Archive of Our Own

He’d be lying if he said he never noticed her before. He hadn’t noticed what she looked like immediately, what with them being eleven , but pretty soon after she’d punched the light out of his eyesight in third year he’s definitely noticed how hair tamed down and how nice her face was. 

Objectively speaking, of course. 

Draco wouldn’t have said he was attracted to her, not when he was supposed to hate everything about her, but he could appreciate what those Muggle jeans did for her, and he wasn't the only one gaping at her during the Yule Ball either - but then she'd spoken in support for him at his trial and was largely the main reason why he wasn't still sitting in Azkaban, and yeah, okay maybe he started comparing her to the girls he'd been with in the past but it really doesn't mean anything. 

And then she has to go and run into him at the same tattoo parlour and it's all hands on deck not to fall on his knees in front of her - which is, honestly, just pathetic. 

"Malfoy," It's cheerier than it's ever been, and the smile on her face is directed at him, which is strange and new and he definitely wants to see more of it, "Getting a tattoo?"

"Tends to happen here, Granger," He aims for banter, because she's been nothing but pleasant since the trial and if he doesn't aim to tease her he'll do something stupid like hug her. 

She's wearing those Muggle jeans she used to strut around the castle in, and a shirt he's pretty sure belongs to Potter, and the war only ended six months ago, she shouldn’t be so happy to see him. There should be some kind of residual hatred still kicking about in that head of hers, or maybe a genuine disdain - he hadn’t been a Death Eater, not in the technical term, but he’d been an arsehole even before he was Marked, especially to her. He’d hexed her, he’d hexed her teeth to be bigger, made her cry and stomp out of rooms, made it impossible for her to meet his eyes before they were thrown head first into battle - and, sure, the Dark Lord made it easy to forget those things, made it simpler for everyone to hate Draco because of his alleged ‘loyalty’ to the Dark side, but those who sat in his trail (watched him get his mind torn into, each memory flashing above them, every dark, twisted little piece of horror from the Manor and the battlefield replaying over and over again until the Minister deemed it enough) still confuse it all together.

He may have been a boy, just a child, but he bares the Mark and played the part before they knew the Dark Lord was back. Still calls him the Dark Lord, years of torture and manipulation still lingering in his mind, too afraid to call him anything else.

He shifts slightly, shoves his left hand into his back pocket in an attempt to hide his forearm - tries to pass it off as a casual move, but Hermione seems to dart her eyes to each small movement around them and she notices. Draco does that too, still jumps at creaky floorboards and holds his breath at doors opening behind him, and he curses himself for thinking Hermione wasn’t affected by the war either. 

He clears his throat, the fog in his mind loosening a little when he finds a spot on the wall beside her left ear and grounds his nails into his palm, focusing on the sharp stab just bordering onto pain to clear his mind a little quicker, “So…”

Hermione shifts a little, pitches her weight from one foot to the other and suddenly he’s not looking at the wall but directly into her eyes, brown with flecks of gold and how did he never notice her eyes before? 

“You, er… you getting one?”

She smiles at him again, and seriously , when did that start? “Just did,” She nods at him, “What are you getting?”

It - this - is quite possible the longest they’ve talked one-on-one before and he’s a little dumbfounded, almost like he’s used up his word limit on her for the week. His mind’s a little blank, he can’t remember what Blaise designed for him, what additions the artist added on, what the final product ended up being. He’s dazzled by the sheer normalcy of Hermione standing there, talking to him, smiling at him. 

Like they’ve done this before - talked and smiled and been nothing short of civil. 

“Just something Blaise doodled for me,” He manages to get out. He senses the flicker of her eyes to his left arm, still hidden from view, more than he sees it, and quickly shakes his head. He adjusts his stance a little and stretches out his fingers, feels the muscles in his forearm move around and watches Hermione’s eyes flick over to his right hand, up the length of his arm and back up to his eyes.

“The right one?”

Draco nods.

“Not covering… it ?”

Draco shakes his head and swallows tightly, bites the tip of his tongue and braces himself for the oncoming questions, the sharp looks and the whispers behind his back that often follow him around.

Instead, Hermione nods as if she understands, “I’m not covering mine up. Gives it too much power.”

She has ‘Mudblood’ scarred into her. His aunt had forced her down, sucked the blood from her arm, forced the entire Manor to hear the screams, and all Draco was able to do was turn away from it, build up those walls to block it all out like a coward. He still can’t go into that room, can’t pass those doors without feeling the cold chill from that night. He’d tried so hard, even then, to get them one step ahead of his parents, of the Death Eaters and the Dark places, but his attempts had been futile and they’d figured out it was her. That Potter and Weasley were with her and they stole from Bella’s vault. 

It haunts Draco still, and yet Hermione stands in front of him and calmly states it’s still there, that’s studied it enough to find face-value solace with it. She won’t cover it because it gives it power.

Draco won’t cover it because he’s scared the needle will touch the skull and it will burn all over again, that He’s not really gone and the simple press of ink to Mark will summon him again. Scared it will fail. That he’ll step out of the shop and the Mark will be bolder, standing stark against freshly inked designs, forever visible.

“Anyway,” Hermione smiles at him again , “See you next week.”

And she bounces out of the parlour as if she hasn’t sent his world reeling from a three-minute interaction.

Not many of their year chose to come back to Hogwarts. Their numbers have been split by just over a half, one-hundred-and-forty students dropping to just sixty-seven. It doesn’t feel like much of a difference on the train or in the Great Hall for the welcoming feast - all the years from first to the newly formed eighth all squeezed together - but when only the oldest remain after they eat the giant slash in numbers echos over the space between tables.

Draco tries to keep his eyes open, fights back the yawn because when he closes his eyes he sees rows of dead bodies on the floor he’s standing on - sees his classmates, his teachers, cousins and friends neatly laid down; scarred and bruised and dead , waiting for family to claim their bodies and lay them to rest one final time.

Sees a cluster of orange hair in the middle, mourning the loss of one twin, and remembers seeing Professor Lupin just metres away, hand still outstretched to his wife - Draco’s cousin, the family he was never allowed to meet - both dead with a son safely tucked away, too young to understand. He remembers his mother following his eyesight, the slight sob she choked back at the sight of her niece laying there, before Draco had been pulled away by Aurors, restrained and whisked away to Azkaban’s holding cells. 

Blaise sits solemnly next to him, Pansy on his other side, three of only five Slytherins that came back this year. He can’t remember the names of the other two, and thinks he probably should, but doubts they’d want to get involved anyway.

“Potter didn’t come back,” Pansy murmurs, nudging his arm and Draco winces around the still-fresh sting of his tattoo.

Sure enough, just a few seats over he spots Hermione sitting among a few other Gryffindor girls. It’s odd seeing her without Potter and Weasley flanking her on either side, but then he remembers they both went straight into Auror training two months after the final Battle and doubts they even considered coming back.

The Chosen One doesn’t need an education after defeating the Dark Lord countless times. The Chosen One’s friends don’t either. Hermione had enough solid ground to stand on during Draco’s trial, enough respect from others to stick her neck on the line for the youngest Death Eater in history and plead his innocence, plead that he be granted full-freedom.

“Why do you think she came back?” Blaise whispers.

Pansy shrugs against him, “She was offered a job in the Ministry. Thought she would have snatched that up.”

“It’s Granger,” Draco leans back so the side of the table behind him grinds into his spine, “You really think she’ll pass up another year of what she’s best at?”

He’d been thinking about it, couldn’t get it out of his mind as soon as she bounced past him in the tattoo parlour, ‘see you next week’ so light and even amongst the low thrum of a needle somewhere in the back. He’d read about Potter and Weasley’s training in the Prophet, read about Hermione’s job offer right afterwards, and just presumed she would take it.

The Golden Trio dominating the Ministry after saving it when it was on its arse. 

He thought maybe she would be on his probation team, or possibly just being friendly with no intention of actually seeing him, until he’d caught sight of her at King’s Cross. 

They’re all back in their school robes, house colours looking more dull this year amidst tired eyes, and if he concentrates really hard he could probably imagine they’re back in third year - before the war started silently raging, before the Dark Lord moved into his home and tore through his mental barriers for any information. He’s fourteen and Granger’s wearing a pink jumper and she punches him because he made an arsehole comment about something he can’t remember - he’s fourteen and putting up with his friends’ teasing about being hit by a girl because fourteen year old’s tease each other all the time. 

It’s enough to distract himself from the passing corridors as they’re led to the new eighth year common room. It’s in a new wing of the castle, an extra precaution for returning students who watched the original structure crumble around them. It’s well light, no dark shadows lingering in corners or on the floor, and every footstep echoes loudly around them. 

Pansy’s holding onto his hand when they step into the common room, Blaise’s hand in her other one, and Draco forces his lips into a neutral line as he takes it all in. McGonagall’s speech before dinner was all about house unity, integrating students from each house - classes won’t be split between two houses anymore, but rather as a mix of all four, and the only need for each coloured common room would be for sporting rivalries and the long-standing House Cup at the end of the year.

It shows in their new common room.

They’ve kept it neutral with shades of cream and brown, cosy in a way that’s not suffocating. The only reminder of the houses are the crests - their flags and colours hanging above the fireplace. 

“Boys to the left,” McGonagall ushers them towards the arched doorway, and Draco feels Pansy squeeze his fingers in desperation before they’re separated, hears Blaise’s huff as they’re pushed by a Prefect, “Girls upstairs and to the right. Off to bed, early start tomorrow for all of you.”

Draco manages to nab the bed in the far corner, away from the windows and the door, so no one can be at his back, and Blaise falls onto the bed to his right. The other two from Slytherin grab the beds opposite them and they all seem to notice when the other students leave a row of beds between them. 

“House unity my arse,” Blaise grumbles.

Draco’s fingers find his mark and it burns even through his shirt and jumper.

“I have a question-”

Blaise tries to hide that he chokes on his porridge, and Hermione at least has the manners to pretend not to notice. She’s dropped onto the seat opposite Draco at the old Slytherin table and it’s painfully obvious she’s the only one not wearing a green tie at this end of the table. 

No one seems to have a problem with integrating houses together - a sea of yellow and red and blue taking up the other three tables, but the five eighth year Slytherins didn’t need the glares and hushed insults to know they aren’t welcome with them. A few brave younger students - either first years or young enough to avoid the worst of the war and prejudice - were mingling at the end of the table, but it’s yards and yards of green ties and snakes on robe crests between them and where Hermione’s sat.

“Pansy’s the only Slytherin girl to come back, right?” She carries on like nothing’s wrong, and reaches across Blaise to grab a slice of toast and start spreading jam on it. When she doesn’t get a response she peers up at Draco, who barely remembers to nod.

“How come?”

He shrugs and stabs a sausage with his fork, “Had to.”

“Had?”

“No choice,” Blaise seems to be over his coughing fit and looks sheepish as he nudges a pot of orange juice in Hermione’s direction.

She still looks confused and Draco takes pity a little. Maybe it’s not so much public knowledge, not like he thought.

“Her dad was in the Inner Circle,” He drops his voice so no one can listen in, and Hermione meets his eyes, “She avoided Azkaban, but it was this or community service and no one was willing to take her on.”

She turns to Blaise and he nods, “I had to be here or move to China with my Uncle - war didn’t reach over there and the name Zabini’s not as taboo.”

When, finally, she looks at Draco, he tightens his grip on his fork and carries on stabbing at his breakfast. He’s not been hungry since Azkaban, and only eats the bare minimum he can get away with. His plate’s a mess of destroyed egg, sausage and bacon, and looks just as unappetizing as his food tray did in prison - but he can eat this; it doesn’t look good by any means, but he used to be able to trick his mind to thinking Azkaban food was good and he does the same now.

“Part of my probation,” He says and can’t meet her eyes afterwards. 

She knows, she had to know. She spoke at his trial. She knew he had spent two months in Azkaban before that, knew he was sentenced to another three before he was released - and knew that he had to declare a career he wanted right there and then. He’d chosen potion maker, because he’s good with his hands and measuring and knew Healer was out of the question now he was Marked. 

Granger was there when they announced his release conditions. He will finish his education at Hogwarts, he will give money to the victim fund each month; he will go on to do a Ministry-approved internship with their potion maker for three years (two more than required for any one else) with regular inquiries; and he’ll spend the rest of his workable life following orders from the Ministry. 

Hermione had argued against them - he’d been told. Argued against his probation rules and how the Ministry were treating the children of Death Eaters. She’d been in the paper, along with the Patil twins, claiming they should be rehabilitating the,, not punishing, and Draco had read the article in his cell in Azkaban. 

“How’s she doing?” Blaise cuts into the silence, “In the new dorm?”

Draco can’t look up but he hears Hermione sigh and pick up the juice, “The other girls don’t really want anything to do with her, but she smiled at me when I took the bed next to hers so… I don’t know, progressing?”

Blaise eats in silence then leaves, claims he needs a walk and that his head’s too loud. Draco wants to go with him, knows that he can’t stand walking these halls alone with all his memories and doesn’t know how Blaise could stomach the idea, but he knows his friend needs a moment alone. That’s why Pansy’s skipped on breakfast, anyway.

“Thank you,” He says, out loud to Hermione and looks up, “For… Pansy. Just, thanks.”

Hermione gives him a small smile and pours him a goblet of juice. He doesn’t stab at his food anymore, just swirls it around his plate and eats a small forkful every now and again when he catches Hermione looking at him, and they stay in silence for the rest of breakfast.

They’re all in a weird limbo stage after that. The other two Slytherins eventually rekindle friendships with their old Hufflepuff gang and eat with them, and Hermione continues to sit with Draco and his friends for every meal. She heads down with Pansy each morning and slips easily into their conversations in some weird kind of way that feels normal. Every now and again he’ll spot her walking down with the Weasley girl, laughing and pushing each other, but she always waves goodbye at the doors and rounds over to join them at the Slytherin table.

They still get funny looks from the other students who knew where Hermione and Draco used to stand before the war, which only intensified when Hermione fell next to him on the couch one Saturday in the common room when Blaise and Pansy were absent. He’d managed to avoid being alone with her since that first breakfast, except for once when they were put into pairs during Herbology, and he’s not entirely sure if he’s been avoiding her intentionally or not.

He’s trying to study - his DADA book on his lap and a quill between his teeth - when she drops down next to him and their thighs nudge together. 

“You’ll ruin the feather,” She supplies, and tugs at the sleeve of his jumper, “Nice get up. Very Muggle of you.”

He’d redone his wardrobe to annoy his family - Muggle jeans and jumpers, jackets and trainers a far cry from his usual go-to suits and oxfords. He still likes the tailored suits, the Malfoy ring, but they cut into his skin in a way that feels too much like green light from a cursed wand sometimes. 

“Right back at you,” He mumbles and tries not to look at her too long. Her shorts are ripped at the bottom and travel higher up her thigh than her school skirt does, and he ignores the fact that her cable-knit jumper closely resembles the dark wool he’s wearing. Where his is black she’s opted for a soft green, almost white, as if she’s sending a subtle message that she’s integrating with Slytherins.

“Are you going to Hogsmeade tomorrow?”

“No,” He can’t look Rosmerta in the eye, even after he apologised after his trial and she accepted it with a tense hug he didn’t deserve. He could easily avoid the Three Broomsticks if he decided to go, but he also knows a lot of shop-owners in Hogsmeade that still hold anger towards the events of the battle, the events of the long months before where they terrorised for information. He’d be turned away by more stores than he would be allowed in, and he’d rather save that humiliation for another time.

“Flume will let you into Honeydukes,” She says, like she can read his mind, “and Aberforth will never turn people away from the Hog’s Head. Rosmerta even-”

“You got a list?” He goes for a joke, but she grins and brandishes a rolled piece of parchment from her back pocket and slaps it in his hand.

“I was staying in Hogsmeade before school started back up - mostly everyone is okay with you in their stores so long as you actually buy something and… well some of them were less than nice about it but I doubt you really wanted to go into Puddifoot’s anyway.”

He can’t bite back the snort as he pictures his one and only time in that pink hurricane. Pansy had kissed him the night before, insisted he take her on a date, and then half-dragged him into the worst date known to mankind. They were fifteen and he was still a little scared from his first encounter with the Dark Lord in his own dining room, but it had been easy to trick himself into a fun time when his best friend was opposite him. Pansy spilt pumpkin juice all down her new blouse and they had to leave Hogsmeade early when she got embarrassed, then they both decided they were much better off as friends after a dreadful snogging session where Filch caught them in a broom cupboard. 

“You didn’t have to go through any trouble-”

“Nonsense,” Hermione cuts him off and tucks one of her knees to her chest, “Least I could do and it’s kind of… well, kind of pathetic really. That that’s all I could come up with but you shouldn’t miss out on a few Hogsmeade weekends just because…”

She trails off and he knows she’s trying to find the right words, or trying to get him to talk, but he focuses on something else, “Least you could do?”

Her smile fades and she tugs at the sleeve of her jumper, “For… for trying. I know they didn’t… We didn’t thank you. For the Manor and… thank you.”

She’d lied - claimed to be Penelope Clearwater - and hexed Potter’s face to hell and back, but it hadn’t been enough. Draco tunes back into what he’s doing and notices he’s scratched through a few pages of his textbook with the nib of his quill.

“They knew it was Weasley anyway. It wouldn’t have… They knew it was him so it didn’t matter in the end-”

“It did.” She’s stern and final, but when he looks at her again she’s all soft around the edges, “They would have called him straight away if they knew for sure. You brought us some more time. I- I wanted to say thank you for that.”

Time was his aunt cutting into Hermione’s skin, forcing screams from her mouth, slicing a knife through the air and hitting Dobby straight into the chest. It was torture and murder and so wrong , and she’s thanking him for it. He supposes it was better than the alternative, by a small margin, but he’d never stopped to think he was still doing the right thing.

“Anyway, how’s the tattoo healing?”

He blinks, momentarily forgetting the swirling dragon across his bicep and shoulder, a slight rippling in his muscles each time it moves. 

“Good, er, still kind of stinging. Yours?”

She shrugs, “Itching like mad, no one told me they took this long to heal.”

“Still another month to go, at least.”

“Muggle tattoos only take around two weeks, three at most.”

“Ours move, they’re way cooler.”

She grins at him and nods, “Yeah, they are.”

He wants to ask what she got - wants to admit it’s been driving him insane. Golden Girl Granger, inked up. Draco’s been picturing what it could possibly be - something Muggle related? About the war? About her friends, the Order, family? - and where - she’s worn vests enough times around the common room to make it obvious it’s not on her arms, and her legs are still plain. He tries not to think about the flash of her dark bra the other night, how it looked like ink swirling between cleavage and all the possibilities that led to.

He so desperately wants to ask but Pansy bounds through the door and joins them, hanging over the arm of the couch and leaning across Draco’s shoulders to direct a question to Hermione, and then Hermione’s smile isn’t directed at him anymore.

They won’t be here long - at Hogwarts. Christmas break is right around the corner, just a few days away and then exams will approach quicker than they can probably cope with it - Draco doesn’t need the distraction.

But then someone finds out Hermione got a tattoo and suddenly every guy in Hogwarts is whispering about it. Blaise is only mildly curious, and so doesn’t bring it up all that often, but Draco can’t tune out the whispers around them whenever Hermione passes by - people trying to peak for exposed skin and any images there.

Draco feels like his mind is going to explode one day when she stretches on her way to class and her shirt untucks from the back, but it’s all plain, cream skin for a millisecond before her arms drop with her jumper once more. Draco wants to know what she got, where she got it and why, how long it took and if it moves, how it moves - and it’s only partly because he’s pretty sure she got ten times fitter since getting inked.

If someone were to ask him, three months ago before he ran into her, what she looked like, he would describe that eleven year old know-it-all from first year. The frizzy hair and nose stuck in a book, teeth a little too big for her mouth, knees shaking under the weight of her bag. He knew, objectively, that as he grew so did she, but he was a teenage boy exploring girls for the first time, too busy sneering at Hermione to notice that she had the kind of legs he liked in other girls, that she bit her lip just the right way to make him grind his teeth.

Now, though, she’s so completely different it’s like whiplash.

She’s grown into her legs; took the charm off from her teeth but they fit her mouth now; that concentrated crinkle of her brow is more fitting on her now she’s eighteen than when she was eleven. She wears her robes with more confidence in a way the other girls can’t quite pull off; has a type of swagger to her walk that comes from knowing she’s looking good. 

Her knows, now, that her hair’s softer, curlier now she knows how to manage it - “My mum used to do it for me,” She had told him at dinner one day, when he held her hair back in his hand so she could dig a hair tie from her bag when the other snapped, “She would do my hair every day before school so I never bothered to learn. Merlin, I must have looked a mess. No wonder you used to tease me.”. She always calls it teasing. Strays away from the other words - bullying, tormenting, hexing and jinxing - the right words , and smiles at him like she was in on it the entire time.

Hermione Granger is, without a shadow of a doubt, beautiful, and it’s driving Draco increasingly crazier.

She doesn’t mention her tattoo, but asks how his is once she knows it’s healed and always tries to peek at it when he’s popped open the buttons of his collar at the end of the day. Apparently she can tell when it moves, because he loosens his shoulder and tenses again like he’s being tickled - something she helpfully informs him of one Potions lesson when the dragon is particularly restless.

“What does it feel like? When it moves.” 

She’s good at Potions, or, rather she’s decent at it. She can easily make a passable concoction, but since Slughorn paired them up for the term Draco’s been batting her hands away from the cauldron and busying her with readying ingredients - he’s always got full marks in this class, and now that his entire pre-approved future depends on it he’s not about to let anything drop that. Hermione, for her part, seems kind of glad for the chance to relax and doesn’t argue with him, especially since he’s dragging up her grade-average for Slughorn’s class in the meantime - their final exam doesn’t allow team work, or partners, and Draco knows she’ll be stressed about all this ‘offtime’ once they start preparing for it, but they’ll figure out a system before then.

She’s sat on his stool as he mixes the ingredients in, eyes trained on the counter-clockwise whorls of their potion, and doodling on the corner of his notes for DADA - really just adding spirals and loops around his own drawings.

“Just- odd, I guess?” Draco mumbles, really only half-paying attention to her. The potion’s some kind of Pepper-Up mixture for the medical bay supply, Slughorn had told them, but he’s letting them take at most four vails between partners if they get it right and he knows he’ll need it soon. Hermione seems to be at every corner he stumbles across, even in his damn sleep , and he’s been having one-to-many restless nights to not have a potion handy.

“Odd how ?”

“Doesn’t yours move? Shouldn’t you know?”

Hermione huffs and drops her arm to the table, cheek following to the crook of her elbow, “I don’t really notice mine. It doesn’t move too much around, just stays in place most of the time.”

It’s not much of an insight to what she’s got - not when she could have requested for that specifically. He knows Blaise’s fourth step-father had a tiger across his chest that only ever growled playfully when someone poked it’s nose. Hermione could have a number of things on her body that has restricted movement.

He shakes his head, changes the direction of his stirs and begins to count, “Sometimes it moves to a sensitive spot and I think that’s when I tense like you say I do. Mostly it just sleeps.”

She seems happy enough with that small little tidbit, and gets up to start clearing their area. When she passes by his back, she stops and he holds a shiver at her breath against his shoulder - he’s never realised their height difference before.

“How far down does it go?”

“When it wants to,” He pauses to swallow, and tries to even his breathing, “When it wants to it moves all over my back.”

He jolts a little when her fingertips brush across the back of his shirt, finding the inward crook of his spine. The dragon had been asleep, the soft hum and bubbling cauldrons and the ever-present heat apparently had an effect on the tattoo, but it stirs now as Hermione touches him. He feels it uncurl its tail from his elbow and stretch sleepily across, chasing when Hermione’s fingers trail down the length of his spine to the small of his back.

Other than Blaise and Pansy, Draco’s not let anyone touch him since he got out of Azkaban. His mother’s on house arrest and he can’t bear to see the Manor anymore, and everyone else gives him a wide berth when he’s walking. He’d not counted Hermione’s small nudges when she sits next to him, or when their elbows knock at the table when they eat; just passed them off as accidental.

But her slow stroke of his back is deliberate, and she can’t even see his tattoo over his shirt. He doesn’t know what she’s doing, what game she’s playing, but can’t move away from her. There’s space too, he could easily slip away from her, but he’s rooted to the spot - the only one aware of what’s happening.

“You tensed,” Hermione giggles quietly, “Just then, where did he go?”

The dragon’s stretched across his back, one leg stretched to scratch at the spot Hermione’s touching. He can feel the pull of it across his skin, feel where it curls its tail around him now, at his shoulder this time, and finds it oddly calming that he can feel it.

“My shoulder,” He finds his words, lower than he would normally speak but he doesn’t trust his voice not to crack when her fingers skim over him to trace up, finds his shoulder blade, “I’m ticklish there so...”

“Huh,” Hermione hums, and then takes her hand away, reaching around him to pluck up the jar of mermaid scales. He watches her as she heads to the cabinet to put them away, catches a few Ravenclaws sneak a glance. They started a betting pool, he knows, of who can find the tattoo first. There’s veritaserum involved, so they know no one’s lying, and he knows Blaise is in on it because his third stepfather taught him how to gamble and always win.

Draco’s skin begins to crawl at the knowledge that it’s nowhere visible. Hermione isn’t likely to get a tattoo in such a hidden place just to show it off publicly - if she hasn’t even shown Pansy, who she lives with, it probably means she has to remove clothes for it to be visible. Draco nearly ruins the potion when his mind slips to another room; flashes of exposing skin and Hermione’s fingers ghosting at his back again.

When Slughorn passes them two vials each of their top-marks potion, Draco ducks into the boy’s bathroom and downs one.

“I have a theory,” Blaise whispers and someone behind them hisses at them to shut up, to which Blaise pays no mind. They’re in the middle of the great hall, fifth to eighth years all lined on rows of benches facing the front, listening to some Ministry worker drone on about finding the right career early.

Blaise and Draco had tuned out almost immediately - Draco with no other option than the one stamped on his prison release forms, and Blaise knowing he’s not fit for work anyway. Draco loves Blaise, but his friend seems to have fallen into the footsteps of his mother and enjoys the simplistic way of living off the interest stacking up in their Gringotts vault. Draco can already picture Blaise ending up a bachelor for life, too into the chase of girls, or marrying multiple times like Mrs Zabini was a professional at. 

Pansy’s sat to Draco’s left, Hermione next to her, and neither of them pay them much attention.

Blaise leans in close again and hisses into his ear, “Someone needs to shag her.”

Draco chokes on air and digs his elbow into Blaise’s ribs. He gets batted away and a slap to the wrist.

“No one’s going to know until they get her out of her clothes,” Blaise grumbles with an indifferent shrug, “A few Hufflepuffs are already making moves, anyway.”

Draco tries not to think about it - Hermione naked or with someone in general - and tries to tune into the lecture. He catches something about a career night, but his head’s pounding with memories of Hermione’s fingers across his back, chasing the dragon she can’t see.

Both girls seem pretty into the idea of the career night, and Blaise at least has the good sense to disappear the morning of it. Draco tries to hide away in bed for the day, trying to come up with ways to see Hermione’s tattoo instead. He’s not interested in the pool, or the money he could win, he just wants to know what she got.

He’s the only one with concrete proof that she’s even got one - considering their run in at the parlour and hearing the bandage crinkle as she moved, and they’re multiple conversations about it - but it’s been three and a half months since they started talking daily and she’s not any closer to telling him what she is.

He crosses a few methods off of his mental list, trying to come up with ways that don’t get her out of her clothes because he cannot handle that mental image - not when they’re friends now.

He’s in the middle of pondering the idea of showing her his and then just asking to see hers when the boys dormitory door slams open and someone’s pulling back his bed curtains. He swallows harshly when he spots Hermione on the other side, glaring at him heavily.

“You’re meant to be getting ready!”

“And you stormed in anyway? I could have been naked.”

Something like a smirk dances across her mouth but then she snaps it back into a frown, “Well, you’re not. Get up, get ready.”

For some reason he follows instructions, and starts digging through his trunk as Hermione tugs the rest of his curtains open and then settles herself in the middle of his unmade bed. She looks nice in a flowy dress, her hair pinned back and yet still cascading down her back, and Draco silently groans knowing that he won’t see her tattoo today - not without seeing her underwear if she has to lift her dress.

He can’t use the bathroom to get dressed, not when the Ravenclaw boys blew up a Potions experiment in it last night, and so has to settle with the Muggle jeans he’s already wearing. At least they’re black, so he plucks a deep green dress shirt from the bottom of his trunk - one his mother would approve of - and hesitates for a moment.

“The Potions master for the Ministry’s going to be there,” Hermione’s saying, legs crossed over the mess of his duvet, hands behind her and her head back against the headboard. The position pushes her chest out a little and he’s distracted momentarily by the steady rise and fall before she shifts and he tears his eyes up quickly to not be caught.

“I know you don’t want to go tonight, but the least you can do is introduce yourself to the woman you’ll be studying under after you graduate.”

“She already knows who I am-”

“No, she knows who she thinks you are,” She says it so casually, then rolls her eyes at the shirt in his hand, “You can get changed. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

He’s dazed for a moment at what it implies, then remembers she dated Weasley for a few months after the battle - remembers she went to the Yule Ball with Krum this time a few years ago; that she lived on the run with two boys for months on end. 

She makes it a show to look in his eyes as he starts unbuttoning his shirt, then carries on talking about the importance of meeting his new Potions master and impressing her , however he’s supposed to do that.

“- I’ll even hold your hand if you get scared,” She’s teasing him and he scoffs at her, shrugging his old shirt to the floor and reaching for the new one. 

Hermione gasps and is suddenly on her knees at the end of his bed, right in front of him, eye to eye. He thinks for a moment she’s going to touch his cheek, but then her fingers fall to his chest above one of his scars and he swallows, closes his eyes. He’d forgotten that she has yet to see them - that they’re still there, ugly and bold against his pale skin. 

But then her fingers trail softly across to his shoulder and he feels that familiar pull of his dragon stirring, reaching for Hermione’s touch. 

“Woah,” She whispers, and he opens his eyes in time to see the surprised, upward curve of her mouth, the wide set of her eyes as she takes in his tattoo. It’s a little intimidating, but he’d not wanted it too terrifying, not with the Mark already enough, so it’s fuzzy around the edges and it’s claws aren’t as sharp as the tattoo artist had wanted, but it’s Blaise’s artwork and Draco’s skin, so, ultimately, he’d won over.

Hermione pays his scars no mind as she tickles under the dragon’s chin, doesn’t even glance in the direction of his left forearm. Instead, she twirls her finger in spirals across his breastbone and shoulder, mesmerized by the movement of the ink on his skin.

It feels intimate. If someone were to walk in they’d probably get the wrong idea, but Draco tunes it all out in favour of focusing on following the movement of her finger by touch alone. 

“How long did it take?” Hermione says slowly, like if she speaks too loud she’ll scare the dragon and it will hide.

“Three sessions,” He matches her tone, startles in surprise when she tries her fingers up the side of his neck and the dragon follows - he hadn’t been aware the dragon could go that far, its tail no longer wrapped around him but swaying across his chest as it chases Hermione’s move.

“Mine took four,” She smirks, like they’ve been in a contest and she won, “It was only meant to take two, but then I changed my mind on how I wanted it to move - Fleur gave me the idea.”

It feels too simple to ask, but he’s desperate and bites back his pride, “What did you get?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you?” He shakes his head when she raises a quizzical eyebrow, “I could have sworn… I got some-”

She’s cut off by Blaise and Pansy storming through the door, Blaise getting dragged by the ear. Neither notice Draco glaring at them, and Hermione just pats his chest affectionately and falls back to his bed, “Get dressed, Malfoy. Places to be and people to see.”

The Great Hall looks too much like it did those first few moments after the Battle. They’ve pushed the benches and tables away, leaving a gaping space right in the centre and he stops in the doorway, struggling for a breath. He can feel cold fingers pressing into the back of his neck, hears his voice wrap around his mind, pulling at memories he’s trying desperately to keep at bay. 

Except no-one’s touching him, and he’s dead. Potter killed him. Draco spent five months in Azkaban. He’s at Hogwarts. He’s okay .

Hermione’s next to him and he doesn’t feel as embarrassed as he should when she turns to him, studies him with a knowing look, “Are you okay?”

He purses his lips, “You?”

There’s a shaky breath then she windes her arm through his, “Got taken back for a second. Are you ready to go in now?”

Neither one of them answered and yet it’s answer enough. Draco often forgets she gets shaken with it too. She sat on the floor with the Weasley’s and mourned, she organised a system for grievers to find their loved ones, fought for the unclaimed to be given a more respectful send off than the standard Ministry burial in a mass grave. He can remember her angry voice, swirling around the Hall when he was being escorted away to prison, but she was fighting for the respect of those who found their death, and hadn’t seen him be whisked off to what he presumed was his. 

Draco had thought she was teasing in his room, but she slid her hand down to his and led him towards a short, stout woman to the side of the Great Hall. If he had to put a finger on it, Draco would probably say she was related to Trelawney - dress robes strikingly similar, and a near-identical pair of glasses that magnify her eyes tenfold. She looks nervous, and he suspects she nearly ripped her thumb nail off when she finally spotted Hermione and him making their way over, her hand darting away from her mouth as if they were to scold her for the nervous habit.

“Potioneer Poisonwood,” Hermione greets her kindly and gently, like those animals Hagrid used to go on about in third year, “It’s lovely to see you again.”

Poisonwood barely nods, but there’s a jerk of her head that Hermione takes as greeting enough before she squeezes Draco’s hand.

“This is Draco Malfoy,” She introduces him, voice just as sickly sweet, oddly calming, “The one you agreed to take on. Do you remember?”

“Yes, yes,” It looks like she might shake his hand, but Draco’s relieved when she doesn’t, tucking her hands under her armpits instead, “Pleasure.”

Draco nods, “Erm… Thank you. For taking me on. I know you probably didn’t-”

“I volunteered,” He’s beginning to think everything this woman does is sharp and jerky, and her eyes keep darting around the room, focusing on one person for barely a second before moving on to the next, “We had a meeting. I volunteered.”

At his confused look, Hermione turns sideways to him and says softly, “After you declared what speciality you wanted to go into the Ministry held a meeting with all the potioneer professors within a fifty-seven mile radius of them. About seventy showed up.”

“All of them useless,” Poisonwood scrowls, “Talking absolute nonsense about the Dark Arts. As if you were one of them. Couldn’t have that. Hostile working environment - hostile potion environment- Nope. No place for that kind of thinking. You would lose focus and blow the place up. Would not help matters.”

“Professor-” He pauses and clears his throat, flexes his fingers against Hermione’s, “I have the Mark-”

“I know,” She cuts him off, eyes sharp and dark, holding his own, “You were the last. Weren’t you? The August before your sixth year. I know.”

It’s more than he’d told Hermione and he hears her little intake, but he focuses on Poisonwood, at the certainty on her face.

She leans in a little, the smoothest action she’s exhibited all day, “It’s sick- twisted, the way he did it. You were… funnily enough you were lucky you were the last. Everyone- when a new person gets marked, they all feel that burning again.”

It was hot, scalding when he was marked. The tip of a wand digging painfully into his flesh bore no place next to the flames that licked inside his arm. He had been reduced to a sobbing mess in front of the Death Eaters that were permitted to attend his ceremony. His knees had buckled, his body too young for that kind of pain, his brain reduced to mush. The Occlumency walls he had spent weeks building were reduced to ashes when the fire invaded. It was almost comical when it ended and all he was left with was a singular mark on his arm, no bigger than half his wand. 

“You’re Marked,” Hermione whispers, towards Poisonwood, mouth agape. Draco catches a sight of second-year Hermione for a second - mouth working faster than her mind, faster than her manners, and if it weren’t for the seriousness of the new discovery he would have smiled.

Poisonwood leans away again and nods, primly, “My husband was devoted, had me distracted enough to ruin a potion I was making at the time. I woke up four days later with the Mark. I’m lucky to be in a position where I can accept interns at all.”

Hermione’s hand slides up to his elbow as Draco discusses his internship over the next ten minutes, his shoulders more relaxed now he knows what he’s going to get into. When Poisonwood leaves to find the Floo Hermione starts leading them towards the centre of the room, absentmindedly looking around them at the various professors and career advisors around them - Draco’s a little stunned at their different standings. 

He’s lucky enough to land an internship at all - much less with someone else in his position, forever Marked by the actions of those they were meant to trust, shunned by the rest of society for someone else’s actions - and Hermione’s free to choose. Free to have chosen school over a Ministry job.

Zoning back into reality, Hermione’s stroking up and down his forearm, the dragon moving sluggishly with it. He can’t compose the dragon, can’t get it to stop and just enjoy the feeling, so has to put up with the tingles of Hermione’s touch through his shirt and the dull stretch of the dragon’s movements.

Clearing his throat, Draco turns to Hermione and tries to quirk his mouth up into a smile he’s not used to giving, “Where are you starting?”

She smiles at him, closed-mouth, private - just for him , but he has no time to indulge.

“‘Ermione!”

They’re startled out of their moment and Draco turns, unimpressed at the fact that Krum grew taller. Like he bloody needed to.

“Viktor,” It’s not as enthusiastic as Krum had been, but Hermione was polite enough to take her hand from Draco and give Krum a quick, school-appropriate hug. Draco’s smug, fails to hide it, when she steps back into his personal space, his chest to her shoulders, “How have you been?”

He doesn’t quite catch whatever the Quidditch player follows the question with. Hermione’s been all about touching him recently, and he can still feel the ghost of her touch from upstairs lingering across his chest and neck. 

Emboldened by her closeness, how she stepped towards him, he drops his hands to her hips, likes the way her arms start to snap up before gently cupping his wrists. He expects her to push him away, to pass it off as a joke, scold him later for being inappropriate; but she lingers against his wrist before pushing her heels to the ground and settling fully against him.

He’s looking at Krum still and doesn’t miss it when the Quidditch player’s eyes drift from Draco’s face, down to where his hands rest, then back up through his left arm, lingering there, to his neck, eyes zeroed in on Draco’s Azkaban number.

There had been some sick kind of pleasure the Ministry worker took out of branding him with a number. He’d seen them before, always on the forearm, but some shit about there already being something there was rattled off and Draco had to be magically restrained so the number could be read against his neck. It sits neatly atop the collar of his shirt, one letter slightly wonky in the middle, but still legible. 

And he wants Krum to say something - about his number or his Mark or Hermione - but he simply smiles politely and gets called away by someone else, voice booming and accent just as strong. 

Hermione steps away from him then and he misses the warmth immediately, finds he’s been grinding his teeth since Krum said her name. Draco knows nothing happened between them at the Yule Ball, because Weasley had gotten annoyed that the pair had snogged and the night ended with Granger in tears back in the Gryffindor dorm, but the fondness of Krum’s eyes on Hermione throughout their conversation seemed like they may still be pretty cosy with each other - and if so Draco might just drown himself in the Lake. 

“Harry was meant to be here tonight,” Hermione says, linking their arms again, “But he’s probably ditched it to spend time with Ginny.”

“Isn’t she meant to be here tonight?” He swallows down the trepidation of possibly seeing Potter again. Potter had sat in on his trial, confirmed that Draco had thrown him his wand that eventually enabled him to defeat the Dark Lord, and even gave him a curt nod when his verdict was given; but that was the extent of their interaction since the night at the Manor. 

Draco knows Hermione writes bi-weekly letters to him and Weasley, but he’s unsure whether or not he gets mentioned. Pansy most definitely does, and possibly Blaise - they never truly did anything bad to the trio, just a few teasing taunts directed at Hermione herself; most of the real damage was done by Draco, egged on by Crabbe and Goyle - but getting over what those two did to them would be easy; Draco knows he’s an entirely different story.

He’s not in the mood to see Potter today - or, Merlin forbid, Weasley; not when Draco’s been thinking about Hermione naked since she touched him in Potions - and is glad when Hermione sends him a knowing look.

“Ginny didn’t want to be here either. She knows she’s going into Quidditch anyway - they probably snuck away to Hogsmeade for the night.” Hermione sighs, having led them outside the Hall and towards the common room. 

He holds the door for her, because he’s a gentleman despite everything, and tries not to notice when she doesn’t hesitate to follow him towards his dormitory. 

Draco had been enamoured at the sight of her in his bed before he got dragged to the stupid event, but it’s something else entirely this time. Hermione sits cross-legged by his pillows and reaches up to pluck the pins from her hair one by one. Each time a new section of curls roll down her back and he doesn’t understand why she didn’t wear it down tonight, when it looks like silk and moves like that.

He ignores all the warning bells in his head and steps in front of her, reaching around her to knock her hands away and do it himself. It’s an excuse to touch her hair, run it through his fingers, but when she looks up to meet his eye he huffs and gives a rough, “You’re missing them all.”

She isn’t. Each one she had reached for had been removed, like she mapped out each one and knew exactly where to reach, and she knows that, but she nods anyway and stays still as he works. He knows he has them all but runs his fingers through anyway, skims her scalp with the pads of his fingertips in a way that makes her eyelashes flutter.

“You’re probably tired,” She murmurs, sounding exhausted, and Draco wants to tell her to lie down. Wants to tuck the blankets around her and lift them to slide in next to her, but he won’t because he knows that’s overstepping a line.

When she yawns, he hides a grin by biting his lip and helping her stand, hands on her elbows to steady her.

“How did they keep the girls out of the boys dorms in Slytherin?” She asks gently, letting him drop her hair pins into her open palm.

“Hm?”

“In Gryffindor our stairs used to turn into a slide whenever a boy came up them,” She giggles with the memory and Draco loves the sound more than she should - it suits her so much better than the screams he keeps hearing from her mouth when he dreams.

“What did the boys' stairs do when girls tried to get up them?” At some point he’d kicked his shoes off, but he still walks her out towards the girls dorm anyway.

“Not sure,” Hermione shrugs, arms around her but shoulder skimming his bicep with each step, “All of us saw the boys get knocked down pretty violently - they never turned until the boys were halfway up - and we were all too scared to get bruised like they did. Lavender claimed she got up there once and nothing happened but no one ever saw her so there was no proof.”

They stop at the foot of the steps, then Hermione walks up three and looks over her shoulder at him.

“You haven’t said goodnight yet,” She says gently, then walks up another three - just out of reach.

“You never did tell me what your tattoo is,” He counters. 

But Hermione just grins at him and carries on walking, “Guess we’ll both have to find out later then.”

He’d gotten so, so good at ignoring the betting pool, until Isaac Striker slaps a small sack onto the head of what used to be the Ravenclaw table. Edan Caprine grins smugly, “It all there?”

“Sixteen galleons, ten sickles and two knuts, yes it’s all there,” Striker grumbles then stalks away.

“What’s all that about?” Blaise questions, and Pansy snorts loudly, drawing attention towards them that Draco would very much like to ignore.

“Caprine lied about seeing Granger’s tattoos.”

“I didn’t lie!” Caprine shouts, too defensive too quickly and Draco grins around the rim of his goblet. “I didn’t!” He cries again when a few people start yelling, and it doesn't die down until McGonagall sweeps into the hall, confiscating the money and deducting points.

Pansy smirks at Draco, and kicks him under the table, “You’re welcome.”

He doesn’t have time to question it - or fling a piece of bacon at her - before Hermione drops onto the bench next to him, stealing a hash brown from his plate and already half-way through a sentence to Blaise.

Since Caprine lied, the pool’s back on. Draco has no idea how he got around the veritersuam, possibly a fake, but he does know that the winnings have nearly doubled since breakfast this morning. 

Hermione once again looks exhausted when she gets back from one of her money late-night library sessions. She’s definitely missed curfew, and he doesn’t know how she hasn’t been reprimanded yet, but he doesn’t complain when she pokes her head around the boys dorm and jerks her head for him to follow. Caprine glares at him as he passes, the other boys having fallen silent - a few look annoyed at the probability of the bet being called off - but he ignores it all in favour of snapping the door closed after him.

“Want to figure out if the stairs like you?” She asks sweetly, and Merlin does he want to.

“Since when have you had a problem with my dorm?”

“Since it started getting loud and smelly,” She laughs as he bears his teeth at her, already heading towards the stairs, “Not your stuff - just Caprine’s.”

“You hear his little story this morning?” He asks, purely to stall as they get even closer. One of the Gryffindor boys from seventh year had come into their shared Divination class with a whopping bruise on his head he didn’t know how to charm away, said it was from the stairs and Draco knew he meant the girls’ one. 

Draco bruises easily and humiliates even easier - doesn’t want Hermione to see him get thrown head first down the stairs because he will never live that down. 

“Yeah,” Hermione sighs, rests her back against the wall and looks up at him, “You should have told me I lost all sense of sanity before I supposedly slept with him, Draco.”

“And get punched again?”

She flushes a little but grins again when he smiles at her, “Did I ever apologise for that?”

“Don’t. I deserved it.”

Hermione looks like she’s used to arguing with him about what he deserves - more recently when a passing sixth year shot a hex at him in the corridor that branded a comical snake on his forehead - but quickly snaps her mouth closed and stifles a laugh, “You did, didn’t you?”

They face the stairs together and he links his pinkie through hers - if he’s falling he’s sure as hell going to drag her down with him - and takes little reassurance in the hesitant smile she gives him. She steps up first, and he follows a beat behind her. 

Halfway up , he remembers when he gets five steps up and the floor hasn’t done anything - but then he’s easily over halfway and there’s still not even a creak. Once they reach the top, they both stand a little dumbly, eyes meeting.

“Did they just… forget?” Hermione asks, and it’s the most confused he’s ever seen her. “How did the boys stay out of the girls dorms in Slytherin?” She asks again and he remembers he never answered her before.

“I don’t know,” He admits, “I never tried to get in there.”

“Huh,” She nods, kind of jerkily before chewing at her lip, “Maybe it’s like a… delayed reaction or something? Sense your intentions?”

“What? I’m fine so long as we leave room for Merlin, but the second I unclip your bra I get flung out the window.”

Hermione blushes a deep red and straightens her shoulders, “Those your intentions?”

“Well without knowing what’s going to happen to me I’m keeping room for Merlin.” 

It’s enough to make her laugh, and then she starts leading him down a corridor. She explains that it’s three girls per dorm, in comparison to all the eighth year boys having to split between two - but there’s considerably less girls this year and kind of makes sense.

Apparently, it’s just her and Pansy in hers and he’s reminded of that first breakfast when Hermione sat with him and Blaise and started asking questions, how she said the other girls didn’t want anything to do with them.

“Where is Pansy?” He asks before she opens the door, knows there’ll be a world of teasing ahead of him if she’s there. Hermione nudges the door open a fraction and pokes her head through, calls the girl’s name and then shoots him an easy wink when there’s no response.

“She’s probably out with Blaise or something,” Hermione shrugs and kicks the door open the rest of the way, guiding him in. Blaise had been notably absent in their dorm, but he’s always out on the prowl for new girls and with Pansy’s recent experimentation he has no doubt they’re wingmanning for each other somewhere.

However they’re meant to do that at nearly midnight.

“So, what are your intentions for getting me up here?” He teases, taking note of the mess of Pansy’s side of the room, the empty bed in the corner, and the organised chaos of Hermione’s side. Her desk is stacked with piles of parchment, shelves above littered with books - Muggle and Magical alike, and he takes a step closer to inspect it.

“We’re leaving room for Merlin, remember?” She throws back, and it’s not really an answer but Draco nudges his toe against a stack of books by her chair by accident and is too distracted.

He picks up the book on top and hums, “My mother had this,” He says, and feels Hermione come up next to him to inspect the cover, “She never read it though.”

“Hemingway?” She sounds marvelled at the idea of a Malfoy with a Muggle possession and Draco chuckles.

“His father was a wizard,” He says, leafing through her battered copy of The Old Man and The Sea, “There’s no record of Ernest in wizard papers though - either a squib or just never practiced his magic.”

“I never knew that,” Hermione says softly, and Draco tilts his head to meet her gaze.

“Can’t learn everything in Hogwarts: A History can you.” 

She sticks her tongue at him and pinches his arm - he feels a huff against his bicep as the dragon startles awake, but ignores it in favour of watching as Hermione digs a pair of pajamas out from her trunk. He watches until she disappears into the joined bathroom and he hears water running, then he sets himself on the edge of her bed and flicks the book open again.

His mother had never read it, her copy staying pristine in the midst of their library in the Manor, and Draco had been forbidden to go into that section altogether - his mother had fenced it off with a key only she had; his father had secrets of his own, most of them hidden in his private section of the library, and didn’t bother trying to question what was in Narcissa’s, as much as Draco can remember. To distract Draco, his mother had stacked the rest of the shelves with every wizarding book she could get her hands on. Draco fell in love with words, with learning, years before his time in Hogwarts, but he had always been curious about his mother’s private collection.

“You can read it, you know?” Hermione startles him a little, and then again when he looks up and she’s wearing a pair of shorts and a vest. They’re two days away from Christmas break, and she may have heating charms in her room now but they wear off and she’s going to wake up freezing, he can already tell.

There’s not a drop of ink visible, either, and it’s driving him crazy.

“I’m up here,” He points out, drops the book onto another pile of them at his feet, and stands as Hermione nudges closer, “I’m pretty sure our compromise was showing me what ink you got yourself.”

“I’m not sure I agreed to that,” She grins wickedly at him, side stepping him to sit in the centre of her bed and pick up a book - she seems to have piles everywhere and he doesn’t know how she keeps track of them all; he’s counted at least seven, all coming up to his knees.

“What did you agree to?”

Hermione looks at him through her lashes and he inches closer. 

“Keeping room for Merlin, I believe.”

It sounds like a reminder; for herself or him he can’t figure out; and so he nods and joins her, picking Hemingway back up and laying width ways across her bed. His hair falls into his eyes and his feet are still planted firmly on the floor, and Hermione giggles quietly before shuffling towards him and mirroring him. 

She already has a book cracked open with one hand but lifts the other to swipe his hair from his eyes, pushing it up and scratching at his scalp without looking at him. It feels good, and he doesn’t tell her to stop, so she keeps going as they both read. Eventually, when he’s halfway through the book and Hermione’s started another - both of them fast readers, an unspoken competition between them to get through as many of her collection of short novels as possible that night - she shifts and Draco lifts an arm.

Hermione burrows under it, head on his chest, and he adjusts to trail his fingertips across her back. She tenses then sighs happily when he traces a spot on her hip, and he pauses, circling that spot in small movements.

“Is it here?” He questions, and Hermione hums a quiet yes before turning her page.

He knows where it is now, which is a step ahead of everyone else - and he’s not even in on the stupid gamble, he shouldn’t take so much pride in the smallest piece of information, but he does and it tastes fantastic.

Except, of course, now he’s picturing flashes of nudging her shirt up, of what could possibly be waiting there for him. It’s close, he notices, to the mudblood scar, so he can only imagine it’s something bold enough to capture the viewer’s attention, drag it away from the ugly word and the nightmare behind it.

And something bold could be a number of things, and it’s still driving him crazy.

And he’s not any closer to finding out, not when she’s pissed at him for getting into a fight, not when he won’t tell her what it was about. His wand is getting monitored still, every spell he makes sent straight to an entire probation team and to Headmaster McGonagall, and he can’t risk getting his probation stunted for one stupid hex, so when Selket hisses an insult at him after Divination one day that makes Draco snap, he hurls his first to the Slytherin’s nose and feels satisfied with the sickening crush that rings out.

It was only one hit, but it drew a lot of blood and a few of the younger girls that were passing by screamed, so he’d been given a two hour lecture about his behaviour in the Headmaster’s office - Snape’s and Dumbledore’s portraits starring disapprovingly down at him - before he was let go. 

Then Hermione was there, waiting for him in the common room, and he’d wanted to explain but she just checked him over for injuries, popping his collar buttons apart and didn’t even show any recognition to his dragon when it curled around his collar, expecting to play. She’d found no injuries, sniffed and then left, racing up the stairs and the slam of her door reverberated in his chest all night.

He seeks her out after his last class of the day - Defence Against the Dark Arts - with his test in hand, a big 10% practically glowing when he finds her by the Lake. “Will you tutor me?”

It had been on his list, before she got mad at him, on ways to find out what tattoo she ended up with - but now it’s not about the tattoo. It’s about at least getting her to stay in the same room as him, talking - even if it is about a topic that makes his skin crawl - and keeping his grades up. 

He thrusts the test onto her lap to prove his point.

Hermione must be a pretty shite actress, because she doesn't even try to hide the shock on her face when he finally gets the words out. "Come off it, Granger," He growls, pointedly ignoring the warm flush on his cheeks when she doesn't stop staring at him, "I was always taught how to cast those kinds of spells. My father never let me think I would ever need to be protected from it so will you quit gaping and tutor me or not?"

She bites her lip and closes her book, “Will you tell me why you punched him?”

“No.”

She opens her book again, “Then I can’t help you.” He’s pretty sure she’s not reading, because he stands there for a while staring down at her and she doesn’t even turn the page.

Hermione’s stubborn - more than he is - and there’s a sense of disappointment hanging thickly between them. Draco’s never done well with disappointing people. He’d been good at it, but hated the after effects, hated knowing he’d failed those around him, and it stings sharply in his ribs now.

He dumps his back at her feet and leans against the tree beside her, elbows tapping together with hers, and it’s progress when she doesn’t move away.

“Selket’s parents were turned away from the Inner Circle,” He starts, keeps his eyes on the slow, lapping waves of the Lake, “Two days before I got branded. He was going to be initiated - not… not with a Mark, but his mother was loyal and his father was one of the few who was wholly trusted. My father failed and I got branded, and Selket was tossed aside. The Dark Lo- Vold- He wanted an insider in Hogwarts, someone other than fourth years running around snitching because their parents bribed them with extra cash. Everyone thought it would be Selket.”

“And then you came along.”

“And then I came along.”

He hears her breath in once, out slowly, “That doesn’t explain why you punched him.”

Draco sighs and closes his eyes, leans his head back against the tree, “He still believes in the blood supremacy shtick.”

“So do a lot of people-”

“He called me a mud-fucker.”

Hermione bites back whatever she was going to stay and Draco feels her go still, “I heard my father call a few people that - supposed to be worse than… Supposed to be worse because they’ve succumbed to temptation or whatever bullshit they were spreading that week. It’s disgusting and it’s racist and it’s still insulting the muggle-born and-”

“You punched him because he insulted me?”

“Well,” He opens his eyes, looks at her, “Yeah.”

“I wasn’t even there. I would never have known if you didn’t… You could have left it alone. You’re already being monitored-”

“McGonagall agreed to not mention it so long as I keep quiet about it - Selket’s being monitored as well, agreed to not say anything ‘cause he knows he’ll get repercussions too,” Draco says, then catches her eye, “And if I let it slide, if I just walked away, do you really think he’d stop? Do you really think he wouldn’t be out there saying worse to others? At least this way McGonagall’s keeping an eye on him.”

“There were so many better ways to handle it.” Hermione says after another pause, book closed on her lap, bookmark discarded, but at least she’s smiling a little.

Draco hums and lifts his arm slowly and she curls under it, doesn’t say anything if she notices the pounding in his chest as she reaches up to wiggle a finger between his shirt buttons to pet the dragon.

“Are you going to tutor me then?” 

She laughs and picks up the test, “Yeah, you need it.”

“You know,” He whispers, aware of Madam Pince not two bookshelves away, and Hermione huffs as she looks up to see he’s not written anything still, “You can show me and I won’t tell anyone.”

“My notes or my tattoo?”

“Both, if you’d really like. Would help me even more.”

She pitches an eyebrow and kicks his shin, “I’m not giving you my notes, you know all the answers without my help - and I have no idea how showing you my tattoo will help you with your next test.”

She’s been a bit more flirty since they made up, and he’s indulged in the more touchy aspects of it, only just beginning to lean into the more flirting comments of his own, but he grins now and leans a little closer, “I spent the entire test wondering what you’ve got hidden under that shirt of yours, Granger. Give me a peak and I can guarantee you I’ll pass with flying colours.”

He likes the flush on her cheeks, likes even more the glint of her pupils before she looks over her shoulder. Deeming whatever she was looking for acceptable, she stands up and rounds the table, walking with purpose towards him and he subconsciously pushes his chair back, spreading his thighs a little wider when she steps between his knees.

It’s saturday and she’s wearing a muggle band tee shirt tucked into her jeans, but she wraps three fingers into the fabric at her hip and tugs upwards slowly.

Draco swallows heavily and only notices his hand’s at the back of her thigh when he flexes his fingers and she gets pushed forward a little.

“You sure it’s going to help?” She questions, shirt successfully untucked but dangling down, hiding all the good stuff.

Draco nods, way too quickly for her sly tone, but doesn’t care as she hums and drops her free hands to his shoulder, “Well, as long as it helps,” She says coyly and then starts slowly lifting to reveal the waist of her jeans.

Draco’s hand skims up her thigh and under her shirt, finds the bare spot of her hip and feels her shiver. It’s smooth, just like he thought, and apparently more sensitive than he could have imagined because Hermione lets out a puff of air and he sees her fingers twist further into the fabric of her shirt.

“Tease,” He mutters, and she giggles under her breath and starts lifting the shirt faster.

He’s gaping at her hip, completely bare, just smooth, freckled skin when she bends to his ear, lips scraping his lobe, “Yep.”

She has freckles on her hip. He knows that now.

She has a tattoo on that same hip. He’s known that for a while - but still has yet to see it and he really hates concealment charms.

They’re the only eighth years to stay for Christmas break and he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to ask why she’s not going home, or to the Weasley’s, so he doesn’t and just indulges in the time alone with her.

He would have questioned that the Weasley’s didn’t invite her, but then Christmas morning comes about and she unwraps a knitted jumper with ‘H’ on the front, and Draco knows Molly Weasley isn’t the kind of person to not include one of her children’s best friend’s yet still send a jumper.

Hermione chose to stay - for whatever reason - and it’s pressure.

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” She huffs, but still looks pleased at the present on her lap. Draco snorts at her and waves his own present from her, neatly wrapped in Muggle paper, in response, and she laughs, “Alright, truce.”

He lets her tear into her present first, and smiles shyly when she lets out a delighted laugh and bounds over to his armchair to thank him. She smells like her muggle shampoo and whatever’s lingering in the jumper Molly knitted that looks three sizes too big for her, but she practically crawls onto his lap to hug him properly and he’s too focused on the press of all their angles together. It’s intoxicating, her scent and touch, even more so when she shifts to sit on his thighs, her presents on hers.

She’s droned on and on about some blanket from muggle London that she adored but couldn’t justify spending so much money on - a chunky knitted one that actually ended up being way too scratchy when he went to buy it, but she didn’t need to know that after he placed a few permanent fluffing charms on it. She’s clutching the second part of her present too, a simple gold chain that matches the one she wears around her wrist.

“It’s not got anything on it,” She says gently, and Draco pries it from her fingers to slip it around her neck, securing it and untucking her hair.

“It’s charmed,” He says and she looks delighted about her first piece of wizarding jewellery that won’t curse her - he remembers her stories about the horcrux and is glad she’s not shying away from this piece now.

“What does it do?”

Draco drops his hands down now that he doesn’t need to touch her hair, and it falls on the blanket on her lap, admittingly soft now. 

“It will recognise, one day, a date you really want to remember,” He tells her, watching the way her mouth curls gently upwards, “It’ll appear there,” He taps the circle pendant sitting at her collar and she catches his hand when he goes to pull away, links their fingers together in an intimate gesture he can’t get enough of, “And then whenever you want you can relive memories from it.”

“And if I want to remember more than one date?”

“It does that too.”

She smiles, shy and bright, then lets her eyes drop to his presents, still wrapped, next to his elbow, “Now mine look a little dumb.”

“Doubtful,” He says and scoops it up before she can argue, slicing through the paper and tearing it off. 

“You seemed to really like him,” She supplied when he’s been silently staring for some time, seven of Hemingway’s novels held between his hands, “I thought you might like to… have some of your own, I guess?”

He’s never been allowed books before - not his own , anyway. They all belonged to Malfoy Manor; their expansive collection added to through generations, forbidden to be taken away from that room. They belonged to his great-great-great relatives, to his parents, but never to him. Draco wasn’t to inherit the estate for whatever reason, even after his parents died, and he was glad for it - the library holding too many Dark Texts for his liking - and he would never be allowed to add to the books.

And he’s even more glad for that . His mother held muggle books in her section, but never read them, and it always sounded stupid to him. 

And these are his . He’s eighteen years old, experienced so much, but never owning a book, and he gets now why Hermione always had her head stuck in one. Even the old copy of Grumble wasn’t his, and now he has seven .

“Thank you,” He whispers, because he’s overwhelmed, “I… I love them.”

“You’re not just lying to make me feel better, right?”

“No, no,” He laughs, and reaches for her, ends up cupping the side of her neck somehow, but she leans into and smiles at him in that sweet way she only ever seems to give him, “I seriously love them. I never got to own them before - unless they were for school.”

“Really?”

“Mhm,” He nods, and feels kind of dumb when he handles the books extra carefuly when he moves them aside, Hermione filling the space and then he stops thinking about the books, “Merry Christmas, Granger.”

“Merry Christmas, Draco.”

The younger students who stayed behind for Christmas gather around the Great Lake for the fireworks Hogsmeade are setting off at New Years, but Draco drags Hermione up to the tallest Astronomy tower for a better view. He transfigures a leftover piece of rubble into a few cushions and she unfolds her new blanket from under her arm to spread out over his shoulders before she slides between his thighs and settles against his chest.

“What’s your New Year’s resolution?” She asks, a few minutes before midnight, hands linked with his on her stomach.

“My what?”

“Your- I never thought it might be a muggle thing,” She chuckles, then tilts her chin up to look at him, cheek against his chest now, “At New Year, you have to think of one promise you make to yourself that you have to focus on. You’re supposed to have it done by the next Christmas, but most people give up halfway through January.”

He thinks about it, then, “What’s yours?”

“Beat you at chess.” 

He laughs and pinches her stomach gently, “Never going to happen, Granger, you suck.”

She wiggles her fingers at him, “Or is it all an illusion?”

“One you been keeping up for eight years?”

“I’m playing the long game, here,” She smiles, “Come on, what’s yours?”

“To see your tattoo.”

She laughs and he swears nuzzles against him. After a moment, in a much softer tone, she says, “I want to actually… live. I guess. I spent so long just surviving, waiting for Harry’s life to be threatened again that I’ve missed so much. I’m tired of missing all these opportunities just because I’m waiting for the next fight.”

Draco squeezes her against him and rests his cheek to her temple, “I wanted to be a Healer. Before I got Marked. I was going to be a Healer, I knew it. And now… even if I can’t be a Healer, I can still help people with potions. I want to help people.”

They’re silent, listening to the count down, and Draco’s mesmerized at the fireworks that ring out at midnight. Hermione whispers something about the astronomy tower being a good idea, and once they know the castle will be silent again they head back to the common room. 

She has a hold of his hand and doesn’t let go of it as she draws him up the stairs, but he doesn’t fight her and just kicks the door shut with his heel once they get to her room. It smells like her, overwhelmingly so, but that may just be because her arms are around his neck and bringing their foreheads together. 

“I didn’t want to kiss you at midnight,” Hermione whispers, establishing a bubble around them in an empty room.

Draco nods, “Terribly cliche.”

She giggles, and he thinks he’s never going to get tired of that sound, and then he’s kissing her. Or she’s kissing him. Either way, she’s the one to sigh first against his mouth, then push up to her toes, kissing him harder, more firmly and he’s all too happy to go with it.

He doesn’t know which bed they land on, doesn’t care either. Her hands are fists around his shirt and he already knew the dragon responded to her touch, but it unfurls quickly and sharply, spreading down his entire front and back up again to peek out his collar. It doesn’t feel like it’s pleased when Hermione ignores it in favour of sucking a mark of her own against his neck, right above his prison number, the sharp sting soothed with a sweet kiss before he catches her mouth again.

She ends up on top of him, seconds, minutes or maybe even hours later - and he sees reds and pinks, greens and tinges of gold when his hands slide up her sides, lifting her shirt with it.

He pauses, breathless, and then sits up to get rid of her shirt altogether. He’s lost in the feeling of her mouth on his, her hands on him, and he loses his shirt along the way too, ends up pressing her into the mattress, but pauses again when he’s done teasing at the sensitive skin just below her bra to breathe and take her in.

She’s all flushed skin spread out before him, hair wild around her, bra a deep Slytherin green, and he grins before flicking his eyes down, catching what he’s been begging to see since September.

The shadows of the inked flowers across her hip look like they move, showers of gold flickering with each deep breath, and he chases them with his mouth, his teeth, covering a smug smirk against the button of her jeans when she moans at the tension. 

“One resolution down,” He murmurs, and Hermione grins at him, pushes herself to her elbows to look at him.

“Help me out of these jeans and you’d have finished two of them,” She quirks an eyebrow and he groans, fingers popping open the button and teeth dragging down the zipper.

She’s so pliant underneath him and yet needy and demanding too, hands twisting his hair and pushing his mouth into her harder, and it’s stupidly sexy when she groans his name like she’s never hated him, falling apart in the best way. She’s bruised him already, he can still feel the dragon reach for the purple love bite at his neck, clearly not impressed, but ignores it in favour of marking her right above the canopy of reds and pinks. 

Hermione’s trying to breathe, fingers still reaching for him despite her come down, but he bats her hands away when she tugs him by the shoulder in favour of tilting his chin to kiss her tattoo again, flickering his eyes open to spot that it carries on further than he thought.

He’s seen her bare arms a thousand times since that first breakfast. Had forced breaths to come evenly at every sight of that scar his aunt brandished her with, but never once were they surrounded by a reef of flowers, identical to those at her hip.

The gold’s stronger here and the shadows lighter, and Hermione whimpers a little when he presses his mouth to it, right above the ‘l’ and the first ‘o’. She’d whimpered when Bella did this, nothing but fear on her face, and when Draco looks up at her she’s biting her lip and carding her fingers through his hair, eyes soft and a small smile at the corners of her mouth. 

She whimpers again when he makes her come undone a second time, and huffs a quiet giggle against his shoulder when his mouth drops open slightly as he pushes into her. She’s handsy, digging her nails into his back, cupping his cheek, and he loves it. Lets her run her hands all over him, so long as he gets to grip her thigh and hitch it higher up his waist, gets to kiss her when he pleases.

Draco comes undone himself seconds after her, and Hermione pokes into his ribs when he’s smug about three times but still rolls to her stomach and against him in one motion. He lifts her hand from his chest to kiss her wrist and watch the gold dance there.

“Wanna know my favourite part?” She whispers, her other hand leaving blazing trails across his skin for the dragon to chase. He lets out some kind of noise, he thinks, because she presses a smiling kiss to his shoulder, “It’s so protective of you.”

“No it’s not,” Draco denies, but then she pokes the fresh mark on his chest she left there and the dragon curls, snaps at the gap where her fingers linger but Hermione’s left unbothered by it.

“I like the gold,” He says, avoiding the scar when he traces the stem up her wrist.

“The shadows follow the sun,” She whispers, “I’ll show you in the morning.”

“I get to see it in daylight too,” He teases, already rolling over when she huffs and playfully rolls away from him, “Well, aren’t I just the luckiest guy in Hogwarts.”

“Should have joined the bet,” Hermione giggles as his mouth finds that ticklish spot to her collar he found hours ago, “Made some serious money. Could have taken me on an incredibly expensive date-”

She curls upwards into him, locking her legs around his waist as he rocks into her again, and lets him push her shoulders back down, cups the back of her head in one hand to keep her eyes on him.

“Oh, I’m gonna,” He growls, grinding his teeth when she starts moving with him and he looks down, watches them for a moment before letting his eyes slide across to the black of his ink swirl at his hip in time for the flicker of gold dust at hers.

“Oh I knew this was going to happen,” Pansy’s smug as hell when they all get back and Draco’s still half-asleep in Hermione’s bed. Hermione’s up already, writing that bi-weekly letter to her friends and stressing over how to tell them she’s dating him - which Merlin , does Draco want to be there when they read it just to see their faces.

Draco grunts into Hermione’s pillow, trying to block out the sun and Pansy’s too-knowing smirk, and groans when Pansy bounds over to shake his shoulder.

“I knew it!”

Hermione chuckles from somewhere, a little distracted but still paying attention when Pansy starts ranting about signs and being so totally obvious, come on it was painful .

He’s had enough - he’s cranky and tired and his girlfriend won’t get back into bed, and now he doesn’t have an empty room to shag her in like they have had for the past ten days since New Years, so he’s going to have to either learn how to be quiet or find a cupboard somewhere.

But really, he just wants Pansy to stop talking .

So he lets the pillow fall away from his face and turns to her with a sickly sweet smile after winking at Hermione, “We shagged on your bed.”

“ Ew !”

“Like five times-”

“ Gross !”

“And that was only yesterday.”

“Oh, I’m so going to kill you-”