It was late in the day on the 5th of January when Harry, Ron, and Ginny made their way back to Hogwarts through a one-off Floo connection the Ministry had set up in the Headmaster's office for the swift and safe return of students.
They made their way through the corridors to Gryffindor Tower, the sun sinking low over snow-carpeted grounds.
"Baubles," Ron said confidently as they reached the Fat Lady's portrait.
"No," she said, rather huffily.
"What d'you mean, no?" he scoffed.
"The password has changed," she explained.
"But we've been away — how are we supposed to—"
"Harry! Ginny!" Hermione was hurrying towards them, her cloak wrapped closely around her. "I didn't realise you were already here. I was just visiting Hagrid. Did you have a good Christmas?"
"Yeah," Ron started, "pretty eventful — Rufus Scrim—"
Hermione cut him off without so much as a glance in his direction. "Oh, the password. Abstinence." She swallowed, feeling the heat creep up her neck at the word.
"Yes," said the Fat Lady, with a pointed look. "Which you might do well to practise yourself—"
"I said the password. You are obliged to open the door," Hermione said firmly, yanking it open.
The three of them stared after her.
She smiled back at them with perfect innocence. "Overindulged a bit over Christmas," she said. "She and her friend Violet apparently drank their way through every bottle in that portrait of monks down by the Charms corridor."
Harry squinted after her. "Did she seem… off to you?"
Ginny exchanged a look with him. "A bit. But she always gets wound up after the holidays, doesn't she?"
"She practically ripped the Fat Lady's frame off its hinges," Ron muttered.
"Oh — Harry!" Hermione rummaged in her pocket for a moment before pulling out a rolled scroll of parchment bearing Dumbledore's handwriting.
"Brilliant," Harry said, unrolling it immediately to find his next lesson with the Headmaster was scheduled for the following evening. "I've got loads to tell him — and you. Let's sit down—"
But at that moment there was a loud squeal of "Won-Won!" and Lavender Brown came hurtling from seemingly nowhere and flung herself into Ron's arms. Several people nearby sniggered. Hermione let out a tinkling laugh and said, "There's a free table over here — coming, Ginny?"
Ginny pulled a face. "I said I'd find Dean," she admitted, though she sounded less than enthusiastic about it.
"We'll catch up later," Hermione said, steering Harry towards the empty table.
Harry sat down and raised his eyebrows at her. "So, how was your Christmas?"
"Fine. Quiet." She gave a small shrug, the words coming with a practised ease that told Harry she'd prepared them. "Managed a great deal of reading. How was it at Won-Won's?" She mimicked Lavender's pitch perfectly.
"I'll tell you in a minute," Harry said. "Look, Hermione, can't you just—"
"No," she said flatly, "I can't. So please don't ask."
"I thought maybe, over the holidays—"
"It was the Fat Lady who drank five hundred years' worth of wine, Harry, not me." Her tone was crisp. "Now — what was this important news you wanted to share?"
She looked far too fierce to argue with, so Harry dropped the subject of Ron entirely and recounted everything he'd overheard between Draco and Snape.
When he'd finished, Hermione sat in thought for a moment and then said, "Don't you think—"
"He was only pretending to offer help so he could trick Malfoy into revealing what he's doing?"
"Well — yes," said Hermione.
"Ron's dad and Lupin both think so," Harry said grudgingly. "But this definitely proves Malfoy's planning something. You can't deny that."
Hermione pressed her lips together, tilting her head from side to side. "Well, no, I… I can't…" she allowed slowly.
"And he's acting on Voldemort's orders, exactly like I said."
"Neither of them actually said Voldemort's name, Harry."
"Snape said 'your master.' Who else could that mean?"
"His father?" she offered. "How is Lupin?"
"Not well," Harry admitted. "Have you heard of Fenrir Greyback?"
Hermione looked back at him, her face contracting for just a moment, as though recalling something.
Then: "No," she said.
Harry narrowed his eyes. "Why did you hesitate?"
"I was thinking." She shook her head.
"You're lying."
"Harry—"
"Why are you covering for him?"
"I genuinely don't remember anything," Hermione said. "The name sounds familiar, but I couldn't tell you where I heard it. A class, perhaps, or a textbook."
Harry was quiet for a moment, still watching her. But Hermione had dropped her gaze, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve.
"You seem… off," he said finally.
"I'm tired," she said, quickly. Too quickly. "I barely slept last night."
Draco was in his dormitory, flat on his back on his bed, tossing a ball at the ceiling, catching it, and tossing it again. He'd been at it for hours when Theo and Blaise finally came through the door.
Their conversation broke off as they took him in.
Theo let his bag drop to the floor with a dull thud. "Are you a Labrador?"
Draco caught the ball and sat up, his expression unamused. "Good to see you too, Nott."
"Good holiday?" Blaise asked, settling onto the edge of his bed.
Draco rolled his eyes and sent the ball up again. "Riveting," he said, his voice perfectly flat.
"No… interesting developments?" Theo asked, making his way to his own bed.
The ball dropped back into Draco's palm, and he waited a beat before throwing it again. "I read a good book."
"Right," Blaise said. "What was it about?"
Draco caught the ball and threw it again, fractionally harder than before, his jaw tightening just slightly. "Potions. Fascinating chapter on properties of Ashwinder eggs. Can't wait to stare at a cauldron and pretend I haven't already memorised every relevant page."
"Sounds like your break was a riot," Theo said, flopping onto his mattress with a heavy sigh. "Mine was nothing but family dinners and pretending to be interested in my grandfather's opinions on cauldron legislation. Miserable."
Draco didn't answer immediately. The ball hit the floor and rolled slightly out of reach, and he leaned over to retrieve it, but Theo was already narrowing his eyes at him.
"Did you run into her?" Theo asked. "You were both here, weren't you."
"Her?" Draco repeated.
Blaise snorted. "So — yes."
"I saw her in the library once or twice. Nothing worth mentioning." Draco stood up. "I'm having a shower."
Theo looked at Blaise. Blaise gave a slow, deliberate shake of his head.
The new term began the following morning with a welcome surprise for the sixth years.
A notice had gone up on the common room board overnight:
If you are seventeen years of age, or will turn seventeen on or before the 31st of August, you are eligible to enrol in a twelve-week course of Apparition Lessons with a Ministry of Magic–licensed Apparition Instructor.
Please sign below if you wish to participate.
Cost: 12 Galleons.
Hermione had just added her name to the list when Lavender sidled up behind Ron and slipped her hands over his eyes. "Guess who, Won-Won?"
Hermione suppressed the urge to roll her eyes and slipped through the crowd instead, Harry falling into step beside her, neither of them with any desire to linger.
"Have you seen them yet, then?" Harry asked.
"Ron and Lavender?" Hermione said. "Unfortunately, far too much of them."
"Your Slytherin friends."
Hermione's step faltered — just barely, just for a fraction of a second, the hem of her robes brushing her ankles as she turned towards the corridor leading to the Great Hall.
"No," she said carefully. "Not yet."
"Why not?"
"I've been with you since I got back. And I'm about to see Theo in Ancient Runes." She glanced at him. "What exactly is the question?"
Harry gave her a sideways look, one eyebrow raised. "Right. Theo." He paused. "And Malfoy?"
Hermione didn't falter. "What about him?"
She was saved from having to say anything further by the arrival of Ron, who appeared at Harry's other shoulder. Hermione seized the opportunity.
"I'm going to be late. I really need to go." She headed off towards her classroom.
When she arrived, she settled into her usual seat, laying out her textbook and quill. Theo came in shortly after, alone.
"Morning," he said.
Hermione smiled. "How were your holidays?"
"The usual," he said, dropping into the seat beside her. "Parties. Grandmother complaining about everything. Daphne driving me absolutely mad. Frankly appalling amounts of gifted clothing." He waved his hand dismissively. "Tell me about yours."
Hermione let out a soft laugh, feeling herself relax slightly. "Far fewer parties. More books," she said, opening her textbook. "Lots of time in the library."
"Alone?" Theo asked.
She paused and looked at him. "That's what I said."
Theo gave her a look of equal parts amusement and gentle scepticism as he slid his own book out of his bag. "Only asking. I heard a rumour or two," he said, not looking at her.
"What rumours?" she asked.
"You owled Daphne over the holidays, didn't you? She was telling us on New Year's that you and Draco had been spending time together."
Hermione opened her mouth, but the words stalled. She had been writing to Daphne. She'd forgotten she'd done it quite so thoroughly.
She cleared her throat and turned a page, though she wasn't reading a single word. "Well. He was the only other academically competent person in the castle," she said. "We crossed paths occasionally. Nothing significant."
Theo let out a low, non-committal hum that suggested he didn't entirely believe her but wasn't yet committed to pressing the point. He tapped the corner of his book idly.
"Right," he said. "Two dedicated students. Crossing paths. Entirely by chance. In an empty castle. Over a fortnight."
Hermione stared at the page and said nothing.
Before Theo could decide whether to push further, Draco came through the classroom door, his gaze sweeping briefly over them — meeting Hermione's for the space of a breath — before he moved to his usual seat behind them without a word.
Hermione didn't turn round. She didn't need to. She felt the shift in the air the moment he walked in — something heavier, more charged. Beside her, Theo's fingers paused against his book, and she caught the small, careful tilt of his head as he watched her for a reaction.
"Someone's brooding," Theo murmured, low enough for only her to hear.
Hermione didn't answer. She traced the rune translation chart at the bottom of the page, forcing herself to look engaged. Theo didn't push.
The professor launched into a lengthy lecture on the development of Runes in pre-Merlinian magic, and Hermione wrote notes with the focused diligence she always brought to it — pushing curls behind her ear, straightening in her seat, quill moving steadily across the parchment. She was aware, though she hated that she was, of every small sound from behind her. The occasional scrape of a chair. Pages turning. The slow, rhythmic tap of a quill against a desk.
She never looked back.
Draco never spoke.
When the lesson ended, Theo stood and stretched with a groan of profound suffering. "You two are remarkably quiet this morning."
"It's early," they both said, at precisely the same moment — Hermione tucking her supplies away, Draco pushing back his chair.
Theo's expression shifted into something unreadable as he slung his bag over one shoulder. "Right, well… I told Blaise I'd find him before Defence… I'll leave you to it—"
"I have to find Ginny," Hermione said, swinging her bag onto her shoulder and moving out of the classroom ahead of Theo.
Draco watched her go, eyes narrowing fractionally. He'd been careful not to look at her all lesson. Careful to keep his gaze from settling anywhere near her. But it hadn't particularly helped. Her presence was its own kind of gravity.
"You didn't even insult her," Theo said, as they walked out.
Draco shrugged. "Nothing worth saying."
Snape's voice filled the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom in its usual low, precise monotone, working through the finer points of nonverbal Disarming. The torches along the walls threw shifting shadows over the desks. Old parchment and dried herbs hung faintly in the air.
Draco sat near the back with the rest of his group, one leg stretched out, the other bouncing slightly under the desk. His quill lay untouched beside his parchment. He wasn't listening. Not with any real attention.
Hermione sat two rows ahead and to his left, spine straight, bent over her notes with her usual furious concentration. Every so often she'd push a curl behind her ear, or pause to underline something with a decisive stroke. The light caught her hair again in that particular way — warm, dark chestnut, shot through with something brighter — and it was profoundly, unreasonably distracting.
He wasn't looking at her. Not directly. He didn't have to.
She was in everything. The way the light moved when she shifted in her seat. The faint sharpness of the air when she raised her hand to answer a question.
Draco pulled his attention back to Snape. He heard Blaise murmur something beside him — probably something barbed — but it barely landed.
"Draco."
He didn't hear it, reaching for his quill and tapping it lightly against the desk. One tap, then another. Slow and deliberate. It would've driven her mad if she'd been close enough to hear.
"Draco!" Pansy hissed, shoving him sharply.
He blinked and looked at her. "What?" he snapped back, barely above a whisper.
Pansy stared at him and shook her head.
"Mister Malfoy." Snape's voice was entirely too smooth. "How kind of you to rejoin us. The answer to the question I posed?"
Draco turned to face their Head of House, his expression a carefully maintained mask of complete indifference.
Bloody hell.
"Could you repeat it?" he asked.
Snape regarded him with the narrow, exquisitely patient look of a man who has seen everything and found most of it disappointing. "Do try to remain with us, Mister Malfoy."
He didn't have to look to know she was watching him. He could feel it — the specific, recognisable weight of her attention on the side of his face. He already knew exactly what expression she'd be wearing, too. That small crease between her brows. The slight frown she always wore when he fumbled something during one of their study sessions, or said something she didn't approve of. The way her mouth would press sideways as she bit the inside of her cheek, as though deciding whether or not it was worth saying anything.
"Pair off," Snape said, with an air of exhausted command.
"You've been acting very strangely," Pansy muttered, standing up. She crossed the room towards Hermione. "Work with me?"
Hermione looked up at her, opened and closed her mouth once as she made her decision. "I told Harry I'd partner with him."
Pansy looked at Harry, sitting beside Hermione, and raised one perfectly arched eyebrow. "Potter."
Harry met her eyes briefly. "Parkinson."
"Have a good holiday?" she asked simply.
"Eventful train journey."
"Well, perhaps the rest of term will be equally eventful for you." She drew the words out with deliberate care.
He knew exactly what she was doing.
Pansy smiled — just a touch too sweetly — as though she hadn't just dangled something provocative in front of him like a lure. Her eyes moved down, then back up to meet his, carrying that same slow, careful intensity from the train compartment.
Hermione looked between the two of them, plainly confused.
"I'm going to partner with Ron, Hermione," Harry said, already standing.
"What? Why?" Hermione frowned.
Harry didn't explain. He simply walked away.
Hermione turned back to Pansy. "I don't know what you just did, but you did it deliberately."
"Obviously," Pansy said, perfectly bright. "Come on — I haven't spoken to you in weeks."
"It's a silent exercise," Hermione pointed out, following her.
A few rows back, Draco watched the whole exchange play out.
"She's abandoned us," Blaise said, clicking his tongue.
"Yes," Draco muttered. "What exactly does Pansy have on Potter?"
"What do you have on Hermione?"
Draco snorted — before he could stop himself, a genuine, involuntary sound, because the absurdity of it caught him off guard. The implication that Pansy might be entangled with Potter in roughly the same way Draco was entangled with Hermione was so patently ridiculous that it—
Well. The thing was, Blaise didn't know the half of it.
Blaise raised an eyebrow, a slow grin creeping across his face. "What's so funny?"
"The idea of Pansy and Pot—" Draco stopped himself, eyes closing briefly as he registered the exact magnitude of his error. He pushed his chair back. "You're ridiculous," he muttered, walking away.
To Blaise's complete bewilderment and absolute delight, rather than simply step in to ask Hermione to duel like a rational person, Draco crossed the entire classroom towards Harry and Ron.
Blaise didn't catch what was said. But suddenly Ron was walking away, and Draco was squaring off across from Potter.
Blaise leaned back very slowly in his chair, crossed his arms, and observed the whole situation with the expression of a man who has just been handed a front-row seat to something he didn't pay for but has absolutely no intention of surrendering.
Because of course Malfoy hadn't done the sensible thing. Of course he hadn't simply accepted the opening Pansy had just laid out for him and moved smoothly in Hermione's direction. No — he had done something unnecessarily complicated and conspicuous instead.
Pansy's wand lowered slightly as she tilted her head. Why were men so utterly hopeless?
Hermione's jaw very nearly dropped as she watched Draco and Harry begin to duel.
She narrowed her eyes but said nothing, raising her wand to face Pansy.
The first exchange was quick — nonverbal and clean on both sides. They blocked each other neatly, barely shifting. Hermione didn't flinch. Pansy, for all her polish, was sharp. Controlled. Not quite as sharp as Hermione, but close.
"I got your letter," Pansy said at one point, just before sending another nonverbal Jinx.
Hermione's instincts failed her for the briefest moment — the Shielding Charm died on her tongue — and she had to physically sidestep the curse rather than deflect it.
Meanwhile, Draco and Harry were circling each other a few feet away with the kind of restrained intensity that had very little to do with the exercise.
"Good holiday?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I really wish people would stop asking me that," Draco said, sending a silent curse at the Gryffindor.
Harry deflected and returned one. "Why? Nothing of interest happen?"
"Why don't you ask your friend?" Draco said, blocking the counter-curse. "What exactly did Pansy say to get you to hand her Granger?"
"Why do you care?"
That was the thing, wasn't it? Why did he care? He wasn't supposed to.
And it was maddening.
Because she wasn't looking at him. Not anymore. Not since the rest of them had come back. Not the way she used to during those long study sessions — half frustrated, half curious, like she was still trying to work him out.
No. Everyone had returned, and an invisible wall had gone up.
Nothing personal.
Nothing real.
But Pansy had just walked across the room and rearranged the entire board.
And Hermione had let her.
And something sharp and undeniable twisted in his chest.
Jealousy.
He was jealous of Pansy.
Merlin save him.
Back with Hermione, she shoved Pansy's shoulder. "You did that on purpose!"
Pansy was grinning. "Touchy, are we?"
"We're friends, Pansy, in case you'd forgotten over the holidays. If you want to talk, we can talk — but don't weaponise something to wrong-foot me." Her eyes were blazing.
Pansy drew something from her pocket — a folded letter — and held it out. "Is this why you've been acting strange?"
"I'm acting perfectly normally."
"You're a dreadful liar, and you know it." Pansy kept her voice low. "Take it."
Hermione's expression softened slightly. "What?"
"I don't want it," Pansy said, quiet and level. "I mean that. I don't care what he's doing. I'd already worked out the broad shape of it before you sent the owl — and you clearly knew too, or you wouldn't have written."
It took Hermione a moment, but she took the letter back, swallowing.
"I won't tell him you said anything," Pansy added. "Is that what you've been worried about?"
Hermione murmured a Combustion Charm under her breath, watching the parchment curl and blacken to ash in her palm. "Thank you."
It was the most honest thing she'd said in days.
Pansy nodded. "Does this mean you'll join us tonight? We're having drinks."
Hermione let out a soft huff of laughter, shaking her head. "It's Monday."
"Monday Margaritas." Pansy shrugged, as though that fully addressed the objection.
Hermione actually laughed — tipped her head back and laughed properly, for what felt like the first time in a week.
Draco looked across at the two of them, something tightening in his chest.
Harry took the opening, sending a Tripping Jinx at his legs.
Draco jumped, fury flashing across his face as he wheeled back towards Potter. "Potter, I swear on Salazar's name—"
"You'll what?" Harry cut him off, almost lightly — ignoring the visible steam. "Because if you hex me, she really won't speak to you."
His nostrils flared. "You have no idea what you're talking about."
"I know Hermione rather well, actually. Quite well, I'd say."
Draco's grip tightened on his wand. He couldn't quite decide which was more infuriating — the implication, or the fact that Potter was right.
"Bet I know her better than you do," Harry added, as if determined to be hexed. "And I'm pretty confident I could tell you exactly why she hasn't spoken to you since term started — even though you haven't the faintest idea what you did."
The nonverbal Stinging Hex left Draco's wand like a whip — white-hot, precise, and born entirely of frustration rather than control.
A Shielding Charm erupted — not around Harry, but around Draco, swallowing his own spell before it could land.
His jaw was tight, his breathing short and quick. Not from exertion. From restraint. He wanted to hex Potter across the room. But not because of anything Potter had actually done.
It was what he'd said.
You don't know what you did.
But Draco did know. They didn't. That was precisely the problem.
"Are you out of your mind?!" Hermione appeared from nowhere, storming across the room as the Shield dissolved.
That explained the Shield. Potter hadn't been fast enough — and even if he had, he'd have cast it around himself. Someone else had cast it around Draco.
"Granger, I don't need a lecture—" Draco began, with a scowl, but to his complete astonishment, Hermione turned on Potter instead.
Hermione spun on Harry, jabbing a finger at his chest. "What exactly were you thinking?" she said, voice low and sharp enough to cut glass. "You baited him."
Harry blinked. "I — what?"
Draco stood to one side, arm lowering slowly. He was fairly certain he was either dreaming or running a high fever.
Hermione defending him. To Potter. Blaming Potter instead of him.
"I should have let him hex you!" She was absolutely furious.
Harry's mouth opened, closed, then opened again — but Hermione's glare stopped whatever argument had been forming.
She turned then, and for just a heartbeat — barely long enough to count — there it was. The look she'd been giving him over the holidays, when it was late and she was tired and arguing with him about something she didn't actually disagree with. The look that said she was paying attention. That she saw him.
Then the wall came back up.
She opened her mouth as though to say something to him before thinking better of it, shaking her head as she grabbed her bag and left.
"Detention, Potter. Malfoy." Snape didn't look up. "Tonight. Do not be late."
Blaise appeared at Draco's shoulder, handing him his bag. "Worth it?"
Draco said nothing. But the way the bewilderment on his face gave way, slowly, to a smirk aimed at Potter's retreating back was answer enough.
"I can't believe you defended him," Ron whispered to Hermione. They were in Potions, working through a simplified Elixir of Euphoria to shake off the rust of the holidays — Slughorn was apparently worried they'd spent two weeks forgetting everything they knew.
"I didn't defend him," Hermione said, stirring her cauldron without looking up. "I said Harry was in the wrong."
Ron chopped the Valerian root with unnecessary aggression, as though it had personally offended him. "That's the same thing, isn't it? You're taking his side."
"I'm not taking sides. Harry provoked him."
Harry, from across the table, had been trying to stay out of it. "Ron, honestly. I did provoke him."
"He's Malfoy."
"Can we please stop talking about him?" Hermione hissed.
Ron narrowed his eyes. "Actually, on that subject — what were you doing with him at Christmas?"
Hermione set her ladle down and looked at Ron. "What?"
"We saw you on the Marauder's Map."
Harry groaned.
The potion began to bubble too quickly. Hermione remembered to stir it just in time.
"I cannot believe you were spying on me!" she said, looking between them.
Ron didn't even have the grace to look sheepish. "We were worried."
Hermione's face flushed — a complicated mixture of embarrassment and irritation. "I wasn't doing anything. He—" She stopped herself. "We were just talking. He'd never been sledging. The grounds were covered in snow, so I took him outside. It's not a significant event."
Harry stared. "Malfoy went sledging?"
There was genuine disbelief in his voice, though something else lived alongside it — curiosity, or possibly the early stages of suspicion. His gaze stayed on her a beat longer than it needed to.
"Yes. And he screamed. It was quite entertaining. Would you like me to produce a written itinerary of every moment I spent over the holidays?"
Across the room, Draco was hunched over his own cauldron when Blaise dropped new supplies on the table beside him. "You went sledging."
Draco looked up slowly. "Who told you that?"
Blaise grinned, depositing a pouch of crushed Rose Quartz. "Granger. Loudly. I think half the room heard, actually."
Draco glanced across. Hermione had turned back to her cauldron with pink cheeks, stirring far more aggressively than the potion required. Potter was staring at her as though she'd just admitted to something enormous, and Weasley looked approximately one poorly-chosen comment away from lobbing Valerian root across the room.
Draco turned back to Blaise. "I didn't scream."
Blaise snorted. "That's what you're correcting?"
"Shut up."
"We already knew. She told Daphne."
Draco shoved the mortar across the table. "Grind that. And shut up."
"You're not denying it," Blaise noted cheerfully, picking up the mortar and beginning to work the Pink Crystals with a deeply self-satisfied air.
Blaise hummed quietly to himself, thoroughly enjoying this.
Draco measured out Phoenix Tear concentrate with the studied precision of someone attempting not to stab their best friend with a pipette. He glanced towards Hermione again, entirely despite himself. She still wasn't looking over, but the faint colour in her cheeks hadn't faded, and she was clearly arguing in low, clipped tones with Weasley while Potter looked somewhere between appalled and fascinated.
"Was it a date?" Blaise asked.
Draco snapped his eyes back. "I like you significantly better when you're quiet."
"So — yes?"
Draco didn't dignify that with a response.
"You sledged."
"Children sledge."
"You laughed."
"Nobody said that."
"You screamed and then laughed," Blaise corrected.
"Still not a date."
"Was it before or after you made her hot chocolate?"
Draco's hand stopped mid-drop, the pipette hovering over the cauldron. He looked at Blaise with the careful, quiet fury of someone who is not going to do anything rash and is very aware of it. "How do you know about the hot chocolate?"
Blaise's grin stretched wide. "Daphne," he said, with great contentment.
Draco looked over towards Daphne, who was at the next table having what appeared to be a perfectly separate conversation with Pansy. He turned to face her fully. "How many letters exactly did Granger send to Daphne?"
Daphne paused mid-sentence and looked at him. "Sorry?"
"How many letters."
Daphne blinked at him — all innocent pale eyes and composed expression, far too serene to be trusted. "Wouldn't you like to know," she said pleasantly, and turned back to Pansy as though he hadn't spoken.
Draco stared at the back of her head. "Daphne."
She didn't turn.
Blaise leaned in, delighted. "You'll have to bribe it out of her."
"I'm not paying for information about myself," Draco said.
"It's not gossip if it stays between me and the post owl," Daphne said.
"It clearly didn't stay between you and the post owl, given that Blaise seems to know every bloody detail!" Draco said.
Daphne turned just enough to give him a perfectly sweet smile. "Don't blame me if she's more forthcoming than you are."
Pansy, who had been maintaining a performance of magnificent disinterest, let out a quiet snort. "Perhaps if you'd sent any owls yourself over the holidays, we might have something to share in return."
Draco groaned. "Multiple letters, then. How many? Four?"
Daphne looked thoughtful, gaze drifting upward as though genuinely counting. "Well — one per day until New Year's. She sent three on Christmas Day alone, so… six… nine… let's say ten to be safe."
He went very still. "Ten," he said, slowly and precisely.
"Give or take," Daphne said, with a twirl of her hair.
"She wrote ten owls about me."
"She wrote ten owls during the holidays. You featured prominently in them. So by extension — yes."
Draco stared at her as though she'd just told him Hermione had embroidered his face into her pillowcase.
"Featured prominently," he echoed, with no particular expression.
Daphne gave a prim nod, entirely too pleased with herself. "Essentially courting, really."
Something shifted in his face. Less detached, more desperate. "What did she say?"
"A lady never reveals her correspondence."
Pansy gave her a sharp look. "That is an outright lie."
"She's really quite open once you warm her up," Daphne said serenely. "You should try it sometime."
"I have tried it!" Draco said, too quickly.
Pansy raised an eyebrow. "Have you now?"
"Don't start," Draco said, pointing at her.
Pansy lifted her hands with an expression of saintly innocence. "Start what? I'm merely enquiring whether 'I have tried it' means 'we kissed on New Year's Eve' and that's why Daphne stopped receiving letters afterwards."
Draco scowled. "Daphne. The letters. Simple question."
Daphne regarded him with an expression so outrageously self-satisfied he was half surprised it wasn't casting a shadow. She folded her hands in her lap. "I could tell you," she said. "I might even want to tell you. But I've become quite attached to this particular arrangement. You asking, me refusing. I wonder what your father would make of it."
"I'm not begging."
"You rather are," Blaise offered, sprinkling the crushed Rose Quartz into their cauldron with the air of someone scattering celebratory confetti.
Hermione, across the room, kept shooting covert glances their way. She couldn't hear anything, but she could clearly sense that something was being discussed she wouldn't enjoy. She turned back to her cauldron and resumed arguing with Weasley, who was still going.
"I want the letters, Greengrass."
"Who says I still have them?"
"I know you."
"You certainly can't come to my dormitory."
"No," Draco agreed, voice dropping. "But your sister can. And she has rather made her feelings towards me extremely obvious over the years."
Astoria's name hadn't fully left his mouth before Daphne's expression hardened like he'd suggested kicking her Kneazle.
"You wouldn't," she said, her voice carrying the kind of quiet sharpness that meant she was genuinely prepared to follow through on whatever threat came next.
Draco's expression curved into something that was technically a smile in the way a drawn wand is technically a diplomatic instrument. "I'm only pointing out she's very helpful. Sweet. Some would say rather pretty."
Daphne leaned forward slowly, with the unhurried menace of someone who has assessed the situation and found it well within their capabilities. "You lay one arrogant finger on my sister," she said, "and I will owl your mother to let her know Hermione Granger says hello. Actually — I'll owl your father."
"Why does it matter what she wrote?" Pansy asked.
Draco hesitated.
Blaise didn't. "Because he wants to know if she said anything that suggests she fancies him. If she appreciated all the domestic gestures."
"I do not," Draco said flatly. "I simply think I'm entitled to know the contents of letters written about me. And if threatening to pursue Astoria is what it takes—"
"I will end you," Daphne said.
Across the room, Hermione shoved her ladle a little too firmly into the cauldron, sloshing a wave of amber potion over the rim. Ron was still talking.
"…I genuinely cannot understand how you can tolerate being near him. He's Malfoy, Hermione. It's like suddenly deciding you enjoy flobberworms—"
"I find flobberworms more pleasant than this conversation," Hermione said. "I don't particularly like Lavender either, but I don't spend an entire Potions lesson complaining about her, do I? No. I manage."
Potions ended, and as Harry was packing his bag, he found a small folded note tucked beneath his book. He glanced at Hermione — still occupied with her things — and at Ron, who had already headed for Lavender at the door, before picking it up.
The parchment was heavy, smooth. The handwriting neat and deliberate. Not immediately recognisable.
Prefects' Bathroom. —P
He glanced back at Hermione, who hadn't noticed. He stood, swinging his bag onto his shoulder. "I'm going back to the dormitory before dinner, Hermione."
Hermione nodded. "Okay. And Harry — really. My holidays were not nearly as eventful as you all seem to need them to be."
Harry paused. "Yeah. We'll leave it." He headed out.
He walked up to the fourth floor and found the entrance to the Prefects' Bathroom quiet and unattended. Taking a breath, he pushed inside.
The room was warm, luxurious, marble-floored, the enchanted lights casting everything in a warm, amber glow. The enormous sunken bath filled the centre, its many golden taps glinting. Harry set his bag down on a bench near the wall and looked around. No one yet.
The door clicked shut behind him. He turned.
"You came," Pansy said simply, stepping into the room.
"Why am I here, Parkinson?" Harry asked.
Pansy sighed and walked over to the great bath, turning one of the golden taps. Rich, rose-scented foam began to billow up from the water. "I'm exhausted and in rather desperate need of a bath."
Harry stared at her. "You summoned me here to watch you bathe."
"No," Pansy said, beginning to unbutton her outer robe with completely infuriating composure and hanging it in a cubby. "I need to talk to you. I simply don't have enough time to do both things separately."
Harry's gaze moved between the rapidly deepening foam and Pansy, who had now removed her robe to reveal a silky black slip dress that was categorically not regulation uniform.
"Talk to me," he said flatly. "Whilst…"
"I didn't say you had to get in." She stepped out of her shoes. One strap of the slip slid from her shoulder, and before Harry could formulate a response, the dress pooled to the floor.
He turned round so fast he nearly knocked the soap off the shelf.
Pansy's laughter filled the steamy room.
"Merlin, Parkinson—" Harry pressed his hand flat against the tiled wall, resolutely facing the mermaid mosaic. "A warning wouldn't go amiss."
"You're behaving as though this is entirely new territory."
"Twice," Harry said, with great feeling, "does not constitute a habit."
"It does if you keep appearing when I send for you," Pansy said, and he could hear the bath water shifting as she lowered herself in.
"I didn't know you were about to—" He stopped himself and threw one hand in the air. "What exactly do you want, Parkinson?"
Water moved softly. A pause. Then: "I want to talk about them."
Her voice had shifted — quieter, more measured.
Harry turned half around, keeping his eyes carefully above the waterline. She was reclining in the enormous bath, arms draped along the marble rim, only her collarbones and knees visible above the foam.
"Granger and Malfoy," she clarified. "Something happened over the holidays, and they're both pretending it didn't."
Harry crossed his arms. "And you think I know what it was?"
"No," she said easily. "I know you don't. That's precisely why I called you. You're as much in the dark as anyone."
"I have theories," she continued. "But they're both infuriatingly good at misdirection when they want to be. And I think something significant happened. More significant than flirting. More significant than one of her particularly earnest moments."
Harry leaned against the marble column beside the towel rack. "You think they…?"
"Kissed," she said, cutting him off. "New Year's Eve, most likely."
He looked at her. "You're writing a romance serial."
"I have reasons," she said, watching him with a steady gaze. "Hermione stopped writing to Daphne the morning after New Year's. Just — stopped. She'd been writing every day with exhaustive detail, and then nothing. Now we're back, Draco hasn't insulted her once, Hermione hasn't looked in his direction, and she found every possible excuse not to come tonight when I invited her."
Harry was trying very hard not to look at her directly, which was becoming increasingly difficult. Pansy reached for a small vial of oil from the bath's edge, tipping a few drops into her palm before smoothing them up one shin.
"Could you not—" Harry said, through his teeth.
"Not what?" Pansy asked, with complete innocence, working the oil slowly down her calf. "This is still a bath. You don't expect me to neglect basic care, surely."
"You're using basic skincare as a tactical weapon," he muttered.
"And you are remarkably easy to distract." She set the vial down and looked at him with the comfortable, lidded attention of someone who already knows they've won. "Stay focused, Potter."
He didn't answer. Just ran a hand through his hair and, entirely against his better judgement, glanced back. She was reclining again, head tilted, watching him with the unhurried certainty of someone who has already decided how the evening will end.
"Anyway," she said, as though they'd been discussing Quidditch. "They kissed. And now they're both pretending it never happened. I'd stake my entire spring wardrobe on it."
Harry frowned. "So if you're already certain, why talk to me?"
Pansy shifted slightly in the water, moving closer to the edge nearest him, setting her chin on the rim. "Alternatively — they're secretly conducting a relationship and running the world's most elaborate game of don't get caught."
Harry said nothing for a moment, watching the lazy movement of her fingers against the bath's edge.
"You think they're secretly together," he said slowly, "after one kiss."
Pansy's mouth curved. "Who said it was one?" She extended one arm towards him. "The shampoo?"
Harry grabbed the bottle — lavender and eucalyptus — and stepped forward to hand it over with his arm extended like he was passing something at arm's length through cursed wards.
Pansy's fingers brushed his deliberately. "Thank you, darling," she said, and turned back to work the shampoo through her hair.
"I'm not disagreeing that something is going on," Harry said, committing himself to a careful examination of the ceiling. "But Hermione would never—"
"Like you'd never?" Pansy said, eyes bright as she bit the corner of her lip.
"I think," Harry said, "you're enjoying this."
"Transparently," she replied, with great contentment. "You're very entertaining when you're uncomfortable. All that rigid posture and studied self-denial. Very Gryffindor of you." She paused. "You are, of course, welcome to get in."
Harry took a slow breath and attempted to recall a single compelling reason why he shouldn't.
She tipped her head back to rinse out the shampoo, and Harry made the catastrophic decision to look. Just for a moment — hair slicked back, eyes closed, entirely at ease in a way that was somehow more dangerous than anything she'd done intentionally.
"So what do you actually want from me?" he said, roughly. "Talk to her?"
"No," Pansy said, resurfacing and pushing her wet hair back from her face. "I have Hermione. You need to get to Draco."
Harry let out a short laugh. "I don't know what's more insane — you thinking Malfoy's going to open up to me, or you trying to get me into this bath."
"You know exactly which buttons to press with Draco," Pansy said. "You always have. That's actually useful."
Harry looked at her. Looked at the water. Back at her. The foam sat there, deep and obscuring, entirely too inviting.
"This is actually mad," he muttered, yanking his tie over his head. "This is completely and utterly mad."
"And yet," she said, stretching her legs out luxuriously beneath the surface.
"I'm only doing this because you won't stop looking at me like that," Harry said, not meeting her eyes.
"Like what?" she asked sweetly, resting her chin on her hands.
"Like you've already won."
"Darling," Pansy said, "I won. You're simply a few minutes behind on realising it."
"You do know this is absolutely unhinged, don't you? Manipulative to a truly impressive degree." He shook his head. "Turn around."
"Turn around?" She repeated it as though the concept was novel. "It's nothing I haven't already seen."
She did, though — turning in the water with exaggerated languor, resting her cheek against her folded arms on the edge of the bath, as though this had all been inevitable from the start.
Harry exhaled through his nose, muttered something under his breath that was probably unkind to himself, and stripped down to his boxers. He hesitated.
"Your modesty is perfectly safe in this much foam, Potter," Pansy called over her shoulder, entirely unbothered.
She turned around the moment he lowered himself into the water.
"So what exactly am I meant to say to him?" Harry sighed.
Pansy shrugged, unabashedly watching him. "I don't know. Talk to him. Wind him up. You're naturally gifted at the latter."
"Don't ever suggest Malfoy and I like each other again," Harry said.
"Oh, I'm not suggesting that." Pansy drifted closer, voice dipping. "I'm just saying the brooding tension is really very compelling. Enemies-to-lovers. Practically writes itself."
"You have me sitting in a bath with you and you're talking about how I'd do with Malfoy," Harry said, staring at her. "There might genuinely be something wrong with you, Parkinson."
"I'm simply saying — if you ever felt moved to flirt with him for the cause, I wouldn't interfere."
Harry splashed water at her.
Pansy laughed — properly, openly, without any performance to it. "You're so fun when you're embarrassed."
"I'm leaving in ten minutes."
She moved closer. "Ten minutes is quite long enough, as you well know," she murmured.
That evening in detention, Draco sat in one corner of the empty classroom, Harry at the other, Snape having set them a task that neither of them was particularly engaging with.
"You could at least say thank you," Harry said.
Draco looked up slowly. "Thank you?"
"You're welcome."
"No — what? Thank you for what, precisely? You provoked me in front of the entire class, nearly got yourself hexed, and landed us both in detention. What exactly am I thanking you for?"
Harry stretched back in his chair, arms behind his head. "She defended you."
Draco had nothing to say to that.
Harry observed the silence with an insufferably smug expression. "You wanted her attention. You got it."
"I didn't want—" Draco stopped. His jaw tightened. "You're telling me you baited me into nearly cursing your face off on purpose."
"I mean, I wasn't precisely aiming to get hexed. But you are quite predictable."
"You don't know anything."
"You're both acting strange. I don't need to know anything. I have eyes."
"Four of them," Draco muttered.
"We're even, by the way," Harry said. "Whatever you did to Hermione, and whatever I did tonight — square."
Draco looked at him. "Even?"
"Yeah. I don't know what you did, and frankly I don't want to. But we're square."
He turned to face Harry more fully. "What did you do with Granger?"
Harry looked at him for a long, considering moment. "Oh. You really do like her."
"I do not like Granger."
"You like her."
"I tolerate her." Why had it become every person's personal mission to torment him about Hermione Granger?
Harry laughed — loud, genuinely amused, thoroughly pleased with himself — and kicked his feet up onto the desk in front of him. He looked like he'd just won something.
"You tolerate her," he repeated. "Right. That's definitely why you nearly hexed me through the wall when I said I knew her better than you."
Draco scowled. "You don't."
"No?" Harry raised an eyebrow. "Mate. Six years. Same house. She's slept under the same roof as me."
"I've slept in the same bed as her." It was out before he could prevent it. He pressed a hand to his face. "That is not what it sounds like."
He had wanted to one-up Potter so badly he'd completely undone himself.
Harry practically fell out of his chair. His feet hit the floor with an audible thud, and he stared at Draco with the expression of a man who has just been handed information he will absolutely never let go of.
"What?" he said. Loudly.
Draco glared at him. "Forget I said it."
"Oh, absolutely not." Harry sat up straight, eyes bright. "What do you mean, same bed?"
"We fell asleep studying. It is genuinely not what it sounds like, and I have absolutely no idea why I said it, so please forget it entirely."
"You were studying. In bed. What exactly were you studying—"
"Potions," Draco said, through clenched teeth. "We were sitting on the bed, taking a break. We fell asleep. You can ask her if you want. Don't ask her. Actually, do — she already wants to hex me, you might as well help her along."
Harry stared at him. "You tolerate her. In the same bed."
Draco pinched the bridge of his nose. "I respect her abilities. Sometimes."
A pause. He really didn't like the way Potter was looking at him.
"Fine." It came out before he could stop it. "Fine. I think she's brilliant and frustrating and absurdly stubborn and occasionally genuinely funny, and I don't even like Muggles but she gave me a Muggle book and I read the whole thing and — Merlin. You are quite genuinely the worst possible person to be saying this to."
Harry went completely still. The smug expression dropped, replaced by something that looked almost like genuine, unguarded surprise.
He opened his mouth. Shut it again.
Then: "Do you snore?"
Draco stared at him. "What?"
Harry shrugged. "Hermione can't sleep when Ron snores. Goes on about it all the time."
"I don't snore."
"Does she drool? She does that sometimes."
"Get out."
When detention finally ended, Draco walked out into the corridor to find Theo already leaning against the stone wall outside, wearing the expression of someone who has prepared an agenda.
Theo fell into step beside him immediately. "So," he said, in the tone of someone leading with casual disinterest and meaning none of it, "how was detention? Learn anything?"
"Why is everyone I know apparently committed to making my life as difficult as possible?" Draco muttered. "And since when is Potter involved?"
"Pansy's idea," Theo said, shrugging. "I told her how strange you and Hermione were being in Runes this morning."
"We weren't strange. It was early. Granger and I are fine."
"You were playing house over Christmas," Theo said.
"She owled Daphne about it."
"And Daphne isn't speaking to you at the moment."
"She was at New Year's. We were all together, weren't we?" Theo said. "Which, incidentally, was considerably less enjoyable without you. Don't let it go to your head. How was your New Year's?"
"Fine." His jaw was tight. "I drank too much on the Astronomy Tower and briefly considered whether throwing myself off would be preferable to ever having this conversation."
"Did you kiss her?"
"No."
"You're certain?"
"I would know if I had kissed her!" Draco snapped, and even as the words left his mouth he knew they were the most incriminating thing he'd said all day, which was truly saying something.
"Because you keep reacting like that," Theo said, gesturing vaguely at all of him. "All strange and bothered."
Draco was making a genuine effort. There was no reason for any of them to know anything. It was private. He was a private person. He was entitled to a private life.
"Theo." Draco stopped walking. "I've said this too many times today, so hear this, because I'm done after tonight." He exhaled sharply. "Granger and I were never friends. We were civil — barely — because we had overlapping company and neither of us wanted to make it uncomfortable for the rest of you. Then you all left, and we were stuck, and we were — friendly. Briefly. For two weeks. That's all it was." He started walking again. "We don't hex each other anymore. We can be in the same room without it being actively unpleasant. That's the entire story. There is nothing else to know."
A pause.
"Alright," Theo said.
Draco looked sideways at him. "What?"
"I mean, fair enough."
Another pause.
"Anyway," Theo said, seamlessly, "you should come tonight. Pansy's declared it Margarita Monday, apparently. Terrible idea, but she's got good tequila."
Theo's ability to change direction without warning should, by rights, be studied.
"Margaritas?" Draco repeated.
"Her idea. She says they're better than Firewhisky. I remain deeply unconvinced, but here we are."
Draco stared at him. "We're not Mexican, Theo."
"No, but we are clearly in need of strong drinks," Theo said cheerfully, clapping him on the shoulder. "Granger's going, by the way."
"And now you're interested," Theo added.
"I'm going to prove we're fine and there's nothing to discuss," Draco said.
"Right," Theo said. "Absolutely."
The Slytherin common room was warm and unusually lively for a Monday evening, lit by clustered candelabras and already louder than any weeknight had any business being.
Pansy had Transfigured one of the study tables into a makeshift bar — complete with a salt-rimmed pitcher of neon green Margaritas, a dish of lime wedges, and three different glasses because she had standards. She was perched on the arm of a velvet chair, hair twisted up elegantly, wearing an expression of profound self-satisfaction.
"I'm only saying," Pansy announced, raising her glass to nobody in particular, "that Firewhisky is for brooding and regrettable decisions. Tequila is for regrettable decisions you'll brag about later."
Hermione snorted — properly, without any pretence — before taking a sip. "Is it."
Daphne was curled up on the sofa with her legs tucked under her, swirling her Margarita. "You know, I find myself increasingly envying Muggle social customs."
"No, you don't," Hermione and Pansy said, simultaneously.
"My mother won't stop sending me lists of eligible purebloods!"
"Because you told her you'd consider them," Pansy said.
"Because Theo is an idiot and won't ask me out," Daphne muttered, as Hermione rubbed her back.
The pitcher was more than half gone when Blaise came in, looking entirely unbothered in a deep green jumper with his sleeves pushed up. He surveyed the scene — the glittering glasses, the flush on everyone's cheeks, Daphne now listing sideways with her head on Hermione's knee — and said, with great composure, "I appear to have arrived at the coven meeting."
"Fashionably late as always," Pansy said, tossing him a glass. "Tequila first, questions later."
Blaise caught it and looked at Hermione. "How many has she had?"
"Three," Hermione said. "We're entering the dangerous portion of the evening."
"Please," Pansy said, with an airy wave. "I'm a perfectly composed drunk. Ask anyone."
"I'll ask Draco, I suspect he'd disagree," Blaise said, and was immediately rewarded with a cushion to the face from Pansy.
Hermione found the inside of her glass suddenly very interesting. "I didn't know Malfoy was coming."
Blaise fielded the cushion neatly and set it down before pouring himself a drink. "He wasn't, originally. But Theo guilt-tripped him into it after detention."
Pansy beamed. "Perfect. He needs to loosen up."
Hermione stared into her Margarita as though it might contain a Time-Turner she'd somehow overlooked.
"I still can't believe you defended him in Defence," Blaise said, settling beside her. "And tore into Potter like his mother's ghost."
Pansy hid her grin behind her glass.
"Harry provoked him," Hermione said. "It wasn't right."
"He looked genuinely astonished that you'd take his side," Pansy said.
Hermione said nothing for a moment, something simmering in her chest. That was the truth of it, wasn't it? He'd looked actually surprised. As though the possibility that she might defend him in front of Harry had simply never occurred to him. As though the things she'd said and done during the holidays — all the ways she'd shown him she trusted him, believed in him — had counted for nothing the moment they were back among other people.
She'd been too busy defending him to notice his expression at the time. But it had stayed with her. That widening of his eyes. The way he'd looked at her like she was something he hadn't expected. She'd done it because it was the right thing to do — because Harry had, in fact, been in the wrong — but she hadn't missed the way Draco had looked afterwards.
Had it surprised him because she'd done it publicly? Because every moment of their strange, complicated, honestly rather ridiculous friendship had happened in private? She wasn't even sure they'd been hiding it, exactly. It had simply… happened that way. Empty corridors. Quiet libraries. The whole castle between them and anyone who might comment on it.
Hermione turned her glass slowly in her hand.
Before her thoughts could spiral any further, the common room door opened, and Theo swept in with the air of a man who has accomplished something — closely followed by a Draco Malfoy who looked as though he had lost a bet.
Theo produced a dramatic bow. "Ladies, gentlemen, and assorted ne'er-do-wells — tonight's reluctant guest of honour."
"My favourite emotionally unavailable disaster," Daphne said, sitting up with a pointed look that might have been aimed at Draco, or equally at Theo. Possibly both.
Draco followed, wearing the expression of someone enduring a St Mungo's waiting room. His eyes moved quickly around the room — Daphne horizontal, Blaise far too comfortable next to a certain Gryffindor, Pansy looking exactly as dangerous as she felt — and Hermione, who was not looking at him. At all. Not even slightly.
Draco's jaw ticked.
Which was absolutely fine. It was better this way. Cleaner. The less they looked at each other, the less there was to explain.
Except that she was here, and he had apparently walked into the room voluntarily, and she still wasn't looking at him.
"Don't stand there looking like you've arrived at your own funeral," Pansy said brightly. "We have a theme. Margaritas and mild trauma. Strawberry or lime?"
Draco took the offered glass from Pansy — strawberry, because apparently subtlety was for people who hadn't just spent two hours in detention — and settled himself on the arm of the sofa near Daphne's feet.
"I'm not staying long," he said, and took a sip. It was sweet. Insufficiently strong.
Hermione risked a glance. He wasn't looking back. Good. That was good.
He looked unusually — not himself. His hair was slightly more dishevelled than usual, and there were shadows under his eyes from what had evidently been a long night. He looked tired in a way he didn't often let show.
Hermione took another sip and reminded herself firmly that she had more important things to think about than the precise degree of exhaustion visible in Draco Malfoy's expression.
"Your lime's crooked."
She looked up. Then down at her glass. Then back at him.
She didn't say anything. She fixed the lime.
Draco settled back as Theo launched into some sprawling anecdote about Daphne's mother and the time Daphne had accidentally Singed off the eyebrows of a rather too-forward suitor at a ball.
Hermione couldn't properly follow it. She was too aware of the way Draco kept leaning forward, shifting — just enough, every few minutes, for his knee to nearly brush hers.
"I don't know how I stand it," Daphne said, with great feeling. "Pans, can we trade mothers? Please?"
Pansy snorted. "You don't want mine. She's in full Parkinson matriarch mode this year. I'm surprised she hasn't threatened me with finishing school."
Daphne sat bolt upright. "Oh Merlin. They're going to send me to finishing school."
Hermione's mouth curved slightly. "What's finishing school?"
Draco looked over at her — almost reflexively — and then caught himself.
Pansy pressed a hand to her heart. "Hermione, I knew you were a heathen, but honestly."
"It's where they send you to learn how to be a proper pureblood lady," Daphne supplied, sitting fully upright now. "Walking with books on your head, serving tea correctly, how to make conversation with old men without visibly suffering — it's like an etiquette academy, but the students didn't choose to be there."
"So," Hermione said, considering. "Azkaban with canapés?"
Draco chuckled into his glass — not loudly, not performed, just an actual unguarded sound — and Hermione had to work quite hard not to smile.
She glanced over at him. Just once. He wasn't looking back, his gaze trained on the middle distance above Blaise's shoulder. She looked away.
His knee brushed hers. Again.
She shifted slightly. He shifted too, a moment later. The third time it happened, it was too deliberate to be accidental.
"You don't honestly think she'll send me, do you?" Daphne asked.
"Not if you find yourself a husband first."
"Have you met any of these pureblood boys? They're impossible."
"Hey," Draco said.
Daphne looked at him. "Especially you, actually."
"What have I done to you?" he said, with genuine offence.
"Existed," Daphne said, collapsing dramatically back against the cushions.
"I existed?"
Pansy nodded, looking deeply sympathetic. "Yes, actually. If I'm asked one more time by a distant relative about when I'm planning to get engaged to you, I'm going to personally file a complaint with the Wizengamot against the entire Malfoy bloodline for the crime of existing."
Draco let out a short laugh, his gaze flickering to Hermione as he did — and finding, for just a fraction of a second, that she was already looking at him.
It lasted less than a heartbeat. Both of them looked away at once.
But she'd seen it. That slight tilt of his head. That particular expression he'd started wearing around her lately — the one that could be exasperation, or amusement, or something she was probably reading far too much into.
"So besides the apparent Malfoy family property portfolio in France, the multi-tiered vault situation at Gringotts, and the vineyard — why exactly are your families so fixated on you two?" Hermione asked.
She paused, registering the silence.
Theo was staring at her. Draco was very still.
Hermione looked around at them. "What?"
"Why does she know about the vineyard?" Theo asked, directing this at Draco.
Draco said nothing. He was looking at the wall.
"I read about it," Hermione said. "In a history of intergenerational pureblood property holdings. Wizarding estates. The Malfoys came up in a chapter on French vineyard ownership."
Theo raised an eyebrow. "And the Gringotts vaults?"
Hermione cleared her throat, reaching for her glass. "Different book. Wealth in the Wizarding World. Very thorough."
Draco still hadn't spoken. His glass sat in his hand, condensation beading along the outside, his thumb moving in slow, unconscious circles against the surface.
"I'm confused about the vineyard specifically," Theo said, sounding not at all confused and entirely suspicious. "I mean — you don't know anything specific about my family's assets, Granger."
"Do you have a vineyard?" Hermione asked.
"No," he admitted.
"There you are."
Draco almost smiled. She felt it more than saw it.
And then — light as a breath — his fingers brushed hers.
Once.
She went very still. Didn't look at him. Didn't pull her hand away.
He didn't move again. Just left his hand there — barely touching hers, close enough to feel the warmth of it — as though it had happened by accident, as though it meant nothing at all.
Maybe it hadn't happened. Maybe she'd imagined it. Too much tequila. Easy explanation.
She needed another drink.
As though he'd read her mind, Draco silently passed his half-finished strawberry glass across to her — just a small, quiet gesture, like a secret she wasn't supposed to acknowledge.
Hermione pressed her lips together, took it, tipped it to her mouth. The strawberry hit sharper than the lime — unexpectedly tart — and she handed it carefully back to him.
In the background, Theo was still talking — something about the indignities of being introduced by one's full name at pureblood society events — and Hermione wasn't listening to a word of it. Her mind had drifted back to the quiet of the holidays, to passing the same Firewhisky bottle back and forth, to how she'd said it tasted better when she'd stolen his. He hadn't said anything. He'd just let her.
"So," Blaise said casually, swirling his drink, "the vineyard, the vaults, and the fact that you just drank Malfoy's drink without asking…"
Hermione looked up sharply, and stood rather more abruptly than she'd intended. "We've run out. I'll mix another pitcher." She picked up the empty one and headed to the makeshift bar.
She needed about thirty seconds of not being watched.
Hermione lined up the ingredients and began to measure tequila, her head pleasantly buzzy, her hands slightly less steady than she'd like. She should probably have gone back to Gryffindor Tower by now. That would have been the sensible decision.
She could feel him watching her. Not the way Ron watched her — loaded with expectation, or accusation, or worry about what it might mean. Just the calm, particular way that made her feel observed rather than scrutinised. Like he was simply paying attention.
She poured. Squeezed a lime. Salted the rim. Her hands moved through the familiar steps like a spell.
She didn't hear him come up behind her until he was there — standing at her side, close enough for his shoulder to brush hers as he reached past for the bottle. His fingers lingered on the neck of it a moment longer than necessary.
He poured himself a measure, downed it cleanly, and set the glass back on the table.
Hermione stared at the pitcher. She made herself count to three before she spoke, not quite turning to look at him.
"Strawberry or lime?"
The glass slipped from Draco's fingers as he went to set it down. He stepped back, and when Hermione turned at the sound, she found him staring at her as though she'd just cast something unexpected at him from point-blank range.
She'd opened her mouth to demand what he thought he was doing, dropping glasses in the general vicinity of her feet — but the words died before they arrived.
The look on his face stopped her.
Draco stared at her. "Strawberry or lime?" he repeated.
Hermione frowned. "I was just—"
"You haven't spoken to me in six days," he said. His voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be.
The bottom dropped out of her stomach.
The way he'd said it — not with fury, not with the usual sharpened edge of confrontation — but with something rawer underneath. Something that sounded, against all reason, like hurt.
She hadn't expected that.
She'd expected him to be cutting. To dismiss it with some perfectly calibrated remark about how he'd barely noticed. She'd been bracing herself for indifference — for the particular Malfoy brand of cold composure that said nothing you do reaches me.
Not this.
Her eyes moved to their friends — still talking, still laughing, apparently oblivious to what was happening four feet away. She looked back at him.
Six days.
Six days since they'd kissed. Six days since she'd woken up the next morning in a cold panic and told herself it hadn't meant anything, that it was the hour and the altitude and far too much shared Firewhisky, that if she simply didn't acknowledge it, they could both pretend it away.
Apparently he'd been counting.
"Malfoy—" She said his name without thinking, and watched something in his face recoil from it.
He turned away for a moment, jaw working. Ran a hand through his hair. Looked back at her.
"I didn't—Draco, I didn't mean—" She was fighting herself, searching for words she wasn't sure existed for this. There wasn't exactly a chapter in any book she'd read on what to do when you've accidentally fallen for someone you were supposed to despise, who then kissed you on New Year's Eve while the castle was dark and quiet and there was no one else in the world but the two of you. "I don't know what to say." It came out barely above a whisper. She knew how feeble it was.
Draco let out a breath that was too short and too sharp to be a laugh. "You don't know what to say," he repeated, voice quiet and careful. "Granger. You always know what to say. You've had six days."
He stepped closer. The gap between them felt suddenly very small.
Hermione stepped back, her hip catching the edge of the bar. Her heart was doing something undignified.
"I thought we were—" She started again and stalled again. What had she thought? That ignoring it would make it tidy? That if neither of them named it, it would dissolve quietly on its own? She'd liked him, she'd let herself want something, and then the moment it became real she'd flinched away from it as hard as she could.
She'd been terrified.
Draco's mouth pressed into a thin line. He looked away.
"Right," he said, and his voice was flat in a way it hadn't been a moment before. "Of course." He shook his head once, something closing off behind his eyes.
"Draco, we weren't exactly—" Hermione started, desperate now. "You weren't exactly—"
"You wouldn't look at me."
That landed like a physical thing. She felt it.
She hadn't looked at him. Not once since they'd been back. She'd timed her meals around him. She'd nearly bolted from the library the day before everyone returned when she'd seen him at their usual table.
He wasn't looking at her anymore. He was facing the bar, one hand braced against it, as though he needed the support.
"You wouldn't look at me," he said again, quieter. "Like I'd done something unforgivable. Like I'd crossed a line."
Hermione felt the weight of it settle over her — everything she hadn't done, everything she hadn't said — pressing down on her chest.
"I thought if I ignored it," she said, her voice cracking, "maybe it would stop."
He nodded once, slow and controlled, the way he did when he was working very hard to keep his face in order.
"So that's it, then." The words were flat and deliberate. He still wouldn't look at her. "Nothing happened."
She opened her mouth. Nothing came.
"Fix the mess you've made," he said. "Daphne says you wrote her ten owls. Whatever you said, fix it — they won't stop asking me about you." He paused. "Nothing happened, Granger."
And then he was gone, walking back to the group with his hands steady and his expression entirely composed. She watched as he said something brief to Pansy — excuse, not explanation — and then he was out of the room.
Hermione didn't move.
The words settled in slowly, like cold water.
Nothing happened, then, Granger.
Said with the careful finality of a door being closed.
She'd expected something like this, hadn't she? She'd expected him to be the one to say it didn't matter. She'd been waiting for the dismissal — for him to make it smaller than it was and walk away from it.
She'd just never expected it to hurt this much when he actually did.
The thought of what she'd assumed he'd say — that he'd sneer about Mudblood notions, that he'd never meant any of it, that she'd imagined the whole thing — hadn't even fully materialised. He hadn't said any of that. He'd simply said nothing happened and walked away, and somehow that was worse.
Because she had kissed him back. She remembered every second of it. She'd pulled him closer. She'd let it happen, and wanted it to happen, and then spent six days running from it.
She stood at the makeshift bar for too long, holding an empty pitcher, staring at nothing.
What had she expected? That she could vanish for a week, avoid every moment of contact, and he'd simply wait for her to work out what she wanted?
She grabbed the pitcher and walked back to the group.
The space where Draco had been sitting was empty.
Draco, for his part, reached his dormitory before the composure cracked.
He sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, and pressed his hands to his face.
He'd been fine. He'd been perfectly capable of walking into a room and pretending the last two weeks hadn't happened, of sitting three feet away from her and saying nothing that mattered. He'd been managing.
And then she'd said strawberry or lime, and looked at him like she was trying — like she was making a gesture towards whatever they were supposed to be — and every careful distance he'd constructed had simply collapsed.
He'd wanted to hex something. He'd wanted to leave immediately. Instead, he'd said the worst possible combination of words in the worst possible order and then removed himself from the room before he could make it any worse, which he genuinely believed was the only thing he'd handled correctly all evening.
The look in her eyes when he'd said nothing happened.
He groaned into his hands.
She had kissed him back. That was the part that refused to leave him alone. He hadn't invented it. He hadn't misread a single second of it — she had kissed him back, and kept kissing him, and pulled him closer, and he'd thought — for one brief, genuinely catastrophic moment — that it might mean what he'd wanted it to mean.
And then nothing.
Six days of nothing.
He'd told himself he'd misread it. He'd told himself repeatedly that he was, in fact, an idiot, and that she was Hermione Granger and had absolutely no interest in being anything other than grudgingly tolerant of him. He'd almost convinced himself.
And then she'd been at the bar, mixing drinks with her back to him, and she'd asked strawberry or lime, and her voice had been careful, and she'd been trying, and he'd managed to ruin it in approximately forty-five seconds.
He'd told her nothing happened.
Because she'd told him she'd wanted it to go away. And at least this way, he'd said it first.
Draco dropped his hands from his face and stared at the ceiling.
It had been one kiss. He'd kissed people before. He was, in all relevant respects, a perfectly functional person who had kissed other people and moved on with his life.
He lay back on his bed and kept staring at the ceiling.
It had been one kiss. And it had been nothing like any of the others.