Work Text:
Spring
"Honestly, did you even bother reading my instructions on lab procedure and instrument calibration?”
The cuffs of Hermione's sleeves were rolled multiple times around her wrists to keep them out of the way as she worked. He tracked her movements as she raised her hand to brush a stray curl. “I did read your treatise, and I have notes.”
“A few pages to keep me safe from your mistakes hardly constitute a treatise.” There was suspicion in Draco’s eyes as he drew closer to observe her ingredient preparation. “What notes?”
“Here,” she passed him a roll of parchment. “And fifty three pages is not a few.”
Malfoy scanned through the document. “Did you seriously include notes on my grammar? How very pedantic, Granger.”
“You wouldn’t have gone into an exposition on parallax errors in measuring technique for five straight paragraphs if you didn’t enjoy pedantry.”
He'd evidently found something other to be annoyed about: “You had the audacity to pilfer my personal equipment. That's disgraceful behaviour."
She met his bright grey eyes with her dull brown ones and had to suppress a smile at his horror. “I think you’ll find it’s a shared lab full of equipment supplied by the Ministry. There’s nothing personal about it.”
“Do you really think the Ministry would have supplied an enchanted collapsible size four mortar and pestle with fifteen personalised settings?” he bit out. “I would thank you to get your project going without touching my toolset. The sooner you go back to the disreputable louts at the DMLE, the better.”
They faced away from each other across the narrow corridor separating their workstations.
“Sensitive about your tools,” Hermione mused aloud. There was cedar and amber wafting from his robes and flowing into the air around her. “How very male.”
Summer
While others might exhibit their inner turmoil through the set of their lips or the look in their eyes, Malfoy’s mood was betrayed by the cadence of his steps.
“What are you so furious about this fine morning?” Hermione asked him with aggressive cheerfulness as he set down a large mug of coffee on her desk.
Draco rolled his jaw. “That's not your concern."
“Could it be that you forgot to add the bundimun secretion and stir your new potion five times anti-clockwise with a copper rod?”
Hermione passed him the recipe tracker, her face a mask of innocence.
He saw the small tick beside the step in question and went to inspect the corresponding cauldron. “It was three times, not five.”
“It didn’t coagulate until the fifth stir,” she sipped her fresh coffee and continued working, her eyes slightly out of focus as her quill flew to draw her perfectly neat script.
Draco made a few notes himself. “You better have used the fresh stuff - not that green jar at the back of the cupboard that’s probably older than Merlin.”
“No such luck. Positively pickled, your new potion. Set you back at least two weeks," Hermione replied, her voice heavily laced with sarcasm.
“I would have remembered it myself if not for Perkins’ attempt to turn this lab into an open plan workplace by exploding his cauldron like some third year student.”
She tried to muster up a response but only managed a hard swallow.
The chair wheels rattled gently on the wooden floors as he approached, stopping as his shoulder settled just behind the curve of her own. She could have sworn the warmth was sinking through the clothes all the way to her skin.
“Are you working on that curse antidote?”
“Not much luck so far,” she frowned. “I'm assuming it was miscast, which makes it trickier.”
His eyes raked through her research notes and projected attempts. “Since I find myself surprisingly on top of my own workload I suppose I can pull a few books.”
Hermione tried to suppress her surprise. “And why, pray tell, are you sticking your pointy nose in?”
“That’s rich, Granger, seeing how you had no problems sticking your stubby little fingers in. Now move along and give me some space.”
Autumn
Draco had moved away to vanish some scraps when he heard a gentle clinking sound, like crystal flutes coming together in a toast. He had been half convinced he’d imagined it until he turned around to see a whole shelf of containers crack, one after the other.
Hermione had already stood and wandlessly cast a stasis charm as the containers splintered.
From his vantage point, he could see a suspended cloud of glinting shards and blobs of spilled ingredients above her. The fairy lights she'd insisted on putting up despite his protestations turned the display into a halo of refracted light.
He moved to her side soundlessly.
“Did anyone else see?” Her voice was tight.
“We’re alone. Everyone else decamped to the pub about an hour ago for a quick pint before the holidays."
She went about repairing the jars one by one, coaxing the ingredients to float obediently back to its original position as the glass knitted itself back together. Draco started on the other end of the shelf a few seconds later.
“You should have gone,” Hermione said. The shadows under her eyes were settled into deep grooves.
“I never get invited and I’ve never cared.”
Shelf restored, Draco sat down with a sigh. These days his chair was beside hers more often than not.
“It’s getting worse,” he said, and rested his hand on the back of her neck, his thumb drawing slow circles on her skin.
It wasn’t a question. Leaning with her knuckles on the worktop, she nodded all the same.
Winter
Draco went in early, telling himself he needed to survey works in progress. There is a subtlety to lying to yourself, a need for layers of passable, comfortable half-truths when the fact at the centre is much too hard to stomach.
When he opened the door to their lab, freezing cold air rushed out to meet him.
Cauldrons, vials, workstations - everything was glittering, covered in ice.
“Granger?” Draco shouted, adrenaline slamming into his veins.
He wound his way through the workspace at a run - passing tables, shelves and partitions - all frozen. Stalactites and stalagmites were sprouting and thickening around him like terrifying living sculptures. The air thrummed with magic, enough of it to make the hairs on the back of his arms stand on end.
“Granger!”
By the time he reached her, Draco was already terrified of what he would find - yet the sight still stopped him in his tracks. The air was so cold it bit at his exposed skin and hurt his lungs with every inhale. His eyes were watering and he could taste copper at the back of his tongue.
Hermione was on the floor, her body folded onto itself, her arms wrapped around her knees. She was surrounded by a shell of ice at least a foot thick.
“Fuck. Incendio.” His breath drifted around him in a blast of white condensation.
The jet of fire barely touched the icy cocoon - he could feel her magic resisting him. The ice was reforming just as soon as it melted.
Draco took a deep and painful breath, knowing it would take too long to sound the alarm and go help. “Confringo!” he shouted. The explosion showered water and shards of ice everywhere. He had to lunge forward and grab hold of Hermione’s jumper to yank her roughly out of the cracked ice as the pieces started fusing themselves back together in front of his eyes.
Cradling her cold unconscious body against his chest, he ran out of their lab as fast as his legs could take him. He had no difficulty carrying her - she felt much too small in his arms.
“I’m using the departmental apparition point, the one tucked at the back of the stationery cupboard,” he told her as he made his way there, unseen and, therefore, unimpeded. “I know I’m not supposed to use it and that you wouldn’t approve - you can berate me later. Merlin help me, I can feel the ice crawling up my arms.”
He sucked a lungful and apparated in the middle of the living room of his large flat. The breaths passing Hermione’s blue lips were slow and shallow. “It’s trying to swallow you again.”
Draco kept her against his chest, rocking her gently, compelled to continue speaking to her. “Please, Granger, you have to wake up. We’re so close."
The magic flaring out of her body was so strong it felt like trying to stand in the middle of a freezing cold river as the water slammed against him.
“If I can’t wake you, I’ll have to stun you, hope it will be enough to disrupt it and then pray that you don't try to throttle me afterwards."
Since he couldn’t get a warming charm to work on her, he used them consecutively on himself and continued to hold her by his lit fireplace.
“Hermione, wake up.” His hands rubbed up and down her arms and back as her head rested on his shoulder. “Wake up for me. I promise I will dice every single ingredient for you for the next three months.” And then, because apparently he had nothing else to say except absurdities, “I’ll go with you to see that Muggle play you’ve been so excited about. I’ll buy you those sticky sugar covered almonds you like and I’ll hold your hand. Anything you want. Just wake up for me.”
She moved ever so slightly against him, her nose icy as it touched the skin of his neck.
“You’re the most absurd witch,” he sighed in relief, hugging her tightly. Her arms wound around his waist with a small squeeze and his heartbeat ran wild as words continued to tumble out of his mouth without hesitation. “I can't believe you froze my potions lab. I'll never let you live it down. I'm going to hold this over you for years, it will be so obnoxious."
As she slowly warmed in his embrace, he felt her magic recede like colour bleeding back into the edges of his sight. Enough that, by the time she opened her gorgeous brown eyes, he couldn't feel it blanketing her anymore.
"How are you feeling?" Draco asked.
"It depends," she rasped out, re-arranging herself on his lap until she was straddling him and pressing herself to his body with a deep, satisfied sigh. "Did you mean it when you said you'll go see the play with me?"
He peppered kisses on her hair and forehead. "Yes."
"I want those almonds."
"You shall have them," he vowed as his hands ran over her back and down her sides before trailing up again. "Anything you want."
"I don't know what to make of this agreeable mood of yours. It's… disconcerting," Hermione joked. She nuzzled his neck before pulling back to look at the beautiful angles of his face. "Probably your way to say goodbye, I guess."
It was no longer sustainable, she knew that. It was too dangerous to continue her work in the Ministry when she might harm someone else when her magic flared out of control. She'd run out of time.
Her solemn, quiet tone of voice alarmed Draco. "Don't- we're so close. We're a week away from a test batch. Trust me. Better yet, trust our work."
Hermione's determination faltered. "And in the meantime?"
"I guess I'll just have to put up with you around the clock. Out of pure self-interest for my lab and my own safety, of course."
Hermione felt her soul light up at his words. He caught her jaw and brushed their noses together. "I would have thought you'd jump at the chance to hand me over to St Mungo's," she whispered - only because their lips were a breath away from touching.
That threat had been hanging over her head for a year - ever since she'd been the victim of that botched curse. It would spell the end of her career, the loss of her freedom - and facing the pity of her friends.
Draco shook his head gently before he replied. "You belong with me," he said.
Hermione kissed him, slowly and sweetly, warming from the inside out as she allowed herself to hope.