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The Ministry gala was in three hours, and Draco Malfoy's hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Hermione noticed because she noticed everything about him now, whether she wanted to or not. The way his jaw clenched when someone mentioned his father's trial. The careful blankness he wore like armor when walking through the Ministry corridors. The tremor in his fingers when he thought no one was looking.
She was looking.
"You're going to strangle yourself," she said from the doorway of his office.
Draco's head snapped up, and for a moment—just a fraction of a second—his carefully constructed mask slipped. She saw exhaustion there. Fear. Something that looked almost like relief before he shuttered it away.
"I didn't realize I'd hired a fashion consultant along with a department liaison," he said coolly, turning back to the mirror hanging on the wall beside his desk. "Though I suppose meddling comes naturally to you, Granger."
The tie hung crooked around his neck, the knot a disaster. His fingers fumbled with the silk, pulling it tighter, making it worse. His reflection looked pale in the glass, shadows carved beneath his eyes.
She should leave. That would be the smart thing, the professional thing. Their working relationship was already complicated enough without adding... whatever this was. The late nights reviewing case files. The careful distance they maintained, even as they stood close enough to share breath. The way her pulse jumped when his hand brushed hers reaching for the same document.
"Move," Hermione said instead, crossing the room.
"I don't need—"
"You're making it worse. Move."
He went very still as she approached, and she watched something flicker across his face. Wariness. Anticipation. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed.
The office was too small suddenly, the air too warm. Outside, London prepared for evening, the sky bleeding gold through the windows. But here, in this space between day and night, professional and personal, everything felt suspended. Waiting.
Hermione stopped in front of him. Close enough to catch the scent of his cologne—something expensive and cedar-sharp that made her think of the Forbidden Forest in winter. Close enough to see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, the small scar on his jaw from a curse that had nearly killed him during the war.
Close enough to notice he'd stopped breathing.
"I can do it myself," he said, but his voice had lost its edge.
"Clearly." She reached for the tie, and her fingers brushed the hollow of his throat. He flinched. "Stay still."
"Granger—"
"Still, Malfoy."
He obeyed, which was somehow more unsettling than his resistance would have been. She unknotted the mess he'd made, the silk sliding smooth and cool through her fingers. This close, she could see the tension in his shoulders, the rigid way he held himself, as if one wrong move might shatter something neither of them could name.
"You don't have to go tonight," she said softly, focusing on the tie rather than his face. "No one would blame you."
"Everyone would blame me." His voice was flat. "Not going would confirm everything they already think. That I'm a coward. That I don't deserve my position. That I'm—"
He cut himself off, but she heard what he hadn't said. That I'm my father's son.
Hermione's hands stilled. She'd reviewed Draco's case file when he'd been assigned to her department six months ago. She'd read about the trials, the interrogations, the Veritaserum testimonies that had saved him from Azkaban. She'd seen the photographs of a nineteen-year-old boy whose eyes looked decades older, who'd testified against his own parents to prove his loyalty had shifted.
She'd tried to hate him for it. For everything he'd done, everything he'd said. Mudblood. The word still lived in her bones sometimes, an old wound that ached in cold weather.
But then she'd worked with him. Seen the meticulous way he approached cases. The fierce protection he extended to their department's most vulnerable clients. The nights he stayed late, compiling evidence that would never carry his name, that would earn him no recognition. As if he were trying to atone for sins she wasn't sure could ever be forgiven.
"They're wrong," she said.
His eyes snapped to hers. Gray and storm-dark and too close. "Are they?"
The question hung between them, weighted with history neither of them knew how to set down. Hermione thought about all the ways she could answer. With anger for the girl she'd been, terrified and tortured on his drawing room floor. With pity for the boy he'd been, raised by a monster. With the complicated truth that had been growing in her chest for months now: that people could be more than their worst moments. That redemption wasn't a destination but a choice you made every single day.
She looped the tie around his collar. Her fingers worked with practiced efficiency—she'd done this countless times for Harry before events, for Ron during their brief, doomed relationship. But this felt different. Every brush of her knuckles against the crisp cotton of his shirt felt incendiary. Every breath they shared felt stolen.
"Yes," she said finally. "They're wrong. You're not your father, Draco."
His name left her lips before she could stop it. Not Malfoy. Not the careful distance of surnames. Just Draco, and the sound of it seemed to crack something open in the air between them.
He made a sound, low and wounded. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't be kind to me. I don't—" His hand came up, almost touching hers before dropping away. "I can't think when you're kind to me."
Her heart was doing something complicated, something dangerous. "Then what do you want me to be?"
The question was a mistake. She knew it the moment the words left her mouth, knew it in the way his eyes darkened, the way his gaze dropped to her lips before jerking away.
"Angry," he said roughly. "Distant. Anything but this."
"This?"
"You. Here. Touching me like—" He exhaled sharply. "Like I deserve it. Deserve you"
Hermione's fingers trembled as she made the first fold of the Windsor knot. The tie was expensive silk, probably cost more than her monthly rent. His whole wardrobe was like that—perfectly tailored, immaculately chosen, armor made of Italian wool and Egyptian cotton. Everything designed to show the world he'd clawed his way back to respectability.
But standing this close, she could see through the cracks. The exhaustion. The fear. The bone-deep loneliness of someone who'd survived but wasn't sure they deserved to.
She knew that feeling. Had worn it herself after the war, when she'd tracked down her parents in Australia and seen the blankness in their eyes. When they'd looked at her like a stranger, and she'd realized that some things, once broken, couldn't be fixed with magic or determination or love.
Some things you just had to learn to carry.
"You do this often?" Draco asked, his voice carefully neutral. "Dress incompetent wizards?"
"Only the ones who can't manage a simple knot." She pulled the tie through, her fingers working with careful precision. "Though I have to say, for someone who spent seven years wearing a school uniform, you're remarkably hopeless at this."
"I had house-elves."
The words fell between them, and she felt him tense, waiting for her judgment. Everyone knew Hermione Granger's views on house-elf rights. She'd been advocating for labor reforms since her third year, had made it her first priority when she'd joined the Ministry.
But she just said, "Well, you don't anymore. So unless you plan to attend every formal event looking like you've been strangled, you should probably learn."
"Is that an offer, Granger?"
There was something in his voice that made her pulse spike. Something that had nothing to do with ties or Ministry galas and everything to do with the way they'd been circling each other for months. Professional. Distant. Pretending neither of them felt the charge that sparked whenever they occupied the same space.
"I'm trying to decide," she said, meeting his eyes, "if teaching you would be an act of charity or masochism."
His mouth curved, almost a smile. It transformed his face, made him look younger, less haunted. "Probably both."
She made another fold, pulled the silk through. Her knuckles grazed his throat, and she felt his pulse jump beneath her touch. Fast. Erratic. Matching hers.
"Why do you do that?" she asked softly.
"Do what?"
"Act like you don't matter. Like you're not worth the effort."
The almost-smile vanished. "Granger—"
"Hermione." The correction came out fierce. "If I'm calling you Draco, you can use my given name."
He stared at her, and something shifted in his expression. Something raw and unguarded that made her chest ache. "Why does it matter to you? What I think of myself?"
Because she'd spent six months watching him work himself to exhaustion. Because she'd seen him take blame for mistakes that weren't his, seen him accept criticism without defending himself, as if he believed he deserved every harsh word. Because somewhere between their first case together and now, her anger had complicated itself into something she didn't know how to name.
"I don't know," she admitted, and it was the most honest thing she'd said in months.
The tie was nearly finished. She made the final adjustments, smoothing the silk against his chest. His heart beat beneath her palm, rapid and strong. She should step back. Should create distance before this—whatever this was—went somewhere neither of them could take back.
But she didn't move. Neither did he.
"You've changed," Draco said quietly. "From who you were. At school."
"So have you."
"Have I?" His hand came up, hesitant, and his fingers caught a curl that had escaped her chignon. He tucked it behind her ear, the gesture so gentle it made her throat tight. "Sometimes I'm not sure. Sometimes I think I'm still that same coward, just better at hiding it."
"You testified against them. Your own parents. That wasn't cowardice."
"It was survival." His thumb traced the shell of her ear, and she shivered. "I would have said anything, done anything, to avoid Azkaban. You know that."
"I know you've spent every day since trying to prove you meant it."
He laughed, low and bitter. "Is that what you think I'm doing?"
"Yes." She met his eyes, held them. "I think you're trying to atone for things that weren't entirely your fault. I think you're punishing yourself because no one else is doing it hard enough. I think—"
"You think too much, Granger."
"Hermione."
"Hermione." Her name in his voice was soft destruction. "You think too much, and you're too bloody good, and I don't know what to do with you."
"You don't have to do anything with me."
"Don't I?" His hand cupped her cheek now, and she could feel the tremor in his fingers. "Because I can't stop thinking about you. About this. About how monumentally stupid it would be to—"
He cut himself off, jaw clenching.
"To what?" Her voice came out breathless.
The air between them felt electric. Dangerous. Like standing at the edge of a precipice and being unable to decide between stepping back or jumping.
"To kiss you," he said finally, roughly. "To risk everything I've spent two years building because I can't stop wondering what you'd taste like. What sounds you'd make. Whether you'd pull me closer or push me away."
Hermione's breath caught. She should be scandalized. Should remind him about professional boundaries and appropriate workplace conduct. Should list all the reasons this was impossible—their history, their differences, the way the entire wizarding world would implode if Hermione Granger, war hero and Muggle-born icon, got involved with Draco Malfoy, reformed Death Eater.
But all she could think about was the heat of his palm against her cheek. The way he was looking at her like she was both his salvation and his damnation.
"I wouldn't push you away," she whispered.
He made a sound like breaking. "Hermione—"
"But we can't." The words tasted like ashes. "You know we can't."
"I know." His forehead dropped to hers, and they stood there, breathing the same air, not quite touching anywhere else. "I know, and I hate it. I hate that I want you. I hate that I don't deserve you. I hate that for the first time in my miserable life, I want something good, and I can't have it because I've spent too many years being something terrible."
"You're not terrible." Her hands fisted in his lapels. "You're just human. Flawed and trying and so much better than you were."
"It's not enough."
"Maybe not. But it's something."
They stayed like that, suspended in a moment neither of them wanted to end. Outside, the sun continued its descent. Inside, two people who'd spent a war on opposite sides tried to figure out how to exist in the same space without destroying each other.
Finally, Hermione pulled back. The loss of his warmth felt like mourning.
"Your tie is done," she said, her voice only slightly unsteady.
Draco's hand dropped from her face, and she watched him rebuild his walls. The mask sliding back into place, smooth and impenetrable. When he spoke, his tone was carefully neutral. "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
She turned to leave, but his voice stopped her at the door.
"Hermione?"
She looked back. He was silhouetted against the window, the dying light painting him in gold and shadow. Beautiful and broken and trying so hard to be whole.
"I'm glad it was you," he said quietly. "That you were the one to help me. With the tie. With—" He gestured vaguely. "Everything."
Her chest felt too full, too tight. "Me too."
It wasn't enough. Wasn't close to enough. But it was what they had: stolen moments and careful words and the excruciating awareness of everything they couldn't say, couldn't do, couldn't be to each other.
Maybe someday, she thought as she left his office, closing the door gently behind her. Maybe when enough time had passed, when his redemption was complete in the eyes of the world instead of just hers. Maybe when they'd both done enough healing to risk opening old wounds.
Maybe.
But not tonight. Tonight, she'd go home to her flat and pretend her hands weren't still tingling from touching him. Tonight, he'd go to the gala and wear the tie she'd tied, and maybe he'd think of her when he caught his reflection. Tonight, they'd both pretend that what existed between them was purely professional, purely circumstantial, purely anything but the truth.
That somewhere between anger and understanding, between past and present, between who they'd been and who they were becoming, something had shifted.
Something that felt dangerously like hope.
Hermione walked through the Ministry corridors, past colleagues preparing for the evening's event, and tried not to think about the warmth of his skin beneath her fingers. Tried not to think about the way her name had sounded in his voice, like a prayer and a confession.
Tried not to think about how, for a moment in his office with the light fading and his tie crooked and his defenses down, she'd wanted to say to hell with it all and kiss him anyway.
But she was Hermione Granger. War hero. Rule-follower. The girl who'd always chosen sense over desire, duty over want.
So she went home. Made tea. Pretended to read case files while her mind replayed every second of standing in his space, breathing his air, wanting things she shouldn't want.
And across London, in an office that still smelled faintly of her perfume, Draco Malfoy stood before his mirror and touched the tie she'd tied with trembling fingers, thinking about all the ways they were both completely and utterly doomed.
The gala could wait five more minutes.
He needed to remember how to breathe first.