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“Oh come on, you are telling me that the golden girl. Gryffindor princess. The person who has ridden a LITERAL dragon. Is afraid to go up on a broom? I can show you the world from up there.” Draco held out his hand to her. An invitation to cross out into the meadow for an after dinner flight.
“I am not afraid to go up on a broom,” Hermione huffed with her arms across her chest. Her curls blowing with the slight breeze. “I don’t want to fall.”
“I won’t let you fall Granger. Look from up there, it’s shining, its shimmering. It’s just splendid.” He took a step closer to her and draped his arm across her shoulder, then looking down he whispered, “Tell me, princess, now when did you last let your heart decide?”
Hermione narrows her eyes at him, slowly deciphering what he just said. Did he? No. He couldn’t have. “Did you just quote a Disney film?” Her right hand went firmly to her hip when she spoke with such authority and accusation.
Draco’s smirk just widens as he takes a step closer to her in the twilight. “I can open your eyes Granger. Take you wonder by wonder.” He leans casually against his new Constantine 2.0, only the fastest broom on the market.
Her eyes widen in curiosity and confusion. Searching his face, she questions him again. “No really. How do you know that song? How do you know that film? It’s a muggle childrens film.”
With a huff and a sly smile he finally relents an answer for her. “It’s Teddy’s favourite at the moment. I watch him for Aunt Andromeda every other Saturday. Last weekend he watched it no less than five times. To say that he is obsessed with that Genie character is an understatement. He turned himself blue for the entire day.”
She had wondered who had taken up the other Saturdays. Hermione herself minded Teddy on Thursday evenings for Andromeda. While Harry had taken up Saturdays, so the older witch could get her errands sorted, and Teddy could burn off some of that four year old energy with his godfather. Recently Harry’s shifts had changed with the Auror department, only allowing him every other weekend free, meaning he could only mind Teddy every other Saturday.
“I didn’t know you were the person Andy got to mind him. It used to be Harry every Saturday.” Her mind was still attempting to put all the pieces together. Something in the back of her mind was itching and scratching at her to take notice.
“Yeah, I kinda begged her for it to be honest. I just..” Draco took a step closer with a sigh. Running his free hand through his shoulder length hair and scratching at the back of his neck in an attempt to calm his nerves around this witch. “I felt bad. I didn’t get a chance to know Nymphadora. And I.. I guess I didn’t have the best male role models growing up. So, I wanted to make sure he knew that he had people to count on. That he had family. I never really had that.”
It was rare that Draco was this vulnerable with her. Their friendship and civility was still fresh, still new. They had been paired for several assignements within the last two years at the ministry and the most recent had them working together for a solid two months straight. Late nights, weekends had led to friendly banter and teasing. It had been toeing the line of flirtation for weeks at this point.
She could tell that this part of the conversation was hard for Draco. The last time that he had looked this vulnerable with her was the evening he had a few too many firewhiskey’s at a pub night and gave her an emotionally charged apology for all the hurt and wrong doing’s growing up and throughout the war. She had brushed him off with a joke. She could tell that he had appreciated that approach.
In her mind he had already apologized for his behaviours as a child and an unwilling soldier in a mad mans war. To keep up with the apologies when she had already forgiven him was silly in her mind. So she went with an approach that she viewed would settle the fact for him. To make sure he felt he was accepted by her, that she was willingly giving him her friendship.
She continued to joke with him. At the sporadic pub nights, in the office, and during their late nights. So this is how she planned to react to him now.
“She would probably hex you.”
“What? Who? Andromeda hasn’t said she disapproves of anything.”
Hermione chuckles, “No, Tonks. She hated the name Nymphadora. She would hex anyone who called her that in the knee caps. She even got Molly a few times.”
He rolled his eyes at the antics of his cousin. “Fuckin hell.” From the odd time that he had been in the presence of the Weasley matriarch he knew she was a formidable witch. Hell she single-handedly took down his crazy aunt Bellatrix. To think that his cousin Nympha… Tonks would casually hex the woman for saying the wrong name. Well safe to say she had bigger bollocks than he did.
Shaking the image of his cousin facing down Molly Weasley, Draco continued his pursuit of getting Granger on a broom. “So, Princess. How about it?” In a swift series of moves, he put his broom to hover beside him and quickly mounted it. Holding on with only his thighs, he extended a hand to Hermione. “A whole new world. A new fantastic point of view. No one to tell us "No", or where to go. Or say we're only dreaming.” Draco serenaded her with the children’s song while making slow rotations around her.
“I didn’t know you could sing Draco.” Hermione laughed at the scene in front of her. How did she get here. She didn’t even notice she had said his given name out loud. It was something she only spoke when she was alone or just in her head.
“There’s plenty you don’t know about me, Hermione.” He slowed his broom until he faced her head on. His gazed dragged across her entire body. He took in every ounce of her appearance, pulling his lower lip between his teeth by the time he came to meet her amber eyes.
Hermione’s eyes flickered to Draco’s mouth. Her mind wandering to thoughts that had started trickling into her mind several weeks ago. What would it feel like for her lip to be caught between his teeth. What it would feel like to lower herself onto his thick, strong broom thighs and slowly find friction there. Her breathing had readily started to increase, she knew he must have noticed by the way his mouth quirked up into a small smirk.
“But when I’m way up here, it’s crystal clear. That now I’m in a whole new world with you.” His hand extended again as he held eyecontact.
Hermione shifted her stance. War brewed within herself. “You wont let me fall?” It was barely a whisper as she eyed the broom and then Draco’s face.
His back instantly straightened realizing what she was really saying. “Never. I would never let you fall. Do you trust me?” Hand extended and expression open, and sincere. Something Hermione rarely saw when she looked at Draco. He usually carried himself extremely guarded, true emotions hidden behind sarcasm and wit.
“Okay.” A solidifying breath and a step forward. Draco grasped her hand and aided her in swinging onto the broom behind him. Her heart rate was steadily increasing. A sudden dip of the broom had her gripping Draco’s torso tightly.
“Alright back there princess?” Turning his head ever so slightly over his shoulder to glance at her. He stroked his thumb gently over the hands clasped tightly to his personal, while the other steadied the broom.
They hovered there for a while as she steadied her breath.
“Just fine. Prat. Fly please.” Fighting a smile, she pinched him in the side.
Draco chuckled. “Just checking darling. Now hold on tight.” He lowered his body close to the broom in a way she had seen dozens of quidditch players do before.
“No, no. Not fast please! Don’t you - “ Hermione couldn’t even finish her sentence before they were racing above the trees. Her screams echoing across the fields. The only other sound that could be heard was Draco’s deep booming laughter.