned into her and pressed her closer against the wainscoting.
He was a good kisser, she was realizing. She wasn’t sure why this surprised her. The last time she’d kissed someone other than Ron was when Victor Krum had taken her to the Yule Ball their fourth year. He’d taken her breath away when he kissed her in the gardens. But then again, he’d been an international Quidditch star.
Hermione had the sudden, hysterical thought that Malfoy wasn’t an international Quidditch star. When, exactly, had he been getting this good at kissing?
He was biting down her neck, doubtlessly leaving a trail of marks she’d have to glamour away on Monday. She felt her back arch like she was observing from somewhere outside her body. Her hand was threaded into his hair, she realized. The other had slipped itself into the back pocket of his slacks. When had that happened, she wondered, giving an experimental squeeze that made him growl into her clavicle. She laughed, and he straightened to look at her. She’d never seen his eyes look this dark.
“Yours or mine?”
“Hmm?”
“Your place or mine, Granger? Where do you want to go?”
She had a sudden thought of the Manor, the drawing room floor that still sometimes starred in her nightmares. “Mine,” she said emphatically.
They looked at each other for a moment. She had the sneaking suspicion she was missing something.
“What?” she asked.
He sighed. “I don’t know where you live, Granger. You’ll have to take the lead.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.” She peeled herself off the wall, smoothing her hair self-consciously before sticking out her hand. “Shall we?”
He looked at her hand, hanging in midair like she was waiting for a handshake, with obvious amusement. He took it, and Hermione apparated.
The problem, she thought, was that they’d lost momentum.
Since they’d popped into existence in the middle of her sitting room, they hadn’t so much as touched. They’d stared at each other for a moment upon landing, still frozen in the awkward handshake she’d initiated. And then she’d panicked.
“Tea?” she’d said, pulling her hand out of his and wiping it over her skirt.
He’d blinked at her. She’d taken that as assent and bustled off to the kitchen. Where she was now standing over a boiling kettle, wondering exactly where her evening had gone wrong.
He was looking over her bookshelf when she reentered the room, armed with two steaming mugs. His hands were in his pockets, rucking up his blazer in a way that shouldn't have been attractive.
“Is this your original copy of Hogwarts: A History ?” he said, without looking.
Hermione cleared her throat. “Um. Yes. I have a newer one, but I’m rather fond of that one.”
“I can tell,” he said. “You’ve never repaired the spine?”
“No,” she said, looking past him to the beloved old book. It really was worse for the wear. “Never occurred to me.”
Draco did look at her then, with a smile that could only be described as luminous. “Of course not.”
She blinked back at him. That was an expression she’d never seen from him -- snide grins, raised eyebrows, even sardonic laughter, but never this wide and genuine smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners and revealed a totally unexpected dimple in his left cheek.
She shoved one of the mugs at him. “Tea?”
He took it.
They sat on the couch, sipping their tea.
She opened her mouth to fill the silence before she’d thought through to what she would say. “So --”
At the same time, he sighed, “Listen, Granger --”
“What?”
“No, sorry, what were you going to say?”
“No, it’s nothing, finish your thought.”
He put the mug down on the coffee table and ran a hand through his hair. “We don’t have to do anything. I can just leave. You’re obviously uncomfortable.”
“No, I’m not.”
Draco looked at her exasperatedly. “Granger, you’re currently sitting three feet away from me with your knees so firmly pressed together that I’d bet there will be a mark. You made me tea. I could use your spine as a ruler. You’re uncomfortable.”
She shifted, consciously relaxing the position of her legs. His eyes flicked down, lingering briefly before darting back to her face.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she said, finally.
“What, exactly?”
“Have a one-night stand.”
“Ah.” He nodded, reaching out to take a sip of tea and avoiding her gaze. “As I said, we don’t have to do anything.”
“I want to.”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” she snapped, feeling a hint of the old irritation, the way she’d felt when he’d appeared at the bar earlier that night and accused her of drinking her sorrows. “I do, I just don’t know what to do next. I haven’t -- there hasn’t been anyone, since Ron, and I don’t know -- I don’t know how to seduce someone.” The words came out in a rush, a confession.
He laughed. She glared at him.
“Granger?” His voice was very gentle.
“Yes, Malfoy?” Hers was not.
“If I may offer a compromise.”
“ What , Malfoy?
“Have you considered letting me seduce you ?”
He had moved closer, halving the distance between them. He reached out one aristocratic hand and ran light fingertips over the place where her knees had met. There was, as he’d predicted, a blotchy patch of red on the inside of each knee.
She let out a sharp little gasp as his hand started to trail higher up, tracing loose spirals along her inner thigh. He smiled again, and then he was reaching for her, pulling her legs up onto the sofa so he could slide between them, pulling off his coat and tossing it aside without looking to see where it landed.
“Here are the rules of this seduction, Granger.”
She nodded for him to continue, wholly distracted by the warmth of his body against hers and the intensity in his gaze.
“If you don’t like anything, you tell me, and I’ll stop.”
“Of course.” Her voice sounded breathy to her own ears.
“And,” he whispered, leaning in to trail his lips over her jawline, “if you do like anything, you tell me, and I’ll do it again.”
He rolled his hips against hers, and she made an embarrassing little keening sound as her arms slid around his back.
“Say yes, Granger.”
“Yes.”
It wasn’t the last time she said “Yes” that evening. Or the following morning, when he woke her up with his head between her thighs, or when he handed her the cappuccino and raspberry scone he’d had delivered from the Muggle cafe down the road. She’d stared at him when she read the cup, and he’d shrugged.
“Changed behavior.”