Chapter Text
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It's two in the morning; the most airless, stifling hour during a blistering week in August. Sleep was a laughable impossibility for Hermione. The oppressive heat was a choking weight that pressed against the city, humidity turning the air into a thick swamp. As usual, her rooftop garden was the only reprieve from the heat and her insomnia.
She sprawled on the cushioned lounger, bare legs curled beneath her, and stared out over the shadowy rooftops of Primrose Hill. All was still and silent at this hour, with few lights visible in the nearby flats and houses, and few pedestrians or cars passing on the street below. As if she were all alone in London.
A muffled pop of Apparition sliced through the night air. Draco materialized with the same effortless grace he seemed to carry everywhere. Like it was instinct, his eyes immediately landed on her. He took in her curls, usually a wild halo around her face, but now a messy knot at the crown of her head to keep them off her damp neck.
He didn't ask if he was intruding; just wordlessly handed over a tall plastic cup beaded with condensation and filled to the brim with iced coffee. No sugar; he knew her order by heart now that this strange routine had played out time and time again.
Pressing the cold plastic against her sweltering skin, she sighed with pure bliss. "You're a lifesaver," Hermione said, wandlessly disillusioning a stack of books and parchment scrolls beside her.
"No, just selfish. I'd rather not lose the only other competent Unspeakable to heatstroke," Draco drawled, leaning back against the wrought-iron railing. His signature sacrasm; they were more than just simple coworkers. Over the years, awkward animosity became bedgrudging respect then a comfortable, affectionate familiarity.
She took a sip and scowled. “It's decaf.”
He shook his head. “You should sleep, Granger.”
His icy blond hair, usually perfectly disheveled at work, was pushed back in a meticulously charmed sweep. Instead of the usual late night cotton pyjamas, he wore immaculately tailored dress robes. Foolishly, and despite the hour and sweltering heat, Hermione felt underdressed in her silk camisole and shorts.
“Where are you coming from?" she asked, taking another long sip and gesturing up and down his body with her hand.
With a sigh, his head tipped back to gaze at the few visible stars. "A date, actually. My third with Flora Carrow."
Hermione tried and failed to remember the witch’s face. "I haven’t seen her since Eighth Year. How is she?"
"She is..." Draco paused, searching the heavy summer air for the right word. "Perfectly nice."
"Ouch," Hermione winced sympathetically. "Nice is the death knell of romance. Still, three dates? Can’t be too bad."
“I confess I had high hopes, so I held on longer than I should have. She’s smart enough, pretty enough, ready to settle down, has the family legacy my mother desires, and has completely renounced pureblood ideology.” He sipped his coffee before turning his back on her to look over the darkened rooftops. ”She is perfectly nice and that's it. She has no original thoughts, no personal goals… not even a hobby!”
Hermione’s dry laugh cut through the oppressive humidity. "Narcissa will be disappointed— you're going to run out of pureblood witches soon.”
Over his shoulder he gave her long look that became a wry grin. “I'm 28 and still single. At this point she just wants me to find someone I can stand so I don't end two ancient wizarding bloodlines when I die.”
She gave a noncommittal hum to that. “And you want…?”
“Honestly? I don't like being the last Malfoy and the last magical Black, but I don't really care about the bloodline. I want someone who values the family without caring for the legacy.” He heaved a sigh and shrugged, but it seemed stilted, as if the literal weight of a thousand years and hundreds of ancestors pressed on him.
Draco shouldered off his robes, leaving him in a fine, white dress shirt and dark trousers that hugged his long legs. He took the lounger beside Hermione while loosening his collar and rolled his sleeves to the elbows, exposing the pale skin and corded muscle of his forearms. Neither the Dark Mark nor the Azkaban runes were glamoured; he never bothered around her anymore.
Hermione watched him over the rim of her cup and saw a quiet undercurrent of fatigue in his light grey eyes as he relaxed back in the seat. Draco’s gaze drifted from her face downwards, briefly pausing on her bare legs before landing on the faint hazy shimmer of the disillusioned books. Eyes narrowing, he made a disappointed noise deep in his throat. As a master cursebreaker, he didn't need to see the titles; he felt the magical thrum of dread that radiated from the dark tomes.
Hermione stiffened, but once again Draco didn't pry, didn't ask her what Ministry regulations she was sidestepping, or the purpose of her illicit, dead of the night research. Instead, he gave her a faint look of concern.
"I’m not blind, you know," he started, voice free of its usual sarcastic lilt. "I know you’re working on something. If you ever hit a wall with whatever it is you're doing… If you need a ward cracked, or another eye on a rune sequence, or simply a wand at your back..." He held her gaze. "Tell me. I will help. No questions asked."
"Draco..." she whispered, her voice faltering at his serious tone. "That would be a lot for me to ask."
"I don't care," he replied effortlessly. "I trust you— the offer stands."
At his words, a charged silence settled over the balcony. The heat seemed to amplify and a faint flush rose up her neck. She didn't know how to process the rush of affection she felt for the man lounging lazily beside her; who looked at her like he knew her and only wanted to understand her better.
Desperate for distraction, Hermione tore her eyes up to the sky. Only a few bright stars managed to pierce the haze of London's light pollution.
"Do you know why Muggles call it the dog days of summer?" she asked, voice higher than she liked.
Draco followed her gaze upwards, allowing the moment to pass. "Enlighten me."
"Canis Major rises with the sun in the summer," she said, finger tracing an arch across the night sky. "Since Sirius—the Dog Star— is the brightest star in the sky, hundreds of years ago they thought it made the sun hotter."
Draco just tilted his chin, listening.
"The Muggles blamed Sirius for drought, violent thunderstorms, and even the cosmic madness that seems to infect people this time of year, when the air gets this hot and stagnant."
"Madness," he repeated softly, his tone husky. His eyes fell from the sky and dropped to her lips before snapping back to her eyes. A blistering look. "Is that what this is?"
Hermione took in the sharp, aristocratic lines of his jaw, the sheen of sweat on his throat where his collar lay open, and his fierce grey-eyed gaze hot on her skin.
Like molten steel, the thought rose, unbidden.
To Hermione, ends usually justified the means. Rarely reckless, she simply believed greater risk leads to greater rewards. But in the suffocating heat, she miscalculated. She didn’t tally the pros and cons, nor make careful calculations at all. Maybe it really was madness, but at that moment all she wanted to know was how soft his lips were, whether his touch was firm, and if he tasted like green apples as she’d imagined all those years ago.
Silent, she set her coffee down with a quiet thud, and took two steps towards him. After a moment of hesitation, confusion on his face, he shifted and made room on the seat. One knee on the cushion, she grazed his lower lip with her thumb. Plush. Mind blank, she tangled her fingers in the soft hair at the nape of his neck, and pulled him forward to meet her lips.
The kiss wasn't a tentative, halting brush. It was a collision, a high speed car crash, a bludger hit. Draco inhaled sharply against her mouth, a sudden jolt of shock. She barely felt the friction of light stubble against her chin before he gripped her waist and tugged her against his chest. Melting into each other as if it were a long-awaited reunion, a homecoming. Warm and firm hands held her still as he pressed a trail of kisses down her throat, ravenous and exploratory.
For ten perfect seconds, the physical manifestation of years of intellectual sparring and unspoken chemical attraction played out. Her bluebell flames burned impossibly bright before popping like fireworks, leaving the balcony in dark shadows.
But Hermione’s brain caught up to her body. Coworker. Malfoy. Stop.
She jerked back in a panic, tearing off him so fast she stumbled off balance. He caught her then immediately let her go with a wary look once she was steady. She shuffled backwards, her eyes downcast with sudden shame.
Draco's hands hovered in the air for a fraction of a second before dropping to his lap.
"Oh, Gods," Hermione gasped, her fingers pressing into her lips. "I shouldn't have done that. Malfoy, I am so sorry."
He blinked, heat and shock slowly bleeding out of his expression. "Granger—"
"No, I shouldn't have," she spiraled, flush with embarrassment and the lingering kiss. Suddenly feeling exposed in her thin camisole, she crossed her arms over her chest to hide her pebbled nipples. "That was completely inappropriate. I just—I crossed a massive line. Can we blame the heat, my insomnia? I've clearly gone insane."
Draco raised his palms as if soothing a wild beast. He didn't touch her, but it brought her erratic rambling to a halt.
"Please," he said, his voice dropping into a low, firm tone that worked to cool her heated blood despite the stifling heat. His grey eyes pierced hers as he held her panicked gaze. "Don't apologize."
Hermione swallowed hard, her pulse hammering wildly. "But we—"
"I said, don't apologize," he repeated with a soft shake of his head. No grand declaration came. He didn't give her that charming smile he aimed at witches who caught his attention, but he didn't offer his usual snarky deflection. The confusing weight of the kiss hung heavy in the humid air between them, thick with latent potential.
Draco picked up his half-finished coffee and took a slow, deliberate sip, never breaking eye contact even as he stood up.
"Sleep, Hermione," he murmured softly. "I'll see you at work on Monday... Don't— don't overthink that, please. It's fine." Giving her a final, lingering look that stripped her of whatever unease remained, he Disapparated with a dull snap.
She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing away the memory of the kiss and at once refusing to let it alter the trajectory of her summer. Taking a shaky breath of stagnant night air, Hermione resolutely turned her back on the empty spot where he'd just stood.
The disillusionment charm dropped from the stack of books piled beside her. At the top sat the only existing copy, fraying and fragile, of Beyond the Tattered Curtain: Theories on Post-Mortal Consciousness. Beneath it was the heavy leather bound Grimoire de la Maison Noir: Sanguis et Astra, its ancient magic practically putting off its own heat in the sweltering night. She'd pulled it from the Ministry Archives where it sat since Bellatrix Lestrange’s death. Last was the final puzzle piece, found at Grimmauld Place the week before, right under her nose, Toujours Pur: Black Haemomancy Rituals.
Compressing her lips into a determined line, Hermione sank her brilliant, uncompromising mind deep into the dark. Even without the Dog Star visible in the night sky above, Hermione felt Sirius Black’s presence as she worked through her plan to drag him back through the Veil.
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