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Chapter Text

Hermione was in love with Draco Malfoy, and it was utter shit. It didn’t happen overnight, but she was still annoyed that it happened at all.

Following Malfoy’s house arrest, he was to finish out his probation working a low-paying position in the Ministry for the next 18 months, and for some godforsaken reason, the Ministry decided to make Malfoy her clerk and assistant in the DRCMC. For years she’d been asking for more help with the underfunded department, and this was their solution to her many, many, many complaints.

She was Hermione fucking Granger and everything that came with that name, and they gave her Malfoy. It was not to be borne. Kingsley told her he tried to reverse the decision, but it was a matter of optics, and to the rest of the powers that be, it was a good look having a pure blood, former Death Eater work under a muggle-born war heroine. Genius! They likely thought while patting each other on the back. Everything wrong with everything is solved! Hermione told Kingsley she was tired of being a prop for their idea of “progress” and Kingsley sighed. He understood, despite his title, he was much the same, or rather because of it.

Walking into her already cramped office that Monday morning and seeing a small, empty desk across from hers made her feel some panic. This would be her life for the next 18 months.

Her last interaction with Malfoy was after his trials. She, Harry, and Ron had spoken on his behalf after days and nights of arguing back and forth. Ron, in the beginning, was completely against it. Hermione was unsure. It had been Harry’s plan and he begged them to help.

I don’t like the git, he’s vile, but he was given so few choices and toward the end, he made some right ones…

Hermione saw through Harry. He wasn’t lying, he truly thought this about Malfoy.

Harry, you’re not trying to save Malfoy, are you? Not really. You’re trying to honor Narcissa and the choice she made for the sake of her son.

Harry had stared at her for a moment and simply nodded. Ron understood after that as well.

So they spent time deciding what they would say and rehearsing, and in the end, Hermione did agree with Harry. Malfoy had few choices. She thought about it constantly while holding her hand against her scar that would never quite heal, that hurt the worst when she was happy. It wasn’t his fault, and he had his own scars. They all did.

In the end, their testimony saved Draco and Narcissa from Azkaban.

Malfoy and his mother passed them on their way out of the chamber. They had both stopped, or rather Narcissa stopped and Draco bumped into her. She was a tall woman, but Draco dwarfed her. She pushed him with her hand on his chest so he stood tall and pushed at his shoulder. Malfoy moved accordingly and faced them.

For once, Harry wasn’t in the middle, she was. Her boys seemed to curl around her because they knew. Hermione was Draco Malfoy’s true opposite, and this moment would help determine if they had done the right thing.

Hermione met his gaze. She would always remember how tired he looked but how beautiful his eyes were and had always been.

She’d looked up eye color once, after he’d called her a Mudblood. Grey eyes were rare, and even the documented instances of them included blue or brown. His were pure silver. She remembered being frustrated. She remembered crying. Because Draco Malfoy was everything she wasn’t. Magic, pure, white, rare, and beautiful.

Hermione raised her hand. “I hope things go well for you both,” she’d said softly.

And Malfoy shook her hand, firm grip, slight up and down, calloused fingers.

“Thank you,” he’d said, and their rough skin caught against each other’s as they dropped away and stood back.

That was it.

And now—

He walked into her office, healthy, dressed in all black, stunning, fit as fuck, and it wasn’t fair. Hermione's gaze fell from his face. Malfoy wasn’t even carrying a damn box of belongings for his desk.

Her lip curled. “Don’t plan on staying?” she asked while shuffling papers.

“Hello, Granger.”

He said it… he said it friendly, he said it resigned, he said it like—

Hermione made eye contact.

And her intuition and gut feeling were telling her that this man was going to break her heart. She’d been hearing it like a mantra in her head for over 6 years. Draco Malfoy and his beautiful eyes are going to destroy you.

Nonsense.

“Hi, Malfoy.”

—

He was observant and this didn’t come as a surprise to her. He threw insults back in school with precision, carefully curated barbs meant to pierce deep-set insecurities. He always aimed true.

Hermione realized quite quickly that the reason for this was that Malfoy was actually something of an empath. An anxious anticipator. He was always living about ten seconds in the future and took it upon himself to let everyone know. In her previous interactions with him, he used that extra time to be cruel, but that was no longer the case.

That was all to say that Malfoy was a fucking nag. And about 4 months in, he’d decided he lived at least 20 seconds in the future where Hermione was concerned. Harry and Ron always rolled their eyes at her fussing, but she had nothing on Malfoy.

It started as small, little rude comments here and there:

“You know, Granger, you might be able to accomplish more here if you didn’t insist on working in a pile of rubbage. I only know you’re in the room because your hair is taller than the piles.”

“Granger, your notes are a mess, what does any of this even mean, Merlin, your fucking handwriting is atrocious. How do you expect me to work like this? Did you really beat out everyone at school with this?”

And once, when he was very frustrated, “You are the fucking worst.”

Then it became exponentially worse as time went on.

Food, tea, weather-appropriate clothing and shoes, her perpetually dry hands, organization, wards, almost drowning in a lake that one time when she’d managed to insult the selkies they were working with. Malfoy zeroed in on all of it.

“Malfoy! Can you give me some praise? At least once?”

“You already know you’re good at what you do.”

“But do you think that?”

“You’re very good, Granger.”

That did things for Hermione she chose not to examine at the time. Hermione complained about it to Ginny and Luna over drinks once. Ginny looked surprised. Luna smiled.

“Malfoy— dotes on you?” Ginny said.

“Well, I wouldn’t call it doting. It’s all criticism.”

“He’s taking care of you,” Luna said.

“No–”

“Draco was always meant to care for others. He has such a soft heart.”

Hermione didn’t know what to say to that. Luna did eventually reveal that Malfoy snuck her food and water. She said they kept each other company. Hermione tended to trust Luna’s judgment of people (just people, literally nothing else). Following that conversation, she opened up a bit more to the idea of him.

Malfoy was intelligent, clever, quick on his feet, and after some growing pains, they found a groove. They learned each other; their strengths and weaknesses and how best to strategize a situation when they were in the field or standing before the Wizengamot.

He also did things that she just couldn’t rationalize based on who she knew him to be before.

Once they visited a couple and their son, bitten by Greyback as a very young child. They were collecting testimony, real examples to build their case with legislation they were trying to pass — it was a monumental effort, Hermione’s passion project, and why she had begged for help to begin with.

The boy, John, and Draco had good chemistry. Draco was gentle and kind. John was excited for the attention, and it was a positive visit. Sometime after, Hermione saw Bertie Bott’s on his desk and hated herself a little for knowing he hated all the flavors. A texture thing, apparently.

They were for John.

“You still see him?” she asked.

“He’s lonely. We like each other well enough. I stop by to visit occasionally. Don’t look into it, Granger. I don’t visit any of the other tragedies we’ve interviewed,” he said curtly, his cheeks pinkening.

“Just this one,” she said, watching him fidget.

He’d looked at her then, in earnest. “If– if I had access to my galleons, to my inheritance, I’d take care of this in a second. 10 more months, Granger. I promise I’ll throw everything I have at it, find all the resources we need. But for now –”

And then Malfoy grinned. “For now we have you, and that’s worth a lot, even though you’re wholly ineffective at dealing with any bureaucracy and your Gryffindor idealism gets all over everything like an oil stain.”

Hermione sputtered and they began to bicker.

But, that’s when it started, her infatuation. That’s when she had to start being honest with herself and her attraction to him because, by that point, in addition to considering him beautiful and clever, she respected him. Respect was hard earned in Hermione’s mind, especially after years of being manipulated by adults she was automatically meant to respect and defer to. Respect implied trust. Trust was everything to her.

So once she came to respect Malfoy in addition to everything else he was, she didn’t have a chance.

When she saw him covered in pygmy puffs and smiling, bright and happy, when later he told her being covered in pygmy puffs made him happy — that was that. She was in love.

Stupid, but it was irrefutable, and Hermione panicked. Truly panicked. She’d never felt this way before and there was a sense of wrongness to it. Not because her love was for Malfoy; no, it was because this love felt foreign, out of place. Like seeing a picture of something familiar but it’s warped and inherently wrong, chaotic and messy, occipital lobe misfiring, trying to make sense but not quite getting there.

Sometimes she wondered if her whole concept of love had been completely warped by her experiences. It wasn’t just a matter of falling in love. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were groomed and taught to believe that love, at its purest, conquered all. Love won wars. Love defeated all the dark. They’d seen it firsthand; it’s what kept them going. Ron and Hermione loved each other, certainly, it was bone deep and beyond them, but it wasn’t enough to sustain a relationship between two people who had so little in common when they weren’t trying to survive. After the war, the three of them learned some hard lessons about the concept of love. In the day-to-day minutiae and bullshit, it solved nothing.

Later, when they came together again with the understanding that the three of them were bound by something other, something certainly not typical, they lamented over the intensity and expectation of what it meant to share themselves in any capacity with another person. Hermione joked their codependency was literally magic. They didn’t get it. She loved them anyway.

So what she felt for Draco Malfoy hurt.

Something was wrong with Hermione.

—

Sometimes it seemed like he might feel the same way.

She’d catch him staring and he wouldn’t look away and not because he was trying to win a staring contest. He just wasn’t finished looking. Hermione would feel herself go warm and red from head to toe.

Hermione would smile at him and he wouldn’t smile back, but she knew him so well, she could see muscles in his face relaxing and others pulling up in an approximation of content. If she ever had the chance, she would crawl into his lap and tap and touch each bit of skin and muscle with the tip of her index finger, a brush of her thumb as his expression changed so she could feel what his face felt like when he was content, happy, angry, aroused.

She watched him, she knew him, and he was always careful not to touch people, and she realized it was a preemptive defense. He shied away from them, assuming they wouldn’t want to touch him, so he was doing them a favor.

Hermione was a naturally affectionate person, despite what they said about her being prim and uptight. She gave wonderful hugs, she reached for hands, patted shoulders, brushed and ruffled messy hair.

When she got comfortable with Malfoy, he suffered this from her and at first flinched but never complained. He stopped flinching eventually and started to lean into her touch. Hermione thought he might be saying or doing things that would get her to shove at him playfully or tug at his hand. She thought he might like when she brushed his hair back and told him he needed to get it cut.

She thought so many things.

Hermione thought after a while he was comfortable putting his hand on the small of her back or picking lint or cat hair off her clothes with a tsk.

She always wore an opal pendant her mother had given her, and the clasp of the small gold chain would get caught against it. Typical of any necklace, but whenever Malfoy saw it, he’d get annoyed, pause whatever he was doing and reach forward and adjust, his fingers glancing and sliding against her chest and collarbone.

And surely, this had to mean he felt the same, but at get-togethers, galas, parties and photos with the Prophet, he was touching other women too.

Not like he touched her. Malfoy was delicate with her. He touched these other women with confidence, held on to them tightly and maneuvered them around with deft and firm hands. He treated her like she might fly away.

The locket horcrux tore all three of them apart, dug and nestled into the deepest parts of their hearts, and they were all deeply affected by it even now. Every cruel thing it whispered and hissed at them wasn’t a lie. It took a long time for them to accept this. She tried to be self-aware and thought she did a good job acknowledging when she was being more unreasonable than the average person.

So she knew she was a jealous person, she knew she was selfish at the very core of herself and felt she might deserve a little bit more than the average person because of her intelligence, because in her mind, it made her better. That was wrong. She wasn’t better.

But. But. She wanted him so fucking much, and she kept telling herself the feeling was borne from that selfish place, she kept telling herself that the love blossoming in her heart wasn’t right and he could touch whoever he wanted and she had to be okay with that.

Then he’d move through the crowd to find her, pull at a curl. He’d cast cushioning charms on her heels because he’d noticed her limping, and fix that pendant that she sometimes pulled the clasp against on purpose.

Comments from her friends and acquaintances wondering if they were a couple, wondering what the fuck she was doing, wondering how they could ever think Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy could be together while huffing but saying the evidence was irrefutable, the chemistry undeniable.

But he just wouldn’t meet her halfway with any bit of intention. He was just always so gentle.

So she kept her mouth shut, but it festered; it grew, caused cracks and splits in her psyche, in her magic. It broke her apart when everything she knew about love was meant to pull her together.

—-

He was coming up on the completion of his 18 month probation.

When he told her he’d been offered a position as a liaison with the DIMC and had accepted, she smiled. He didn’t sound particularly excited, and it was almost an off-hand remark. May as well have started with an “Oh, by the way…”

“It’s odd how easy it all was,” Malfoy said. “I should be rotting in Azkaban. I am a fucking Death Eater. Yet here I am, offered a mid-level position with the DIMC, my coffers about to be released to me again — all I’ll need to do going forward is have my wand checked quarterly and to meet with a MLEP representative. Not even an Auror. As if I don’t have this Dark Mark..”

He shook his head and wondered at his fate. He sounded disgusted.

Hermione just tried to keep the smile on her face, and it was forced and fake and hurt her cheeks because she was really, really trying. “I’m so happy for you, Malfoy. You’ve paid your dues. Just one more field mission and you’re out of here.”

“I can’t wait.”

That hurt.

Their last field mission together was investigating an exotic magical creature dealer operating a highly illicit operation. Technically a task for the DMLE, but at that point Robards trusted Hermione and Malfoy to take care of things.

Well, Robards didn’t trust so much as they inappropriately delegated several tasks that should have never even been a consideration for the DRCMC. But Hermione had control issues and Malfoy was along for the ride. They were deemed highly competent, and by highly competent, no one in the DMLE wanted to challenge Hermione fucking Granger regarding her abilities, and yes, if she needed them, she’d let them know. It was the one bit of power the Ministry granted her, though quite unofficial.

So they moved in on the creature dealer, and unfortunately (to say the least), he had a Nundu in a cage, which he managed to unlock before they apprehended him. It was a juvenile, but it was a fucking Nundu.

It lunged for Malfoy, maw open and wide and panting poison and so so fast.

She’d try to look back on that moment and she simply couldn’t remember. Malfoy ended up doing the report. He spoke to the MLEP and even Aurors that came on scene, including Harry.

Apparently, as it was reported, Hermione Granger stepped in front of Draco Malfoy and cast a shield charm around him wandlessly. In tandem, she raised her wand and casted a particularly powerful severing spell and cut the Nundu in half in quick order. However, the poison of its breath hit her just slightly before it fell into pieces. Slightly was more than enough; she immediately began to hemorrhage, blood pouring out of all of her orifices.

She nearly died and was unconscious for a week.

When she woke up, Harry and Ron were there and told her what happened. She asked if Malfoy was alright. He was. He’d been by her side most of the time. Then she burst into tears because she didn’t want to kill the Nundu. Harry and Ron stroked her hair, kissed her forehead, temple, and cheeks at random intervals, and when she reached for either of them to be held, whenever one of them happened to be visiting, they didn’t hesitate. They told her she was so stupid, brilliant, strong, and no she was never allowed to die because what would they do, what could they do without her.

Then she woke up another morning, and he was there, seated in a chair close to her, reading a book that she couldn’t discern the title of. He was alive and beautiful and she couldn’t help but whisper, “Draco.”

He jumped and snapped the book shut. “Hello.”

Hermione smiled, but he didn’t. He looked angry.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said tightly. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired, sore, but alive,” she said, still smiling.

“Wonderful,” he muttered.

Hermione frowned and felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Malfoy clenched his jaw, and more tension seemed to coil inside him, and then he snapped. “No! No, I’m not fucking alright.”

“Draco–”

“Don’t. Don’t say my name. You don’t do that. We don’t do that.”

Hermione swallowed, licked her dry lips, and he was immediately thrusting a cup of water at her. “Drink,” he ordered like he always did.

She drank all of the water. He refilled it with quick Aguamenti and glared. Hermione drank.

Then she glared back. “Malfoy, what’s wrong?”

He clenched his jaw. “Nothing.”

“Mal–”

“You– you didn’t even hesitate. You always hesitate, you always overthink everything but you just moved. It was a matter of fucking seconds! No, less. Increments of seconds and you put yourself in front of me!” the words burst out of him loud and so angry.

“What’s wrong?” she asked again.

“Granger. You were willing to die for me.”

“You’re my partner,” she said.

“So typical Gryffindor martyrdom. You would have done it for anyone,” and he said it like he was consoled by the fact that he didn’t matter, that he wasn’t special. Like she wasn’t consumed by magic she’d pulled from a reservoir of her essential fucking self that she knew existed, but it had only ever been for Harry and Ron, for a cause. Had she chosen any of them, truly? With that magic? She erased herself from her parents’ minds with that magic but she couldn’t summon it to bring them back.

Was true love really such a fucking tragedy?

“No, I did it for you. I wanted to protect you and I did,” she said. ”You deserve that. Besides, you always take care of me.”

He stared at her incredulously, mouth opening, then closing. Then his expression morphed into something dark, furious.

“You don’t get to fucking say that, Granger. I deserve nothing, especially not from you.”

“You’re worth it.”

“Idiot. You’re a fucking idiot. I’m not worth your fucking life. Fuck.”

Hermione wasn’t an idiot.

“You—”

Hermione wasn’t a coward either.

“I love you,” she said.

Malfoy sat back in his chair. The sigh he let out seemed like it was at least a decade coming. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

Hermione could only laugh while her heart fucking broke broke broke but she was made and molded to be strong. She had to be. She’d seen and experienced so many terrible things in her life, and she was here, alive and was grateful for it. She knew this man and he would never be the end of her world.

“I just needed you to know,” she said finally.

He looked away from her. “Well, now I know.”

She smiled at him even though he wasn’t looking because what else could she do?

“It’s fine, Malfoy. We’re fine. You’ll be transferring in a few days if I have my dates right. They say I’ll be released tomorrow. Completely healthy. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I–”

His eyes were back on her. “Why? Why do you need me to know?”

Draco Malfoy was and always would be a self-entitled, arrogant, beautiful, poncy piece of shit. Truly, he was everything wrong with the wizarding world and muggle world at a glance, but he was also loyal, affectionate, broken, afraid, and always searching for validation that he was good and…

“You’re worthy, you deserve to be loved. You deserve to hear it.”

She watched him clench the arms of the chair, his knuckles going white.

Hermione was tired. “You asked.”

“I don’t know what to do with it,” he hissed. “I don’t want it.” He was truly distressed.

She’d just confessed everything, put herself on the line, and he looked like he wanted to apparate into fucking outerspace. She hadn’t expected him to reciprocate her feelings, but she didn’t expect him to be like this. She assumed he’d pat her hand awkwardly and say “thank you” in the worst-case scenario, but there was no thanks here. Hermione didn’t know how to protect herself from any of this.

“It’s fine. I’ll get over it,” she said, her voice high.

“Get over what? Thinking the best of me?” he sneered.

Draco was being cruel on purpose. He was digging for responses from her that he thought would be the truth.

Stupid man.

“I’ll get over being in love with you,” she said, she lied.

“But I do want you to be happy, more than I want most things. So go be happy. please. And I hope when we see each other again, we can continue on as friends,” Hermione said with more conviction than she felt.

Malfoy stood up and glared down at her. “Yes. Continue on. I’m glad you’re well.”

And then he was gone.

“Okay,” she said to an empty room. Hermione didn’t regret telling him the things she did. She loved him too much, but she acknowledged that part of her should mourn her misplaced devotion and move on. Let it go.

But that would never be something she did. She didn’t know how. So she swallowed it, and it was like a pit of fruit in her stomach, a stone embedded deep.

When she slept that night, she dreamt the stone sprouted. It took root, coiling around her insides, a system that was veins, arteries on top of the ones that already existed in her body. She dreamt that a flower bloomed against her heart and beat in sync with it. But it wasn’t blood pumping through these new vessels, it was everything she had to give, and when the leaves and branches grew out of her skin, she bled gold. Draco took shade underneath her, and the gold pattered through her leaves and hit his pale skin, splashes of light, and he was happy and unburdened.

—

Hermione woke up hungry. She passed on the barely edible food St. Mungo’s offered her that morning, wanting to be discharged as soon as possible. Ron and Ginny came to help her home and get her settled. After they left, she ate her usual breakfast and had her usual tea, and she was still starving.

The wide array of flowers she received in the hospital had been brought home and were scattered throughout her flat, beautiful and lovely. She walked by each bouquet, running her fingertips over multiple petals and stopped at an arrangement that had lily-of-the-valleys, drooping against and around white roses. She plucked a flower off its stem and brought it to her nose and salivated.

She was so fucking sad.

Hermione dropped the flower, sat on her couch, and cried.

—

The next day, Hermione arrived at their office at 7:30 am and looked at the wilting blush pink roses on the receptionist’s desk. Cassandra was one of those women who bought flowers for herself, and Hermione always admired her for giving herself that small treat. Something to brighten up her day and others’, simple, lovely.

A few petals had fallen, their edges brown and curling. Hermione picked one up and dragged it across her lips – so soft.

Hermione was so fucking hungry.

She pressed her tongue against it, and it was – it tasted like everything good in her life, every happy moment condensed, pressed, and distilled.

So she ate it. Then she ate all the loose petals, then she plucked most of the wilting roses and tongued and chewed and swallowed. She was full and there was only one rose left among green stems and thorns in a vase filled with old water.

Fortunately, she arrived early enough she could leave and come back with new pink roses and arrange them in Cassandra’s vase. She did all of this with methodical efficiency. One step at a time, eat flowers, procure more flowers. She didn’t want the new roses. Too fresh, they hadn’t steeped and drooped, hadn’t been loved and forgotten.

Then she sat down at her desk and wondered what the fuck just happened.

She felt as if in a trance. One part of her acknowledged she was being absolutely insane, and the other was satiated and happy.

Malfoy entered the office and frowned upon seeing her staring vacantly into space. “Alright, Granger?”

She expected to feel the pang of whatever remained of her heart, but she didn’t. Hermione was filled with pink rose petals and some of her fingertips were bleeding, slivers of thorns had cut into her, and she was inexplicably happy.

“Yes, Draco,” she sighed. “Your last day! Are you excited?”

“Ah, yes.”

“Wonderful!” she chirped.

“Are- are you drunk?”

“Nope.”

He eyed her warily and treated her like glass the rest of the day, and she let him. He was smoothing back those furling edges in her mind. He glanced her cheek with his fingers at one point, reaching for something beside her, brow furrowed. It was like sunlight.

Hermione caught up on her documentation and went about her business. She ignored Malfoy, for the most part.

Before he left for the day and for good, he approached her desk. “Granger, I apologize for the other day. You’re right. We continue on. And thank you for the well wishes.”

Her stomach was empty now and she craved hellebore and poppies. She craved wolfsbane and nightshade, she craved things that would end up in her blood and burn like acid if she was cut and drained.

“Of course, Draco,” she said quietly. “Good luck.

When she got home for the day and was not in his vicinity anymore, she well and truly freaked out in addition to being absolutely heartbroken.

She’d eaten flowers.

Perhaps it was a fugue state. She was under quite a bit of stress. With Malfoy leaving, she wouldn’t — she’d be alone again or saddled with someone else. Hermione sank down onto her worn and battered couch and stared at the black screen of her telly. Was she going to cry over him again?

Yes. She was.

She’d be alone, and he’d do what he said would. Invest thousands of galleons into the legislation they were pushing for, the projects they couldn’t get off the ground. He’d do it all with precision so every bit of the money was used accordingly and didn’t get lost in the bullshit bureaucracy. He’d likely do it under his mother’s name to sidestep conflict of interest with his new position, which was also suited to him.

The Malfoy name was old, rooted in muggle and wizarding history all across Europe. Dark mark or not (and sometimes because of it), he’d make headway across Europe and beyond fostering alliances. He’d meet beautiful women, he’d fuck them, he’d fall in love, he’d marry one. They’d have a beautiful child. And really it was so strange that he could achieve all of this after everything that had happened, after a whole fucking war where he was on the wrong side.

But she couldn’t really begrudge him even though she wanted to. She was desperate for a foothold, a reason she could dig her teeth into that promised her that he didn’t deserve any of the bounty that was coming to him because he was born with power.

She couldn’t. He was flawed but he was good, and she knew that ever since the day of his official sentencing, when they’d shaken hands and she’d wished nothing but the best for him.

She dreamt that she cried and her tears were hyacinth petals and she wept so many they made a bed she could sleep on, and he was there with her, telling her how sorry he was. He was there to hold her. She slept and he didn’t.

—

The next morning, she dressed with care. Hermione chose a pretty, flouncy ivory blouse and a pencil skirt. She ate toast with a blackberry jam Molly had made. She drank tea. Gulped down some water.

Hermione was fine.

She went to work. When she entered her office, his desk was gone. No problem. No fucking problem. She made her way to her desk and suddenly felt dizzy and like she would fall through the floor, so heavy and encumbered.

So this is love?

Something was so wrong. Hungry, she was so hungry. Her mouth was dry. She needed—

She needed lotuses and daisies. Before Hermione collapsed and hit her head on the edge of her desk, she wondered if Malfoy was having a nice first day. She hoped so.

—

When she woke up in a bed in St. Mungo’s (again), her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. She wanted hyacinth again, she wanted roses, she wanted to gnaw on petunias Hermione wasn’t stupid. The last time she’d felt well, she’d eaten almost a dozen flowers worth of rose petals.

Apparently, she needed fucking flowers. She looked around and there were none in her room this time. She probably hadn’t been there that long.

Harry and Ron burst into the room. They were her emergency contacts, after all. “Hermione, what bloody hell happened!” Ron bellowed, and she winced.

“I think I haven’t been eating enough lately,” she said and where was the lie?

She had to find some flowers and some answers..

Chapter Text

Once Hermione was discharged from St. Mungos (again), she owled Neville, requesting to visit that weekend. Hermione gave in and ate flowers — she bought roses, mostly, they were the only ones available since it was winter and they never quite hit the spot. It wasn’t like Hermione was knowledgeable about identifying flowers, but they were flashing in her mind’s eye and none were available to her.

Neville was puttering around in Greenhouse Four when she found him. He didn’t hear her enter, he was so focused on trimming the leaves of what looked to be a very carnivorous plant that seemed to be trembling under his attention and stretching toward him for more, docile but insistent.

She greeted him gently and he looked over at her and smiled.

Hermione suddenly felt angry and regretful that she hadn’t fallen in love with a man like Neville, but she shook it away. No time for that now.

“Hermione, hello!”

He set his trimmers down and wiped his hands on his smock before taking it off. Then he grabbed her in a tight hug, and she felt her eyes prick with tears as she returned it. Alright, maybe there was still a little time to be regretful.

When they separated, he put his hands on her shoulders and looked at her intently. “How are you?”

“I… Neville, I need flowers.”

He frowned and dropped his hands. “Well, I can certainly help you with that. But your letter made it seem like you had a much more dire issue.”

There was no point in keeping anything from Neville.

“Something is wrong with me,” she whispered. ““Neville. I wake up hungry and I want to eat flowers. I keep dreaming of being a tree, a flower— vines.”

“...What?”

“I need to eat flowers or I get— I basically exhibit symptoms of starvation, even dehydration. But it’s winter now. I crave certain flowers, and I’m not certain what all of them are exactly and–”

“Hermione, what?” he said, of course looking deeply uncomfortable and confused.

Hermione let out a sob. “I’m scared and I’m hungry! I want– I want camellia. Do you have it?”

“Ah, yes actually, in one of the other green houses…”

“Yes, okay. Let’s go,” she said, making for the exit of the greenhouse and holding the door open, looking back. Neville remained where he was looking flabbergasted.

“Neville.”

Neville started and made his way through the door past her, eyeing her warily as if she might be some kind of wild creature, and at this point, he wouldn’t be wrong.

They walked in silence, and Neville shortened his strides to match her slow pace. “Hermione, you’re so pale. Do you need to take my arm?” he asked, offering his elbow.

“Thank you,” she said, holding on to him. They arrived at Greenhouse Six and Hermione gasped audibly. Flowers everywhere.

“Oh,” she sighed reverently.

Neville maneuvered her down a row and then stopped her in front of a gorgeous, perfect camellia. “May I have a pink one, Neville?” she whispered.

Neville cleared his throat, removed his small shears from the pocket of his smock, gently clipped the flower, and handed it to her. She cradled it in her palms and thumbed at its petals.

Then she proceeded to stuff the whole thing in her mouth. She closed her eyes and tasted. It tasted like love and longing, and she hummed. Hermione chewed and swallowed and opened her eyes.

Neville already had another one ready for her, and as usual, she could only be grateful to him. After two more pink camellias and one red, Hermione felt satisfied and much better.

Neville waited.

Hermione wiped the back of her mouth with her fist. “Ah, do you have time for tea? We can talk more?”

“Yes, I actually have an excellent jasmine tea I think you’ll probably enjoy.”

—

Neville told her he would do some research and ask his colleagues if they’d ever come across anything like her affliction. Hermione blushed and felt sheepish. It was a testament to how much she’d gone off the deep end that she hadn’t begun her own research.

Her friend walked her through Greenhouse Six and took clippings of various types of flowers and put them under a stasis charm before placing them into a burlap sack. Hermione felt satiated and dazed and didn’t say much. What else was there to say?

Neville hugged her tightly and handed her the sack and told him to owl him if anything changed or if she needed more flowers.

Hermione thanked him and went home.

She ate another pink camellia.

That night she dreamt she was thorns on the outside. Draco pressed against her, trying to hold her until he was hissing in pain, but he kept reaching, and she kept trying to pull him. He made it through her thorny bramble, and inside she was cotton bolls, she was poppies, and soft moss. She kissed his hurt away with lips made of bluebells.

—

Two weeks following her very strange visit with Neville, Hermione felt… well, quite frankly, fucking fantastic. Physically, at least. She did have to owl Neville to ask for more pink camellias, which she craved more than any other flower. Occasionally she had a taste for purple hyacinth and daffodils. Hermione found she had no desire or need for other food, though she found herself drinking obscene amounts of water and took to carrying a large muggle water bottle around, which earned her a lot of strange looks, but she didn’t care.

Actually, she’d been getting a lot of strange looks even without the water bottle. The last time she saw Harry, he blinked at her for a moment and said she was looking “nice.”

The last time Harry had said she looked nice was during the Yule Ball.

Hermione had been having a lot of good hair days recently.

So she’d take the win considering she was near starving to death just a couple of weeks ago.

Her chest was still achy thinking of Draco. She hadn’t seen him for almost three weeks, and she missed him. She found herself wanting to visit him in the DIMC to see how he was faring, but she doubted she’d be welcome in any capacity. And God, that hurt too.

Hermione took a swig of water and exhaled. Today was the first Friday of the month, and it was now a year’s long tradition for a group of former students from the classes of ‘97 and ‘98 to descend on The Leaky Cauldron, or more bluntly, a rowdy crowd that had survived a fucking war looking to get pissed together.

She wondered if Draco would go. He always did. Hermione hoped he would. Maybe they could meet as friends?

Hermione snacked on forsythia as she contemplated what to wear. She eyed the sage green turtleneck sweater dress that Ginny forced her to buy that she hadn’t gotten the nerve to wear. It ended quite a few inches above the knees, and while the top half and sleeves were loose, the bottom half was ruched and quite … conforming. Ginny said it made her arse look phenomenal while making an hourglass motion with her hands.

Fuck it. Why not?

She was running late, so she slipped into the dress and some brown ankle boots and took a quick look in the mirror on her way out. Her hair was rather larger than usual, coiling every which way, but not frizzy, so it would do. She frowned for a moment because it looked shot with gold, which she hadn’t noticed before. The lightbulb above her flickered, and she attributed it to that with a shrug.

Hermione grabbed her beaded bag, threw on her usual tatty peacoat, and floo’d to the Leaky Cauldron feeling strangely drunk already.

—

The heat of the bar hit her hard, and she shrugged her peacoat off immediately and draped it over her arm, making her way to the other side that at this point had been symbolically cordoned off for them.

She immediately looked for Draco, as she always, did but then got distracted by a very loud, “HERMIONE FOOKIN’ GRANGER!”

A drunk Seamus held up his tankard of ale toward her, a wide, lascivious grin on his face. Honestly, not an unusual occurrence for him to announce entrances, and she smiled back at him, but then instead of the immediate raucous cries of greeting, things became a bit quiet, and Hermione stumbled a bit, feeling unsure with so many eyes on her.

“She is the goddess Chloris!” Luna sang from somewhere.

Things somehow grew quieter.

“AND I’D FUCK HER!” Luna also supplied helpfully.

This was met by more appropriate shouts and cheers, and the moment was over. Hermione shook her head, grinning now, and moved toward her regular booth where Harry, Ron, and Ginny were sitting.

“Hermione!” Ginny squealed, scooting out of the booth, standing. Ginny yanked Hermione’s jacket off her arm and threw it at Harry. “You’re wearing the fucking dress! Hermione. What have you done to yourself?”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “I’m wearing the dress like you said.”

“No, not-” Ginny started and then looked over Hermione’s shoulder. She groaned. “Oh, Merlin. Here she comes.”

“Fuck off, Weasley,” Pansy Parkinson announced as Hermione whirled around.

“Park–”

Parkinson swiped a thumb across Hermione’s lips mid-sentence. “Not lipstick. I suppose it could be charmed, but you wouldn’t think to do that.”

Then she swept fingers across Hermione’s cheeks. Then she tugged at her hair. “Did you get your usual bushy mess done just to make him miserable?”

“Parkinson!” Hermione yelled, slapping her hand away. “What is the problem!”

“I never took you for purposefully cruel, Granger,” Pansy said, almost barely discernible.

“Parkinson,” Hermione growled, very irritated now. “What are you on about?”

The other witch glared, but before she could comment, they felt a draft of cold air. Hermione looked up to see Draco, Zabini, and George come in from the alley, presumably after having a smoke.

Hermione’s whole body flushed and softened with pleasure seeing him, irritation immediately dashed away. She vaguely heard a soft exhalation of “Oh, Granger” from Parkinson.

“Is– is she glowing?” she may have heard Ron ask from behind her.

Draco was shaking his head, smirking at something George was saying when he looked in their direction and spotted her. The smirk fell from his face as his eyes widened, moving up and down the length of her body, then a look of pure devastation crossed his features, and she may have missed it if she didn’t know him so well, if she wasn’t looking so closely. Then his expression became passive and he nodded at her.

Hermione was suddenly hit with an overwhelming and intense craving for amaranth and red (deep, deep red) roses. She turned to look for Neville, but by then she was being pulled into George’s arms in a tight, all-encompassing hug that was a signature Weasley trait.

He kissed her cheek and rumbled, “Blimey, Hermione. New perfume? You smell wonderful.”

“Hi, George. No, I’m not wearing perfume.”

He smiled at her quizzically and backed away. She met Zabini’s gaze and he arched his usual imperious brow and she returned the gesture. This never failed to get a smirk out of him.

Then there was Draco. He had been standing back, same blank expression, but now approached what was getting to be a rather large group of people around their booth.

“Hello! How are you?” she blurted out like an idiot, an overexcited puppy. She was just so happy to see him, and muscle memory had her reaching out to touch his arm like she’d always done as a greeting.

Draco flinched away from her.

Stupid, Hermione.

“Doing well, Granger,” he said. “Yourself?”

His words were polite and impersonal. They would not be meeting again as friends tonight, and she felt so stupid hoping they might, that she’d get some modicum of affection from him, that things could go back to some semblance of something. Hermione knew Draco didn’t hate her, that he cared, or at least he used to, but she just didn’t understand how her gesture of love, how protecting him could result in this.

She was determined to find out, but for now…

“I’m great, thanks!” she said, gave an awkward wave, and then made her way to the bar with the intention of getting utterly pissed.

Marvin the bartender sidled up with his wand. “The usual, Miss Hermione?”

“Hm, maybe something different. Do you have any flower flavored liquor?”

“Let’s see,” he said, turning to his shelves. “A lavender gin, a grapefruit rose vodka…”

“I’ll take a double shot of the vodka, please!”

“No mixer?” he said, eyeing her curiously over his shoulder.

“No mixer.”

Marvin poured her double, peering at her suspiciously. He pushed it toward her. “Shall I put it on your tab?”

She grabbed the glass and nodded. Hermione threw it back and reveled in the burn in her throat and the heat in her chest, and yes, there was certainly the rose flavour there. Imbued, distilled, and so much of what she wanted.

Marvin made his way around shortly after, and she asked for another. He left the bottle with her. Hermione sighed and just stared at the grainy texture of the bartop for a moment when she saw a figure in her periphery. She knew it was him without even looking, sidling next to her.

“What are you doing?”

“Drinking.”

Draco shoved the bottle over, out of her reach. “You can’t even handle a butterbeer at the best of times. That’s enough.”

Always 20 seconds ahead. Always nagging. Always taking care of her. Until he wasn’t.

Hermione turned to glare at him. “Parkinson accosted me earlier,” she said. “She told me I was being cruel. She’s only ever spoken to me in regard to you. All around disapproval and bitchiness on her part, as always.” Hermione flexed her hand, and the bottle came back to her. She poured herself another double. “Why would she think I’m being cruel?”

Draco moved the bottle away from her again. Hermione took her shot, roses and grapefruit and fire.

She pulled the bottle back– more magic. She was drunk and annoyed that he was right again.

“I don’t know why Pansy thinks the way she does,” he said.

“I didn’t change my appearance to make you upset. Why on Earth would it make you upset? I just wanted to wear this dress and feel good about myself and– and I wanted to see you because I missed you– I miss–”

So drunk. She was so fucking drunk and hot. Hermione stood suddenly. She needed air.

When she stumbled, he grabbed her by the elbow to steady her. She jerked away from him and made her way out the side entrance and sighed at the cool, not necessarily fresh air, but she’d take it.

And he was still there. “Merlin, you’re a mess. I’ll fetch Potter or Weasley for you.”

“You approached me. You followed me out here.”

“No one seemed to be paying attention to the fact that you were getting completely pissed by yourself,” he sneered.

“They were paying attention,” she said quietly. “They just knew you’d take care of me.”

Draco snorted. “I was trying to make sure you were safe so I could ensure–”

Hermione sighed in irritation. “I’m fine.”

“Well, then–”

“Except I’m not fine!” She said shrilly. “Malfoy, you don’t have to be in love with me. And even if you don’t think you deserve my love, why would you push me away? I would be fine with us being friends–”

“Granger, don’t do this.”

Hermione stamped her foot like a child. “If not now, when? It’s not like I ever see you. I bet you weren’t even going to come tonight! I bet Zabini and Nott had to pester you.”

She could see his cheeks pinken even in the dim light. Hermione rolled her eyes. “Well? Are you going to answer me? I know you don’t hate me…”

“No, I don’t hate you,” he ground out.

“I always thought maybe you felt a little more for me than just platonic. I always thought I could work with that, nurture it–”

“Please stop.”

“--especially after your probation ended and you weren’t working for me anymore. I feel crazy, Malfoy. Other people saw it too, though. They said we were disgusting together, with the affection. And I liked being disgusting with you–”

Quite suddenly, Draco had both of his hands around her neck and pushed her against the cold, dirty brick of the Leaky Cauldron. His thumbs slid up the underside of her jaw and stopped at her cheeks, and stroked them once, twice.

“Stop. You’re drunk,” he whispered.

She didn’t feel hungry for flowers now, but she did feel hungry. Hermione felt desperate and starving, and it was for him.

He moved closer and pressed his body against hers. “You don’t know what you look like, do you? You don’t know what you do to me? You never have, and now you seem to be punishing me for not telling you. You drive me fucking insane,” he growled against her cheek, and the sound reverberated through her. Her breath hitched.

He stroked her bottom lip with his thumb and she pursed her lips and kissed it, touched it with a flick of her tongue and she tasted every flower in Greenhouse #6 and she gasped at the intensity of it.

He jerked both his hands away and went to take a step back, and she wanted to weep at the loss of him. She almost did.

It was clear he wasn’t going to kiss her.

Draco Malfoy thought he was a coward, and because he was a Malfoy, whatever he thought, whatever he believed, had to be reality and so it was.

So she grabbed his shirt and yanked him forward and kissed him.

It was a hard press of lips against lips, awkward and fumbling because she was drunk, scared, and desperate, but she felt a fission of raw energy move through her, and in her mind’s eye, she felt the flower nestled against her heart unfurl its petals and stretch, almost as if waking up from a deep sleep, and the flower seemed to sigh with pleasure and Hermione was sighing with pleasure against his lips. It had to be enough, and now was probably the time to move away and apologize, but then she was being shoved back against the dirty brick again and his tongue was sweeping her the seam of her lips and she opened for him immediately. His hands moved to cradle her face again and he groaned like a man dying while she still clutched at his shirt, pulling so she could be as close to him as possible and he pressed against her again–

Hermione dimly heard a door opening, and then Draco was gone suddenly, her hands empty, and she blinked and looked over to see Zabini look between them, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. And to his credit, he looked sheepish.

Zabini took the cigarette out of his mouth with two pinched fingers. “I– I’m sorry,” and it was probably the most contrite Zabini had ever been in his life.

Hermione looked back at Draco. He was illuminated by the warm light from inside the bar and looked disheveled, flushed, beautiful and anguished.

“No,” he said hoarsely, and then shook his head and cleared his throat. “No, it's fine. I’m going back in. Coming, Granger?”

Hermione was still panting, but Draco seemed to have it together already, and to her horror, she felt her throat tighten and felt the sting of tears begin in her eyes. “Shortly. Zabini, do you mind if I bum a smoke?”

“Not at all.”

Draco looked between them, his eyes narrowed. “Fine,” he bit out and went inside.

The door closed. Zabini and Hermione were doused in shadows, the light of a waning moon, and the cherry of the cigarette he’d lit. He held it to her and she took it.

“Didn’t know you smoked?” he said while lighting his own with a flick of his fingertips.

“Sometimes when I’m drunk,” she said, taking a deep drag and exhaling.

They were silent for a moment. Hermione didn’t know Zabini well, but he was the rare person she could be around without filling the air with words.

“He’s been a mess over you for years,” Zabini said. “You keep blindsiding him.”

Hermione considered this. Her mind was a haze of flowers and heartbreak, but she could and did recognize that Draco felt something for her, especially after that kiss, but she didn’t know the extent of it, and so, as always, she felt she was on uneven footing.

“I put myself out there for him, completely. Twice now, if not more. I’m not sure what else I can do without continuing to make a fool of myself. Without continuing to hurt myself,” she said quietly.

They both took drags at the same time and the cherries glowed against their faces.

“You’ve done your part,” Zabini said.

The tears came unbidden. “Not enough.”

“You’ve always been too much, Granger,” Zabini murmured. “Take a step back now.”

“But he won’t come to me–”

“If he doesn’t, then you’ll know, won’t you? Draco has had very little control over his life. This is one more thing you can give him,” Zabini said, dropping his cigarette butt and stamping it out before vanishing it.

Hermione did the same.

“Zabini…” she started. And what she wanted to say was she couldn’t wait. She wanted to know. She wanted to keep throwing herself at him. She wanted him to see her and not forget her because she could never forget him.

Instead, she nodded and said, “Control.”

Zabini had been reaching to open the door as she spoke, and he paused. “Granger– asking someone to step back is a big ask for anyone. For him, for me, for all of us in there,” he said, gesturing at the door with a nod. “But especially for you.”

He wasn’t wrong, but it still rankled her.

“You don’t know me, Zabini.”

He grinned and it was probably the first time she’d seen him smile, white teeth gleaming in the dark. “No, but he does, and he never shuts up about you.

Zabini opened the door. “Ready?”

That night she dreamt they were on a large, soft bed with white sheets. It was humid and the smell of sex and flowers permeated the air. She rode him, his cock deep inside her, and she was sweating red rose petals. They fell against his pale skin as he held onto her hips and thrust back into her. The petals were wet and broke against the friction, bruised and pressed against fingertips, thighs, and knees, against torsos when he sat up and she leaned down, and they kissed while grinding into each other. When they fell over and collapsed into each other, the sheets were stained red as if covered in blood. He whispered she could have all of him while she dragged a petal across his chest, just above his heart, and watched the sweep of the stain as if it were a brand. He told her it was.

Chapter Text

Hermione decided to follow Blaise’s advice and just go about her life. He was right, there really was nothing left to do.

A few weeks went by since she had kissed Draco, and she hadn’t seen him since. Her time was well occupied with work and her whole other issue of subsisting off flowers.

Neville greeted her outside of Greenhouse Six. Hermione mostly craved camellias and roses at this point, and thankfully Neville always had a consistent, tasty supply for her.

“Hi, Neville,” she said with great enthusiasm. These visits were the highlight of her week. Neville, bless him, had taken to Hermione’s issue as a horticulturist and, funnily enough, a chef. He was intensely curious to see what variations, breeds, and hybrids of flowers she enjoyed the most.

They both tried not to think about how fucking weird it was.

As they entered the greenhouse, Neville rubbed the back of his neck, which was always a sign that he was anxious about something.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing – not really. Well, it’s just that I think I may have found some answers for you.Hermione, I had to dig deep and make a lot of, er, awkward inquiries within the community for this information.”

She felt afraid of whatever he was about to say.

“So, getting right to it, from what I can tell, this is sort of an urban legend within the community — I imagine you’ve never heard of Hanahaki Disease,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck again.

“No, I haven’t,” she said slowly.

“Apparently, it is a magical disease caused by unrequited love. The, ah, victim, feels the grief of their unreturned love so strongly that it corrupts their magic, and they begin to cough up flowers at the start. As the disease progresses, the flowers overtake their bodies by growing inside, and then, unless their love is returned, they die… quite a terrible death.”

Hermione stared.

Nevilled looked up at the glass ceiling and let out a large exhalation and met her gaze. “There is some record of it– old journals and notations of healers that date far back. From what I have been able to gather, there have been only a few handful of cases around the world, and most of the community has dismissed it as poor translations and a lack of terminology to describe other symptoms and afflictions.”

“But Neville, I’m not– well, I don’t think I’m dying.”

“From what I’ve gathered of those few accounts, as the disease progresses, the victim’s body breaks down and is overtaken by the flora… you are clearly not growing weaker. But Hermione, you– have you seen yourself? The changes are pretty significant. You look–” Neville bounced up and down on his feet and looked over at a rose bush, flowers in full bloom and perfect. He was blushing. ”Divine, otherworldly. I think you couldn’t possibly become more… well, more, but every week, you are.”

Hermione knew she was blushing now as well, but he wasn’t wrong. It was getting to be a problem. People stared, they walked into walls, and columns, and other people, trying to keep their eyes on her, trying to figure out what they were seeing.

Meetings at work were becoming impossible. Whenever she had lunch with Harry and Ron when they happened to not be working in the field, they gawped at her. When she snapped at them to stop, they were always very contrite and asked if she’d changed her diet, or found a new charm, or makeup, or something.

Hermione wouldn’t say she was ugly by any means, but she wasn’t anything special. She had no idea what to do with this attention. She has no idea what to do with her reflection in the mirror.

Sometimes she didn’t feel real.

She could hear the tone in Neville’s voice. He wasn’t complimenting her. He was worried.

“Hermione,” Neville said after a moment. “Are you in love?”

“Yes.”

“And do they love you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?”

Neville seemed to remember himself and continued down a row, and she followed him. “I suggest you find out.”

Hermione scoffed though she was following Neville closely, excited for a new stash. “And how would I do that?”

“Ask them,” Neville said, stopping in front of the camellias.

She hummed, reaching out for her favorite treat, and Neville slapped the top of one of her hands and she gasped,snatching them back.

“Hermione,” he snapped. Neville never snapped! “Even if the symptoms aren’t the same, I think these things are related. You aren’t yourself. How much research did you actually do?”

None. She hadn’t investigated what was happening to her at all. Hadn’t so much as cracked open a book, and the realization stunned her.

She knew her expression said it all.

Neville shook his head and stepped past her. He began clipping flowers and casting a stasis charm for each one before handing them to her. She dropped them in her bag.

“Neville, who sent you the information?”

“I was eventually referred to Akiko Matsumoto, a very renowned herbologist. She was most knowledgeable on the subject.”

“Did you ask her why she was knowledgeable?”

Neville brushed his hand over the plants in front of him as if reassuring them. “No. I only just received a letter back from her that detailed most of …this.”

“I’ll write to her.”

“You certainly should.”

“Neville… Do you think I’m dying?”

He paused and swallowed. “I don’t know, but I have a bad feeling.”

—

Hermione wrote a long letter to Akiko Matsumoto as soon as she arrived home from Hogwarts. Neville advised her to be as up front as possible and give all the details she could. When Hermione expressed concern for her own reputation and, well, sounding insane, Neville again became visibly irritated.

This is your life, Hermione. Sounding insane is the least of your concerns. Just write the letter.

Hermione took it to the public owlery right away. Even the owl she chose couldn’t seem to take its beady, inquisitive eyes off her. “Go on,” she chided.

It blinked and ruffled its feathers as if waking up from a dream. Hermione sighed. She should be more afraid.

—

In the meantime, Hermione was swamped at work, especially without Draco as a partner. She wasn’t sure how she’d managed all of this on her own without him before.

The biggest thing on her agenda in the coming few days was meeting with a representative from the MACUSA regarding aconite. The Americans were flush with it, and instances of lycanthropy were rare in the States. Hermione had been exchanging letters back and forth with the head of their Magical Creatures Division, and pending this in-person meeting, Hermione was hopeful to have a new resource for the ingredient. She was grateful and, well, completely besotted over the fact that Draco had taken it upon himself to delegate and secure the meeting with them with his new role in the DIMC. She hadn’t seen him for over a month and she was so excited to get him in any capacity. It was depressing, really.

The evening prior, Hermione stared at herself in the mirror in her loo and frowned. She was beautiful, to put it mildly, literally glowing – a light sheen of gold, the color of sunlight on leaves during a morning in Spring. Ridiculous, but there it was.

She’d attempted to cast some dimming charms on herself and other smaller ones to change her appearance. Nothing worked. Then she tried brushing out her dry hair, always a guarantee to raise it to new bushy, unsightly heights. The brush merely glided through her coils and even seemed to give them more bounce.

Fuck.

Then Hermione decided to, much to her consternation, skip her evening meal of camellias and roses that evening and then her breakfast the next morning. That did the trick, somewhat. She wasn’t glowing so much, even though her skin remained dewy and supple, her eyes bright, hair still perfect. She grumbled and threw her curls up in a tight bun on the top of her head, sticking several pins in it.

Then, she transfigured a fork into a large, unbecoming pair of glasses, reminiscent of her grandfather’s pair when she was a young girl. Now she looked more austere, and Hermione didn’t know what had gone so absolutely fucky in her life that she was trying to make herself less attractive.

Hermione decided on a white oxford (which was tighter around her chest than she remembered), a thrifted grey wool a-line skirt (which was also tighter than she remembered, good god, how many calories were in flowers?), black tights, and black mary janes. She threw on a black sweater vest for good measure before shrugging on her robes. Excellent. Now she was a spinster librarian type, as it should be, and frankly, as it always had been. Time to go.

Hermione stopped by her office to collect her notes and made her way to the conference room on the level of the DIMC. She got a few glances, but no one was running into things. She felt pleased with herself even though she was starving.

Hermione opened the door and sailed rather confidently into the conference room and came face to face rather abruptly with one of the most beautiful people she’d ever seen in her life. She stumbled back and said beautiful person grabbed her by the wrist to steady her.

“Hey, sorry,” said a deep American accent. “You alright?”

Hermione’s second thought, after the whole beautiful person thing, was that she wanted to bite his lips. They were plush and dusky pink, against dark brown skin, dark eyes, and–

He smiled and held out a hand. “Gavin Clark, MACUSA Auror. You’re Hermione Granger. I can’t tell you what an honour it is to meet you.”

Hermione got a hold of herself, and they shook hands firmly, “I am. So nice to meet you, too,” and she had to bite back a giggle.

Clark stepped to the side and a tiny, yet formidable looking woman with green spiky hair approached and snatched up Hermione’s hand. “Miss Granger, good to meet you finally. Laila Moreno. I’ve enjoyed our correspondence over the past few months. You really don’t dick around, so I trust we can come to an agreement sooner than later. Your man over there with the pretty angel face has already proven to be shrewd as hell, though I bet he thinks he’s charming. He’d be right, of course. It’s mostly the accents, for damn sure, though you’re damned good looking yourself. What’s in the water around here? That’s why I brought Clark. Need my own pretty man power.”

“Laila, I was assigned to you for security reasons…” Clark said, all exasperated amusement.

“Yes, yes.”

Hermione smiled, eyes wide. This woman was a force. This was going to be interesting. She looked over the small woman’s head and saw Draco sitting at the conference table, leaning back with his arms across his chest, an inscrutable expression on his face, but she knew him well, knew his body language by heart. He was irritated. Her chest ached at the sight of him anyway. Pretty angel face, indeed.

Hermione rounded the table and sat next to Draco and greeted him. He nodded at her tightly. Her mouth began to water, suddenly craving yellow roses. That was a new one. She swallowed.

Clark sat off to the side, and Moreno directly across from them. They began deliberation. All in all, it was a positive meeting, and the following day, they would meet again to discuss details related to shipping, preservation, and cost after they submitted their reports to their respective superiors.

“Don’t suppose you can tell us where we can get dinner and a beer around here this evening?” Moreno asked as they all made their way toward the lifts.

“There’s a few places, but a lot of us tend to frequent The Leaky Cauldron. It’s a dive bar, but it’s always a nice time and the food is good,” Hermione said.

Moreno nodded. “Sounds great.”

“Would you both care to join us?” Clark asked.

What Hermione intended to do that evening was rush home and stuff her face with yellow and red roses and start poring through the notes Neville had given her.

But they were both so interesting and Gavin Clark was so beautiful.

“I’d love to,” Hermione said.

Draco was standing just behind her, and she could feel tension radiating off him like a physical thing. “Yes,” he said. Hermione could almost hear his teeth grinding. What on Earth was his problem?

The lifts opened.

“We’ll meet you there at 7,” Moreno said as she and Clark stepped into the lift.

Oh. Well. “Alright!”

Then they were gone, and Hermione looked at Draco in confusion. “You’re not headed to your level?”

“No.”

Yellow and red roses and petunias.

“...Is there something you need?”

“A word,” he bit out. “In your office.”

He brushed past her and she followed. Hermione felt bewildered. He’d been tense ever since she walked into that conference room. They usually worked so well in a professional capacity, especially during meetings like the one they just had. It seemed everything between them had changed.

She was so hungry.

They entered her office, and he flicked his wrist, and the door slammed shut. She jumped.

“Malfoy, what–?”

“What the fuck is this?” Draco snapped, gesturing at her body. “You just woke up and decided to fulfill the sexy librarian look of literally every bloke’s fantasies? What are you playing at?”

“What?”

“You don’t even wear glasses!”

“They’re very unattractive glasses. I thought I looked rather, er, understated and severe, to be honest.”

“What is with you lately? First a goddamn sexpot at the Leaky, then this– this! What’s next? Are you going to show up to Potter’s kid’s birthday party in your Hogwarts uniform?” he all but yelled, pacing.

“...Is that something you’re into?”

He ignored her. Probably for the best.

“That prat Clark was undressing you with his eyes.”

Hermione blinked owlishly. “A beautiful man like that? Do you really think so?”

This apparently was the wrong thing to say.

“Beautiful?” he hissed.

She wanted to ask if he was absolutely certain he didn’t have feelings for her because he was certainly acting like he did, and then maybe that would confirm she wasn’t stricken with Hanahaki Disease and they could live happily ever after, or some approximation of it.

But, Hermione remembered Blaise’s words. Draco needed control.

So she chose not to say anything at all and just looked at him askance.

Draco closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, clenching his fists. “Fuck. I bet if I wanted, I could hold you right now. I could kiss you and touch you. You’d let me push up that swotty fucking skirt and let me fuck you over your desk.”

Hermione went hot all over and immediately felt desire pool low and intense.

Control and red roses.

“All of the above,” she said. “But you always did hedge your bets.”

And she simply couldn’t help herself because at heart, she was a Gryffindor.

“Come on, Draco. Bet.”

Chapter Text

In a past life, Draco was a prince, a little lordling, content and confident with his place in the world, and then he simply wasn’t. Did he want to be a Death Eater? Yes. He wanted to be just like his father because Draco loved his father and Lucius loved him. But Draco learned, far too late, the cost of pride.

“I hope things go well for you both.” She’d said after the trial – and said by anyone else at any other moment it would have sounded shallow and ultimately be inconsequential. But no. It was said by Granger while Potter and Weasley hovered around her looking wary.

They’d just saved his mother and him from Azkaban and he just didn’t fucking understand it. Draco was in awe but a seed of resentment took root inside him. Yes, his mother deserved to be redeemed, but not him.

When he took her small hand in his and felt the callouses he never would have expected because women in his sphere always had soft hands, he really looked at her and she was frail and wan, but her eyes were always bright. He squeezed her hand and she squeezed back and they shook. Draco felt his throat tighten. He hadn’t felt even the urge to cry since 6th year.

He knew then, if he wasn’t careful, Hermione Granger would be the death of him. Not true death (okay, maybe), but she would murder and massacre all his expectations, all his assumptions, and preconceived notions that had governed his life. He might not ever see her again in person, but even then he knew he’d hear about her accomplishments. Draco would have his ear against the grapevine, waiting for her to kill him.

But then, he did see her again, two years later.

He was to see her almost everyday. But Draco was different now, wasn’t he? He’d had time to think and pull himself together. He would be working 18 months as an underling for the witch that played such a monumental role in his life. They’d barely had any interaction but every one of those interactions was acknowledged, felt, and catalogued in the organizational system of his mind through Occlumency. Mind magic that his godfather and aunt cultivated with no gentleness. Every good memory that he accessed and organized was always left with a tinge of violence and suspicion. Good memories were always something to be wary of because they might reveal a weakness.

This was true of all of them except the memories that involved his mother when he was a young child, those were the only soft ones he had and he protected them in his mind with the rose garden he often associated her with. He didn’t often access that part of his mind – he let it overgrow and it was wild, beautiful, and covered in thorns and safe from everyone, including himself.

And what was left after violence and suspicion and thorns?

He was always ready for anything.

Draco thought he understood helplessness, but he realized he only understood it in tandem to his survival and the survival of his family.

He thought he knew the ups and downs of being laid out, neck bared, anticipating the inevitable. So in all the maneuvering in his mind, all the steps he was trying to take to get ahead, all the foresight that he implemented, he thought he had a handle on the trajectory of his life.

But then…

Pride and arrogance cost him but, again again again love cost him the most.

And it didn’t take long at all for Draco to fall in love with Hermione Granger. She didn’t trust him at first and he was grateful for it but eventually she wended her way through his life like she wasn’t even trying. Like just the very proximity of him made her fond, like getting to know him meant something.

People didn’t touch him but she always did. No one had taught her, he assumed. Physical touch wasn’t common in proper wizarding society. Potter was raised by muggles and Weasley was raised poor and with lesser standards, wasn’t he? So how could she know it wasn’t right, it wasn’t what he knew … and then it was everything to him to be touched with those calloused fingers and he loved them against his skin, through his hair. She touched the people she loved like they belonged to her.

He touched her too, and she let him. Her skin always flushed and she was always so warm. She looked at him like he was more than the parts that were always violence and suspicion and he thought consisted of all of him. She touched him like he was whole and worthy.

Draco hadn’t stood a fucking chance and it was cruel, in a way, how humbled he was when he was being offered everything he didn’t deserve.

--- 

The thing about Occlumency was that it was like a muscle, one that he’d strengthened and trained with regularity. To some degree, he was constantly flexing it as if he was holding something light – an empty crate, a blanket, or a small book. Draco was always perceiving his reality not quite as it was. He felt everything as if had been passed through a sieve, where it came to him as something more manageable, something he could choose to deal with, something that might always be a threat.

You’re always twenty seconds ahead of me.

Snape had told him repeatedly that his propensity for Occlumency was monumental and that if they weren’t in a midst of a war, Draco should be studied because of his natural ability. Snape also warned him that if he didn’t stop, Draco would be completely caught unaware and destroyed by anything that broke his shields. Yes, it was ultimately bad but it had been working for him quite well.

When the Nundu leapt out of its cage, time seemed to slow, and Draco stopped occluding completely for the first time in years. He knew he was going to die and he wanted to feel it. He thought of nothing else other then dying and being dead and he was ready. He was feeling everything for the first time in a long time and it was merely accepting the inevitability of his demise. For his sake, he hoped it was quick and for his mother’s sake, he hoped his corpse wouldn’t be too mangled or the Nundu had the decency to swallow him in a few bites until nothing was left.

And then.

She didn’t remember what happened next but he did. He had no choice. Reality was bearing down on him in blinding kaleidoscopic colors with weight that his mind could no longer bear. It buckled and collapsed.

Granger stepped in front of him – no, she glided, she walked on fucking air, she wasn’t there and then she was. Granger pushed him back with her magic. There was no way anyone should be able to move that fast. He’d only been a few feet from the enclosure, if that.

Draco happened to get a glimpse of her face. A second, half a second, less than half a second but he saw it all, orit in his now hypersensitive mind.

He knew all of her expressions, but he’d only seen this one once and suffered for it, a slap to the face, the sound of it continuing to echo through his life. Hard and sure and angry.

When it was all said and done, he looked back on this memory with the hyperreal awareness he’d been afforded and he kept wondering how she fucking did it. Eventually, he’d break down to Potter about it.

”It shouldn’t have been possible. I am not over exaggerating in any way. I– I’m fucked up over it, Potter. I mean, the fact that she did it but– I think I hate she was able to more than anything and I want to understan–”

Draco trailed off because he noticed the look on Potter’s face. He looked absolutely heartbroken and said, “Love makes a lot of things possible.”

”Are you fucking kidding me?”

Potter hadn’t been kidding. Not at all.

She cast a shield around him and cut the Nundu in half with a flick of her fucking wand. He watched it fall apart in two precisely cut pieces while running forward only stopping what seemed like only a few centimeters in front of her. Its last breath hit Granger directly.

She stumbled back and dropped to her knees and began to vomit bile and then she dry heaved, gasping. Then blood, so much fucking blood.

Her shield hadn’t dropped. He couldn’t leave it. Draco whipped around casting everything he knew but it was a perfectly cast dome around him. Then she her elbows buckled and she collapsed entirely. The shield fell.

Draco scrambled to her and gathered her in his arms. Blood was pouring out of her eyes, her nose-- she coughed and she was drowning. He didn’t know what to do.

He couldn’t apparate her like this. No one was coming.

And he remembered.

When she’d cast her Patronus the first time in front of him, he’d scoffed.

“I mean, any Patronus is impressive but an otter? Doesn’t seem like you. Ridiculous.”

“Well that’s incredibly rude. But I was confused as well, if I'm being honest. Otters are associated with joy and being playful. They’re soft. And they’re cunning, too! They adapt. I’m not… I don’t know what I am.”

He wanted to say that yes, she was those things. She was playful and soft and cunning. But he didn’t say any of that.

Her stupid little otter danced around her even though she was doubting everything she was.

Draco reached forward to straighten the clasp of her necklace and she slapped his hand away. “You’re going to cast a non-corporeal Patronus today,” she said.

Her Patronus spun around his waist and disappeared.

“And then what?”

“Then we’ll keep on trying to find out what really makes you happy.”

Draco’s hand was slick with her blood as he raised his wand, and he thought of her, “Expecto Patronum!”

A fucking otter.

“Potter! Go to Harry Potter. Granger is dying, she needs to go to St Mungo’s. Now. NOW!”

Potter was there a moment afterwards, along with a handful of other Aurors. He fell to his knees and snatched her out of Draco’s arms. Then just after a Medi-Witch arrived and worked to stabilize her.

Draco could only stand up on shaky legs and watch. Eventually she was stable enough to move and they all apparated to St. Mungo’s. Granger was rushed away.

In his fantasies, Draco saw himself dying for the greater good. He saw himself dying for what was right. Just fantasies, he’d always think. Not to restore his family’s name but – had he always wondered how absolution would feel? Yes. In his mind, absolution meant sacrificing himself. It didn’t mean the forgiveness of three war heroes and her calloused hand in his.

It didn’t mean being at her side day in and day out, making sure she was safe and cared for. Learning her, committing her to memory, letting the idea of her pass over and around the sieve in his mind because she was precious. None of that meant sacrifice because he had everything to gain and it seemed Draco was only meant to take in this life.

When he stumbled through the floo into his home, he was still covered in her blood. He’d forgotten that it was the first Monday of the month and the eyes of his best mates were on him. They all stood and it almost seemed synchronized.

He stared at them wide eyed and there it was again, the sensation of his throat tightening, but something that was both a laugh and a sob managed to make its way up from his chest and out of his mouth.

Then he screamed, “FUCK,” and didn’t stop screaming for a long time.

---- 

And now, he stood before her in her office while she called his bluff.

“No, I’d rather not,” he said.

“So I win!” she crowed.

Draco scoffed, “Don’t you always?”

Granger looked at him dubiously and took the glasses off. She flicked her wand. They turned into a plain tin fork. She holstered her wand and twirled the fork in her finger tips.

He traced her movement through the whole action with his eyes and then met her gaze, “Why would you– what is happening to you?”

“It’s a strange thing,” she said, putting the fork on her desk. Granger started to pluck the pins out of her bun, one by one, setting them on her desk. Then she pulled out her hair tie, and shook out of her curls. Draco very nearly whimpered. How often had he imagined wrapping her hair around his fist, tugging back while he fucked her from behind over this desk, his desk, her bathroom sink, the chair she loved to curl in with a book in his library– “After the incident with the Nundu, I started eating flowers.”

He was still staring dazed at her hair when her statement registered in his mind. “What?”

“Mm, that’s what Neville said,” she said, rounding her desk so she was now behind it. She opened a drawer to pluck up her beaded bag with a drawstring. Hermione loosened the string and dug in deep. “And I am starving.”

She pulled out a deep purple flower, a petunia. and her face lit up.

“Granger–”

Then… she fucking ate the flower, and moaned softly, finger tips brushing her plush lips.

Am I dreaming?

She dug deeper into her bag. “I really want a yellow rose for some reason,” she said idly, voice muffled since her head was basically now hidden from view as she bent over. “I usually only ever crave red or pink ones so I don’t know if Neville picked yellow for me.”

“You–”

“It’s been like this. I just eat flowers, nothing else. I get cravings for certain ones but really any flower will do,” Granger said as she brought out several camellias, perhaps? And pink roses. Then went back to her search. “Aha! Two!”

She lifted out two beautifully preserved yellow roses. She plucked a petal off one and ate it and sighed deeply, then she ate another.

“Anyway,” she said in between petals, “Neville has been doing research. Normally, obviously, I would be too but— well not sure how to explain it, I’ve just kinda been ruled by my appetite as far as dealing with this goes. If I’m really craving something, I don’t seem to feel inclined to think critically about it. It’s gotten worse.” She took her eyes off the roses and glanced at him.

He stared at her, horrified.

“And my body has been changing. My skin and hair have improved, my eyes are brighter — I smell like the flowers I eat. So to answer your original question, this,” she said, motioning to herself with an open palm, “was my attempt at hiding it. I thought I’d done okay, but didn’t anticipate you were into spinster librarian types.

“Spinster?” Draco spluttered.

She ignored him and ate four more petals in quick succession.

“So, that’s that,” she said, stuffing the rest of the first yellow rose into her mouth.

Draco walked forward and sat very slowly into the chair across from her desk, never taking his eyes off her. “And you said Longbottom is helping?”

Longbottom of all fucking people.

“He is, and I can tell from your expression you have doubts but Neville is a world-renowned herbologist!”

“Yes, yes but–”

“He decapitated a horcrux with the Sword of Gryffindor for God’s sake!” she said shrilly.

“Eh…”

“…Pansy Parkinson has wanted to fuck him for years.”

Well, she had him there. “Incidentally, what is your plan? Any theories on why this is happening to you? Have you gone to St. Mungo’s? Sought medical help?”

She blinked and looked down at her desk, then looked back up at him again. “I’m waiting on a letter.”

“You’re waiting on a letter,” he repeated back slowly. “A letter from who?”

“Um, another world-renowned herbologist located in Japan,” she said quietly and sat straighter at his look of disgust. “Neville said he found some very limited research describing some of the side effects of– this. It is described as a disease. This individual seems to be the most knowledgeable”

“And does this disease have a name?”

“No, but I’ll let you know when I know more,” she said. She was lying. She was doing it much better than usual, though. Granger was a notoriously bad liar but he knew her.

Draco decided not to press her at the moment. Gryffindors didn’t do well backed into corners. He’d have to do some of his own research before he reapproached the issue. “Please do.”

She looked at him through hooded eyes and her lips curled into an unexpected smile that he felt all the way to the tip of his cock. “Didn’t quite hedge your bets well enough this time, did you? You should have just held me and fucked me. Could have avoided this whole conversation.”

This fucking witch. Since she began eating the flowers just moments ago, he did see that she was changing. She was perfect before, but now she looked luminous, other worldly. Not of this place even surrounded by magic. This place wasn’t good enough for how she shone, as if she should be draped in sheer silk and laid out in a shrine somewhere ancient to be worshiped. And yet, some part of it, of her, felt… wrong, because whatever was happening to her was separating her from reality, in body and mind and Draco felt a great sense of foreboding.

“Granger—”

“Anyway, I’ll see you at 7?”

Well, that stopped him short.

“You’re actually going?”

“Yes, why not? They seem like a fun pair, a good way to encourage camaraderie. Magical Cooperation and all of that,” she said with a wave of her hand.

“You don’t really want me there,” he said. That very imposing, objectively attractive, tall, dark and handsome fucking Clark would be there. Of course he was jealous but he had no right to be. But when had that ever stopped him before?

“I always want you, Draco, wherever I am,” and as she said it, her skin glowed gold and from the distance between them, across her desk, he felt the heat of it in his bones like he’d never be cold again because she willed it.

Draco smelled roses and his heart almost cracked in half, he was reminded so deeply of those soft, safe memories.

What is happening to you, Granger?

Her cheeks were pink against the gold and nothing, nothing would ever compare to her in this life and probably the next.

“I don’t seem to have a filter around you these days,” she laughed, and it was bitter.

Draco decided to pivot. For now.

“Do you want me? Because it seems you might be interested in fucking the American.”

This was intended to be a pivot, yes, but he also acknowledged he was a possessive piece of shit.

“Which one?” she chirped.

“Granger!”

She giggled. He stared.

“No, Draco. I’d just like some company. You won’t come?”

“No, but I will make sure Potter or Weasley go with you,” he said. “Preferably Weasley.”

“Ginny?”

Draco scoffed. “Ginevra would have you all end up in a foursome.”

“She— well, true. Wait, you mean Ron?”

“Of course. He has an eye for nonsense when it comes to you. And I suspect as the drinks flow Moreno will get ahold of him, so to speak, and keep Clark on his toes,” Draco said, standing.

“Wait, why–”

“Weasley is a catch despite being a prat. We’ve discussed this, Granger. He’s just not meant for you.”

“Well, you– you–”

“What?” he asked and fuck she was beautiful and she was pouting, full plump bottom lip pushed forward. He’d never seen her like this. This wasn’t her, his mind kept repeating.

She glared at him. Ah, there she was. “Where are you going that you can’t come with me?”

“Last minute errand. Be good, Granger.”

Chapter Text

“Malfoy! What’s going on?”

“Just here to talk about Granger.”

“...You sent an owl, a Patronus and a house elf to talk about Hermione?”

“Yes.”

It was dark and cold. There was some dim light from the greenhouse to the side of them that cast a bit of a glow on one side of Longbottom’s face, and the shadows made him look cruel and forbidding, the opposite of who he was.

Longbottom considered him closely and then laughed, but it was bitter, an abrupt exhalation of sound that meant resignation. There was always humor in the letting go if one looked hard enough, Draco supposed.

“Come on, Malfoy. Since I’m out here, let’s go to Greenhouse Six so I can work,” he said before ambling forward, and Draco followed. He stopped short at the entrance.

Longbottom looked over his shoulder. “This greenhouse was mostly empty before.”

And now, it was all flowers. There wasn’t a point to this, surely? Not for Herbology, certainly. This place was—

The door closed behind them, and Draco was swept up in humidity and heated scent, bright colors, and dots of petals in all shapes, all sizes, everything nurtured and alive for the sake of… what?

“Why? Flowers have their use, but– what is this?”

“Self-indulgent until it wasn’t. Most flowers are cultivated for their beauty. I wanted to try my hand at it and I had the space and time.”

“You know why I’m here.”

Longbottom turned. “For Hermione. You know, don’t you?”

“That she eats flowers? Yes.”

“So why are you here, exactly?”

“She isn’t… she told me, but there’s something wrong. It’s Granger. She didn’t even see a healer for this, she—”

Longbottom stopped short. “What? She saw a healer before she came to me–”

“Not for this.”

“Fuck,” Longbottom said and Draco started. “It’s changing her.”

“Yes, I noticed that too,” Draco said miserably.

“So it’s you?” the Gryffindor asked, picking up a clipboard. “I’m not surprised.”

“I don’t follow.”

“The one she loves.”

“She— wait. Longbottom, what the fuck are you talking about?”

Longbottom slowly put the clipboard down again and stared at him in horror. “She didn’t tell you about Hanahaki Disease? And the Japanese herbologist?”

“What?”

“Merlin… This isn’t something for me to tell you, Malfoy,” he said, and when Draco opened his mouth to lay into him, he held up a hand and glared, hard. “No, you’re not going to bully or threaten me into it. You have the name now. Do your own research. I’ve said enough. I’d tell you to ask her yourself, but… well, she’s not in a great place to give you answers, apparently.”

Draco thought about pushing the issue and doing the bullying and threatening anyway, but he knew he wouldn’t get anything out of Longbottom, even on pain of death, and admitting that to himself irritated Draco beyond comprehension.

“What the fuck.”

“I assume you’ll see Hermione soon?” Neville grabbed a woven bag off the work table they were standing next to and held it out to him. “These are her next batch.”

Draco snatched it, sneering. “Great.”

“I’m sorry,” Longbottom said quietly. “Hermione has a good lead now. Make sure she sent that letter.”

“She mentioned it.”

“I suggest you help her with the follow-through. That’s the best lead she has. Even if she had gone to St Mungo’s for this, I doubt it would have helped. See that she follows through, yes? I’ll check in soon.”

“Longbottom…is it bad?”

“I think it might be. You have more resources than I could ever. I don’t regret giving you the name, and I know– more than anyone, you’ll help her with everything you have,” he said.

“Am I that obvious?” Draco asked, staring at the bag of flowers in his hands.

“Yes.”

Fucking Longbottom.

—

“Weasley,” Draco announced the next morning, drifting into the redhead’s terribly sad little cubicle in the DMLE.

Weasley’s head popped up from where it had been hovering over a piece of paperwork covered in ink blotches.

“Wotcher, Malfoy!”

Draco smiled helplessly. He would never understand where in his life he pivoted and gained the friendship of Ronald Weasley. And he had to call it a friendship. Weasley wouldn’t have it any other way, and the man was a formidable force when it came to the ones he considered friends. A comfortable and fond Weasley would snatch you up whether you wanted it or not.

“How did it go at the Leaky the other night?” Draco said, striving for casual.

Weasley grinned and leaned back in his office chair, throwing his hands behind his head. “It was a very nice time.”

“Alright, so you obviously fucked someone. Moreno?”

“Feisty thing, I’d say she fucked me. She said she’d write. She won’t, but I’ll take it for the experience it was.”

Weasley had grown into a philosophical man over the years.

“And before that?”

He sat back up again, grin and hands dropping. “‘Mione was off."

Draco hadn’t explicitly said why he wanted Weasley to join them, but of course he knew. Because apparently Draco was so fucking obvious.

“Oh?”

“Well, she’s been off, you know. And by off, I mean— really pretty and weird.”

“You’ve always thought she was really pretty and weird.”

“Not like this and you know it. What is going on?”

“Did that American touch her?”

Weasley’s expression softened into something like compassion. “He was interested, but so was everyone else, but no one touched her. She wouldn’t allow it and she said why.”

He still strove for casual and Weasley allowed it. “Oh?”

“She said she was in love and taken. I got her to shut up before she continued and made things, er, professionally awkward, but I knew… Malfoy, what is going on?”

“If I told you to trust me to fix it, would you?”

A beat. He watched Ronald Weasley struggle because this was a pointedly cruel thing to ask a Gryffindor who valued you. Another corner to back them into, but one where affection and loyalty inevitably won out over their inclination to be vicious, and Draco knew this well and had been swept up in it many times over.

“Yes. For now. But make sure Harry doesn’t get wind.”

“If he did?”

“You’re seriously asking?”

He was and he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps he just needed to hear it, feel the weight of it. “Yes.”

Weasley frowned and tapped his fingers against his desk, a steady drum roll.

Draco saw it. The expression he’d glimpsed in Hogwarts, in the manor, during a war, a raucous night over a wizard’s chessboard, when Weasley was drunk but was still thinking steps ahead. A fleeting thing that only few recognized. They were similar, in this sense. But Draco always lived in the future and Weasley only did when the game was afoot. He didn’t know what was at stake, and he purposefully wasn’t asking questions, and this was a strategy.

“This is between you and her. Deal with it.”

Trust was a strange thing and he wondered what he did to deserve it. When he’d been losing his mind in St Mungo’s when Granger was basically dead, yelling for things to get done, he could recall a hand on a distraught Potter’s shoulder, holding him in place.

Looking at Weasley now, Draco felt more calm than he had in days, and really, that was exactly why he’d come here.

“Understood.”

—

Draco gritted his teeth.

Malfoy Manor’s library was quite likely the largest collection in magical Great Britain. Perhaps in the muggle world as well. It might top rankings all over the world. There was a book or periodical here that had the statistic, certainly.

His bloodline was over a thousand years old. Pureblood, problematic, if not downright evil, but, more to the point, the Malfoys had always been, from the beginning, lovers of knowledge. And as Malfoys tended to do with all the things they loved, they hoarded all of the words greedily, magic or muggle. The result was this library.

It was more alive than any other space in the manor and through many decades of being home to knowledge, it gleaned its purpose and adjusted accordingly with the pride that it had been afforded heir after heir and became a self-sustaining thing. (Grandfather Abraxas tried to put a stop to the library collecting what it deemed “worthy” muggle works, but this didn’t go well. Now they were all hidden with extremely powerful blood wards “in the back” and maybe not mention that to The Dark Lord? Thank you). It learned and had developed its own organizational system after hundreds of years that could not be replicated anywhere else.

One of his favorite memories was coaxing Granger to the library through its own floo connection, so she wouldn’t have to be anywhere else in the place she was tortured and maimed in.

When she arrived, she brushed the ash off her robes, then stuck her nose in the air, determined to be unimpressed.

Then Granger saw it before her and made a noise so filled with pleasure and awe, he remembered it every time he stroked his cock.

Draco had been nervous it might reject her because she was Muggle-born but some part of him knew that the magic in here didn’t abide by purity of blood and that it would recognize the most swottiest of swots. Some part of him knew that a thousand years led to him being the master of this manor, so this woman, not originally of his world but who conquered everything in it, could experience all this place had to offer.

And so he whispered in her ear, “Ask it for what you want to read.”

“What…?” she whispered, eyes darting everywhere, her body practically vibrating.

“Just ask. Anything.”

“Um. I’d like to read,” and she shot a smirk at Draco over her shoulder. “Ancient Runes of Forgotten Realms… please?”

He didn’t recognize the title, but it didn’t matter; round circles of white light appeared before her and made a path.

Another gasp and sound from her for his fantasies, and then she took off running, following the path. Draco took off after, still some dread in the pit of his stomach because what if, what if. When she got to the end, after stairs and stacks, there was the book, glowing white, pulled out from the shelf.

Granger took it, and it didn’t burn her.

She held it in her small hands with reverence, and he could feel this very, very large room pulse with something that felt like a happy sigh of satisfaction. Granger turned toward him, and the light of the book and path set her face aglow and she was beautiful and she belonged.

Which was all to say, falling so deeply in love was really fucking unfortunate and now he said to the library, “I’d like to read about Hanahaki Disease,” and he closed his eyes against the path that appeared, hating how easy it was to find something he was afraid to know.

—-

First, he sent the bag of flowers Longbottom gave him by owl. Draco did this completely out of spite.

Next, he waited until Phoebus returned. There was no reply. That little coward.

Then, he cast a Patronus. It was the first time he’d sent her a Patronus. She didn’t know he could cast one and the message it conveyed was simply “GET HERE NOW. MALFOY LIBRARY.” So when she stumbled through the Floo, she looked understandably wild-eyed and confused.

He didn’t fucking care what she felt right now.

“Draco!”

“Emotional strain, described as ‘unrequited love,’ seems to trigger an immune or inflammatory response that leads to the growth of plant material—often flowers—inside the respiratory system and its progression often leads to death,” he spat the passage from memory.

She paled.

“Ah. Oh. You did some research,” she said, right fucking casual, standing there while the circles of light for reference erupted over every inch of the floors, up stairwells, every book, three stories of fucking magic Malfoy library beaming like the fucking sun for her and still she glowed brighter.

She at least had the decency to look surprised that her very presence had not just the library, but the whole of the fucking manor howling in a way he could feel in his bones, asking him through his nerve endings, who is this and can we keep her?

Oh, so this is what it took for the Malfoy Estate to accept a Muggle-born?

And since he knew how to properly converse with an entirety of an estate imbued with a thousand years of magic, he told it to calm the fuck down.

The circles faded but didn’t go out completely which communicated a clear heard and noted, but you’re the absolute worst.

Well, then.

“Draco… this is different. You read it, the symptoms don’t match. I–”

“But it’s in the same vein, isn’t it? Something is wrong with you. Fucking flowers, Granger!” he yelled, throwing his arms out. “It’s insane and you haven’t done anything about it!.”

“I–”

“You could die.”

“Enough,” she snapped and Draco started. It was the least gentle she’d been with him in the last few weeks, and to his chagrin, it excited him.

Granger stepped, no— she prowled toward him. He put his palms up and backed away as she advanced. He took the time to take her in. Her hair was in a haphazard bun with her wand poking through it. She was in a camisole and little shorts and they were emerald green, because why not, the little fucking tease. She was barefoot, and her toes were painted a glittery pink. She had high arches and he knew she stepped heel first because she walked so heavily, not so much taps as they were thuds, down hallways and through forests, on beaches, and everywhere else they’d gone together. He realized that they must hurt all the time, what with the heavy stepping and the metaphorical weight she carried on her shoulders, and because he was insane, he stowed this information away for another time so he could ask her if her feet hurt. So he could do something about it. So he could scold her for not telling him before.

Draco blinked and looked up. The backs of his legs hit one of the large armchairs before the fireplace she’d just spun through. Granger reached him and shoved against his chest, and he fell back and sat.

Then she straddled him.

“Granger,” he gasped.

She scooted and adjusted, while he pressed back into the chair. The inside of her thighs pressed firmly against the outside of his, and he grabbed her hips to push her up and away from his groin, creating space because his cock was already half hard and he wouldn’t, couldn’t feel her against him.

Granger raised her arms, pushed her palms against the back of the chair, on either side of his head, elbows straight and locked. She raised up on her knees and stopped trying to press into him. She hovered away from him completely, but he kept his hands on her hips, and she was hot through the thin cloth of her camisole, in a way that wasn’t normal. His fingertips felt sun-soaked, on the verge of going red and burned.

She stared at him, and in another life, before she started eating flowers, before she faced death for him, before they worked together, when they were just children, he resented how big and brown her eyes were, like nothing he’d ever seen on another person. Doe-eyed, but Granger didn’t freeze like a doe, she was always moving, twitching, or bouncing while she maintained eye contact, and it wasn’t fair.

Now she still was frozen, but instead of that deep brown, he saw sparks of gold, like a fire trying to come to life.

“Neville told you, I assume?” she asked.

“I had to torture him to even get that much out of him,” he said.

She laughed quietly. “Liar. The specialist I wrote to came all the way from Japan and visited with me today.”

Draco perked up and gripped her hips harder but loosened his hold when she wriggled them. “Oh?”

“Intimidating woman,” Granger said and bent her elbows, leaning forward and brushing her lips against his temple. Draco’s breath stuttered. “Not a herbologist, as it turns out. Neville got it confused. She works extensively in that field, but it turns out her expertise is love magic. She told me based on my letter, she just had to see for herself, to know.”

Then Granger made herself comfortable on his lap again and he hissed.

“And?”

“And she’d like to speak to you. She got frustrated with me, said it was clear my mind wasn’t in its right place because of whatever this is,” Granger said, leaning back and letting go of the back of the chair.

The fire flickered and she was backlit while the library kept everything awash in white light. It wasn’t roses he was smelling now, it wasn’t that soft place in his mother’s garden, trimmed and perfect. It was somewhere wild, the scent heady, where a crushed flower wasn’t wrong or bad and anywhere he could lay down to rest.

“I love you,” Draco said.

And everything remained as it was.

Granger closed her eyes. “I believe you, I think.”

She opened her eyes and raised a hand and glided her fingertips across his brow, his cheekbones, looking at him with such open devotion, it made his chest hurt.

“Maybe this is just how it is,” she murmured, touching his lips.

“I love you.”

Nothing. She traced the edges of his mouth, smiling gently.

“Do you remember,” she whispered. “When we investigated the Veela commune?”

“That’s not likely something I’ll forget,” he sighed, and when he couldn’t help his lips from quirking at the memory of them both hot and bothered, trying to keep their hands off each other, Granger tapped a finger against his cheek.

She huffed out a laugh. “Apart from how enthralled we were, I thought a lot about the Veela bond afterwards. The audacity of magic and nature to pick a person they’d literally die without. No choice for either person.”

“That’s not the same.”

“I know. I chose you and it’s worse somehow.”

Draco’s heart broke.

“Please,” he begged, but he wasn’t sure what he was begging for. No. He knew. Draco was begging for that absolution that he thought only death and ultimate sacrifice would bring him but Hermione Granger simply wouldn’t allow it and she went out of her way to ensure that, didn’t she?

“I chose you,” she said, then leaned back, and her eyes seemed to go glassy and unfocused. She closed her eyes and shook her head back and forth as if trying to clear it.

When she opened them, she still looked unfocused, and she smiled at him slowly, a seductive little grin blooming on her face. “Your Patronus is an otter, did you know? So is mine!”

Granger pushed off of him and the chair, and he was so shocked, he let her go. “I’m hungry and you sent me all those flowers,” she announced happily. “I’m sure you’ll be receiving an owl from Matsumoto soon. Bye!”

Then she was through the Floo and gone.

—

“Tea?” he offered.

“You’re the poison with a strange name.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Akiko Matsumoto was intimidating, especially for such a small person. She looked like she was in her late thirties, held herself like she was in her late sixties, and glared at him like she was in her hundreds.

They met in one of the receiving rooms in the manor mid-morning the next day after he received a missive from her at six. She was immediately all business, and he was grateful for it, for the most part.

She waved away his offer of tea.

“If I had known you all existed, in truth, I would have come here long ago and my research would be ahead leaps and bounds,” she said.

“Who?”

“We’d heard, of course, of the war going on in Britain. Kuro Mao… ah, demon lords? They aren’t just limited to the Western Hemisphere. But the rise and fall of yours came with ‘facts’ but also more whispers of incredible myth. And this myth came true with the arrival of an owl. I had to come.”

Draco glowered and then jerked his head so she would continue.

“Granger was much more polite,” she sniffed. She said Gurenja and he had to admit he liked the sound of it.

“Granger is also not herself at the moment.”

“Mm, she would probably still be more polite,” Matsumoto said. “Regardless, the myth was your demon lord was defeated by love, once, twice, many times.”

“Once, perhaps. A mother’s love,” he said.

“Once was enough for a ripple,” she murmured. “It was enough for a great wave.”

Draco thought of his own mother and clenched his jaw.

“What does this have to do with a witch eating flowers?” he snapped.

“Hanahaki is a magic disease that festers. Unrequited love that rots and becomes profound self-hatred. The magic attacks the body, but the feeling, as it was in the beginning, the seed of it, was beautiful to start, so the magic will manifest as beauty and choke the victim from the inside out. It is very cruel and very rare.”

Draco shivered unbidden. This was nowhere near how his reference material described it. “I read about it. Her love isn’t unrequited,” he said. “And that’s good, isn’t it? I love her. I… I told her I loved her. Last night.”

“Did you? And I suppose you thought that would be that?”

He was going to say it was worth a try. and he realized how stupid and shallow that sounded.

“Alright, so I messed–”

“She said she had the craving after she almost died to save you. Something changed for her, she was overtaken by feelings that burrowed so deep inside her that she couldn’t help her magic or her actions. What changed?”

“Why does that matter?” he asked.

“This is not Hanahaki, as we’ve deduced, but it is still a perversion, something broken and gone wrong. You say you return her love. What changed?”

“Nothing–”

“Something did.”

“I dropped my walls. Occlumency.”

“Occru– what?”

“Mental magic. Protects from, ah, mind invasion and–”

“Seishin Bōgyo Jutsu… You— how often did you use this?”

“Always, in some fashion,” he admitted.

She looked horrified, a break through the stoicism she’d been effortlessly maintaining, and he recognized the irony of that.

“Your mind, yourself, to hide– even now?”

“We all have our ways of dealing with things,” he snapped.

Matsumoto considered him for a moment, her stoicism and pleasantly passive expression slowly making their way back.

“You broke as her magic poured for you,” she said softly. “Your magic tore through and now she’s dying.”

“You said it wasn’t like the other flower disease…”

“Hanahaki takes. This gives,” she said. “ Hanahaki devours, but she feeds. Granger has too much. The soul can only take so much magic and soon it will burst, and she will be…”

“What?”

“Starlight. Dust motes. Love. Gone and away, energy dispersed, touching so many things. A beautiful way to die, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t think.”

Matsumoto nodded. “She loves you with a depth I haven’t witnessed in many years and you love her more, but you let it become stagnant and still with your mind magic, I think and she took it for herself. Yes, a thing of myth here, how legends come to be and goddesses are born.”

“It’s my fault,” he rasped.

“It is a series of events profound. Love magic is powerful, but man’s penchant to corrupt has proven to be even more devastating in its ability.”

“What do I do?”

“Take back.”

“Merlin fuck. Do you talk like this about everything? What’s your opinion on vegetables? Is eating beets a consequence that will echo through time?”

She let out a loud cackle. “I am partial to radishes.”

—

Eventually, she did sit for tea, discussed her research at large, said she’d be around a bit longer, soothed him when he became explosive at the prospect of her interviewing “those to do with your war,” and settled his feathers with promises of consent and mutual interest.

But she never gave him any more answers to Granger’s illness other than “Take back,” and to be fair, he didn’t ask.

Then she left and told Draco she would check in soon.

And now, who did he run to?

You’ll help her with everything you have.

Deal with it.

They were paying attention. They just knew you’d take care of me.

I wanted to protect you and I did.

It was Friday, first of the month. In a few hours Granger was going to go strutting into the Leaky and cause chaos while she dripped gold and ambrosia – her essential self, her beautiful mind fading while she waited for him. She’d be happy to do it. She’d keep waiting until she was nothing.

And that just wouldn’t do.

Draco cast his Patronus. It kept getting easier.

Chapter Text

Draco told himself it was like a dinner invitation. Longbottom was accommodating.

He wondered if he’d get a stern letter from Headmistress McGonagall about infringing on Hogwarts resources. Then again, the Order members were still a tight group and let each other get away with everything, and this was about Granger.

Terrorists, all of them, Draco thought fondly.

Draco had arrived early and stood in front of a forsythia shrub, staring at it like it might have answers.

Granger stumbled into the greenhouse early, not bothering to hide her excitement. He’d miss her this way, just a little, he admitted to himself. Uninhibited and open and just for him.

He approached her slowly, hands in his pockets.

“Granger,” he called.

She whirled to look at him, and the air vibrated around her.

“Draco,” she answered softly. “Hello.”

“And where did you get that dress?”

“Just something I had,” she said, running her hands over it in a quick motion, preening.

It was a black little thing and nothing about it screamed provocative with its modest neckline, and it fell just above her knees, but it was… it didn’t matter what it was. Didn’t matter that it hugged every one of her curves and–

If he had her, if she was his, this was going to be his life, wasn’t it? She was going to wear dresses and people were going to want her. He’d been just there in her life, in the periphery, when she was there for all to see, and he reached out despite whoever else was by his side, eager to find and touch her.

Draco had convinced himself that possessing her would be worse, having her would be worse because he would feel the need to fight, to deserve. He’d never get a moment's rest and he needed rest, he’d told himself. Stupid, so stupid.

“Do you like it?” she asked.

“Yes, very much,” he said. He reached out and adjusted her necklace. Granger sighed a happy sound.

And every flower in the greenhouse lit up gold and bloomed, pollen bursting bright into the air, suspended and floating like stardust.

Draco startled and met her gaze. She was just like every flower, alive and open, and she seemed to absorb all the colours around her, a spectrum of everything this world had to offer to the human eye.

She looked at him like he was just beyond what could be perceived, like he was special and she was fortunate enough to see him. A missing colour.

Draco let his walls drop. He let them shatter.

He expected a crushing blow, and the gravity of all he didn’t want to burden himself to overwhelm him, but instead, it was like airing out an empty, long-forgotten room. Clearing the dust, opening the shutters and a window. He realized it was because he had already unburdened himself on her, and the regret he felt was a physical thing.

Draco stepped forward, reached out, palmed her face with both hands, and kissed her.

And he took back.

Granger gasped and it was the first real, unguarded sound he’d heard from her in a while. Not tinged by the haze of the disease he had inflicted upon her. He broke the kiss and wrapped his hand around her neck, index finger grazing the corner of her mouth while he cradled her jaw. He looked into those big, brown eyes and didn’t see his Granger there.

Not yet. More.

He grabbed her hips and shoved her against the worktable, lifted her up by her thigh, and pressed himself between her legs. She opened easily for him, leaning back against her palms.

Draco rubbed a strand of hair between his fingers as he splayed his other hand at her lower back. Petals were raining on them now.

A white petal glanced off her cheek, a yellow one stuck in her hair and she stared, eyes narrowed, speculative and curious. Just a glimmer of the woman he'd fallen in love with.

“Hermione,” he sighed. A red petal fell between her breasts, and he groaned, wanting to follow it with his teeth. “Let me.”

“Yes,” she sighed.

“Wake up. You have to wake up,” he demanded. He unholstered his wand.

“I’m awake,” she said, tilting her head, and he peppered bites and kisses down the tendon of her neck.

“You’re not,” he said against her collarbone. “Legilimens”

It was easy to slip inside her mind, but he had to wade through seafoam and tree cotton to find her. When he did, he was startled at his surroundings and the sight of her.

Granger was no natural Occlumens but she, of course, was interested in it and had asked him for the basics while they worked together and he indulged her. She'd organized her thoughts and memories as a library, and Draco had been expecting to find it in disarray. For a person untrained entirely, it was like flipping through slides in a white space when he entered their minds, and he could navigate to some degree, flitting in and out, seeking what he was looking for with impunity. The point was, that there was always a nexus– a starting point.

So being dropped into this place was extremely jarring. What the fuck was this place?

“Hey,” she said. She was dressed in a large, tattered men’s jumper that screamed Weasley, (much to his irritation) and saggy wool socks, sitting cross-legged in a field of poppies and everything looked strange. Too intense, too bright. The sky was so blue it felt like it might collapse around them… and where was the fucking sun?

“Not sure why my mind settled here. Well, perhaps I do. It was one of my least favorites, but I always liked this scene,” she said, plucking the petal off a poppy, which grew back immediately.

“This place is a nightmare.”

“It’s from a movie.”

He knew movies. She’d shown him, and he’d come away from the experience with a feeling of awe. “I didn’t see this movie.”

“I thought it might upset your sensibilities, what with the melting and monkeys. Did you need something? I thought we were having fun. Now we’re just staring blankly at each other.”

Draco took the time to really look at her. This Granger didn’t glow. She had bags under her eyes and chapped lips. Her hands were probably dry. Her hair was in a bun, and he could tell it would take her forever to work out those tangles. She was perfect.

He sat down in front of her. “I miss you.”

“It’s strange. I’m there, I’m me, but I suppose it’s a bit like waking up every day drunker than the next and a little more stuck in my mind. I’ve been terribly shameless, haven’t I?” she mused.

“Incredibly. So come back with me.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know how.”

The world disappeared around them and now they were sitting on his favorite bench in his mother’s rose garden. The sun shone. He looked around in confusion.

“You’ve never been here,” he said.

“Your memory. This seems to be the only one that's solely yours that I end up in. It’s beautiful. Sometimes if I’m here long enough, I’ll see you when you were a child, maybe four? You'll run out and your mother will be at your heels. You were always such a crybaby,” she said, smiling. “She is so wonderful, your mother. You are so loved.”

Draco’s throat felt tight. “Come back to me, Granger.”

“I don’t know how, Draco."

The garden was gone, and he spun through memories that were hers and his. They weren’t slides but flashes, and he felt them as impressions on his own mind. A war, green light, overwhelming moments of grief and hate, and the profound, things that broke them, and then he glimpsed their relationship and he reached. His Legilimency was nowhere near as good as his Occlumency but Granger’s mind allowed for all his movements without hesitation, and he realized, of course, it would. He’d given her so much of himself, it may as well have been his mind and magic, too. But it was strange here, and he wasn’t sure where he would land.

Now they were in the Scottish Highlands, standing together amongst heather that stretched on and on. It was night but everything was moonlit. There was strange double vision here and he realized their memories were interlaid. They had been investigating reports of a caoineag, a type of banshee that muggles couldn’t see but could hear.

By then, they’d been working together for nearly five months. He remembered being confused by the presence of the spirit that lamented the loss of a son to war before it happened. Draco remarked to Granger that there was no war going on, and she looked at him in bafflement.

There are always wars, Malfoy. Always.

“Such a pointless field mission. It wasn’t fair to anyone,” she remarked idly. “But I remember thinking, here, right in this spot, that I was so glad that you were with me but I wasn’t sure why, then.”

“There was nothing we could do,” he said, and it carried on the breeze, followed by the wail of broken-hearted women, the caoineag, a mother, and Granger. It was a twisted amalgamation that hadn't happened in this moment, but their combined memories brought it all together. It made him want to drop to his knees. "We need to leave."

“He was always going to die, wasn’t he? And now I keep coming back and I get it, why I was glad. You understood inevitability. You understood me.”

“You cried. I hated it,” he said.

“You were so kind.”

“Granger, you give me too much credit… I–”

“No, I don’t. I never have. What were you going to say? That I saw you for more than you were?”

“Maybe,” he admitted.

Their past selves from the memory came into view and Granger had her hands pressed to her face, crying, hiding.

Draco watched himself look helpless. He watched himself grasp her wrists and pull her hands away from her face, and it was one of the first times he could remember touching her with intent. He heard himself say he was sorry, and at the time, he didn’t know what he was saying because they both knew grief and death and how could she be so sad? He apologized anyway because, for some reason, he felt like everything bad that happened to her was his fault.

He watched her say, “Why are you apologizing like this is your fault?”

The Granger now chuckled next to him. “We didn’t know what to do with each other.”

Draco slid back and away and they spun and spun, and he was desperate and panicked trying to find somewhere they could land. Somewhere neutral so he could talk to her.

They landed again and he was immediately terrified.

Another interlaid memory. He could hear the Nundu panting and growling in its cage.

"Hermione, what the fuck?"

"I end up here a lot, too. And you know, I can never decide which one of us noticed those before everything went to shit," she said, pointing to a place slightly above his head behind him. Draco whirled around, and there was a small window and a small pot with purple flowers.

"African Violet," she hummed. "They're an easy gift. Why would a dealer in illicit magical creature trafficking put flowers in the window of his dungeon, do you think?"

She was fucking insane.

"We have to go," he said, pulling at her arm. She shook him off.

"You keep saying that," she said. "Anyway, I've watched this many times. I've been able to see it from my perspective, too, which I'd blocked out. I think I performed some impressive form of apparition. I pulled myself apart and put myself together very fast."

"While I stood there and broke," Draco seethed.

"You did," she said.

"And it's killing you. That's why I'm here."

Granger took his hand while he kept his eyes on the violet and heard her dying. He heard himself screaming and casting the Patronus for the first time.

“Just look, Draco.”

He did.

Draco watched Potter come onto the scene all confidence, ready to save the day.

And then he saw her in Draco’s arms, covered in blood and dying, and he stumbled.

In his panic, Draco couldn’t recall then, but now he watched Potter draw up, back straight, looking agonized, magic sparking around him, some of it dark. So fucking dark.

Potter dropped to his knees and snatched her away from him, and Draco had no choice but to let him. The Chosen One held her tight, a sob rising from him, guttural, the sound of a man completely broken. The medi-witch intervened and Potter let her go.

Weasley was there in the next moment, taking stock immediately, and where the fuck had he come from? Draco couldn’t even tell from the memory. Potter rose to his feet and Weasley put a hand on his shoulder while they looked on as the medi-witches stabilized her. His past self remained on his knees, covered in her blood.

"Ron shouldn't have been there. He was on a field mission somewhere else," Granger said.

He turned toward her. She was looking at the violent tableau of her near-death like… like it was inevitable.

“Why was he there, then?”

“Matsumoto made me out to be the victim in all of this. She put all the blame on you but that isn’t fair. She doesn’t have all the information. Harry, Ron, and I— well, needless to say, love magic and its perils didn’t start with you.”

Once was enough for a ripple. It was enough for a great wave.

“Ron came here because he didn’t have a choice.”

"Granger, let's go."

“There is somewhere. Somewhere strange.”

“What could be stranger than all of this?”

Reality shifted around them.

Now she was straddling him under a blossoming cherry tree, and they were surrounded by fields of golden wheat except for the small patch of soft grass he was lying against. Everything was caught in between seasons, between sunrise and twilight. Through the blossoms above him, he saw the moon and sun parallel to each other in the center of the sky, Saturn and its rings, nebulas erupting up trying to find space far away, galaxies colliding. He looked to his right and saw his namesake constellation on the horizon, seventeen stars, burning brighter than the rest of the universe above him.

He was dazed. She leaned forward and kissed his forehead. It centered him.

“Where is this?"

“Where we meet, I think. It's both of us and too much."

Here was the new nexus point.

Take back.

“What would it look like if it was just my mind?” he asked and kissed the corner of her mouth. Then he sat up, and she squeaked as he readjusted, and now she was straddling him like she did in the library.

“What do you mean?” she said. Her hands were on his shoulders now, her voice was breathy and sweet but not how it was when she started to lose herself and eat flowers. No, this tone was one hard-won when he was too close, or when he danced with her – something he liked to elicit for his own selfish pleasure because he knew he affected her. Draco kept his arms wrapped around her.

“This is both of us, right? What’s just me?”

“The cherry tree, no wheat. Soft grass. Summer, the sun…”

The world began to flicker and Draco took. The ugly shirt hung off her shoulder and he kissed that freckle just to the right of her clavicle where her skin was round and smooth.

“Summer?” he asked against her skin.

“I know, you’re all… pale, washed out, and people assume your disposition is cold and cruel.”

“Rude but fair.”

She played with the hair at the nape of his neck and sighed into the strange universe around them. “But you did better when it was warm,” she said and then let out a little bitter laugh. “Like you needed a summer sun to melt and be happy. So stupid.”

It wasn’t stupid. Narcissa used to tell him he chased the sun in the rose garden. And he was hopelessly drawn to Hermione Granger, wasn’t he?

“What else?”

He felt his magic and everything attached to it coming back into his body like the warmth she described, slowly. Granger’s body was relaxing against him as he spoke. He thought perhaps this nexus dreamscape they were in might change and reduce down to her, down to him as he took, but everything around them felt less unreality as she spoke— like this is where they were supposed to be.

“Sunrise and Saturn.”

“Why?”

She smiled at him. “You’re a morning person. As for Saturn,” she looked up, and the branches twisted back for her. “It isn’t my favorite planet, but it’s the most beautiful.”

Draco somehow managed to feel petty and jealous in this un-reality. He scoffed. “What’s your favorite planet?”

“I have to have some secrets, Draco.”

“Fine. What else?”

“This tree.”

“Why?”

“I traveled a lot with my parents. We went to Japan for Easter during Third Year... I’d just dropped Divination.”

Draco chuckled. “I heard about that. Wild, angry girl.”

“I was angry. This trip was a long time coming. I never told them anything. I was in a boarding school and I used magic and I came home. I couldn’t tell them about three-headed dogs and stones, and basilisks and being petrified. I couldn’t tell them about escaped convicts and time travel because if I did, they’d believe me, and they wouldn’t have let me come back. I had to go back.”

Granger caught a cherry blossom in her hand. They were raining on them like a downpour. They grew back immediately as they fell.

“We saw the cherry blossoms in Kyoto. They represent how fleeting life is, how colourful, how beautiful. They’re seen as violent because life is inherently violent, isn’t it? Until the letting go. And I stood there watching these blossoms and I started to cry because I knew… well, I knew my life was going to be particularly violent going forward. And beautiful.”

“Inevitable,” Draco murmured, holding her tight.

“Inevitable. Just like you.”

Draco turned his head again to look at the constellation.

“But what about the stars? That has to be me.”

“No, Draco. Those are mine.”

Suddenly the world fell away from them, piece by piece, and she gently pushed him back into reality.

Draco was in the greenhouse in between her legs and they were both panting. It was dark and humid, sweltering. He was sweating and could feel it gathering against his temple and upper lip while he contemplated the fathoms of Hermione Granger’s mind.

His eyes adjusted against the moonlight, and there she was.

“Hi,” she whispered.

Draco let out an unsteady breath, and then they were kissing. Granger reached for his belt buckle and he helped her push down his trousers and briefs while he pushed the gusset of her knickers to the side and ran a finger up and down her slit. She was soaked and he groaned in approval while she whimpered. Draco hauled her closer to the edge of the table. She wrapped his legs around him while he notched the head of his cock at her entrance, pushing in just slightly. She closed her eyes.

“Look at me,” he growled. Draco watched those big brown eyes open. “Is this what you want?”

“Yes.”

He gave her his cock slowly while he watched her. There were more petals stuck in her hair now, which instead of lustrous, gold-streaked, silky ringlets were now frizzy, curly coils defying gravity in the humidity and fucking glorious. He grasped them at the root and brought her forward and kissed her again while thrusting into her hard and steady, making sure they felt every inch of each other.

Draco broke the kiss and pressed his lips against her ear while still fucking her in earnest. “Give it back, come back to me,” he whispered harshly, over and over like an incantation. He could feel a part of himself break open. A place he associated with his Patronus and even the Unforgivables, where magic that could only be cast with the deepest intention resided.

Draco took and took while he told her he loved her against her skin, in between bites and nips against the throat. He reached in between them and stroked her clit. The air around them seemed to pulse with energy as Granger gave, and now it was raining petals just like those cherry blossoms in her mind. She gasped his name, let out a replete cry of pleasure, almost anguished, and one that he’d never, ever forget. She came, clenching hard around him.

Two, three more thrusts, and he came inside her.

And took and took.

Everything was silent while they caught their breaths. They were covered in petals that stuck to their sweaty skin. Some of them had been crushed. Fingers, chests, breasts, and shoulders painted and stained in so many colours like bruises.

Draco leaned back and his cock slipped out of her. He pushed back and hurriedly pulled up his trousers and buckled his belt.

“Are– are you running from me now?”

“No, of course not,” he said, stepping forward. Draco pulled her off the table and helped her steady herself on wobbly feet. He straightened her dress as best he could. She wasn’t glowing anymore.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Hungover,” she grumbled. “Annoyed. And—and I know there’s going to be a lot to do at work regarding MACUSA and the Wolfsbane measure that I know I threw aside because I wanted to make friends. Why did no one stop me? Oh my God, Ron fucked the head of their department. What a disaster. Not to mention the Diricawl sighted in Antigua, and do you know what I wrote down when I saw that report? Oh, it’s warm there, bet they’re happy. Happy! Can you imagine? As if they’re not an ecological disaster waiting to happen! I blame climate change, but God forbid anyone in the wizarding world listen to me about that—”

And she droned on for a bit, all the things she hadn’t been able to say spilling out of her like it’d all been locked up. Draco thought he might fucking cry. He wanted to laugh. Instead, he started plucking petals out of her hair.

Granger blinked and looked around as if finally realizing where they were. “Oh no, Neville is going to kill us.”

—

Matsumoto waved her wand around her, a deep purple light leaving tracers as she whispered under her breath.

“Ah, resolved,” the older woman hummed.

“I’m not dying anymore?” Hermione asked.

“No,” she said as she twirled her wand. “But he took more than he should have.”

“More?”

“He loves you,” Matsumoto said, simply.

“I know he loves me. You said he took more?”

“Just a sip. Some of your magic, some of you, he took. Not on purpose, he was quite desperate for you. He’s always going to be a covetous man. He was already, of course. I surmise that it is the very essence of him, but after this, and when it comes to you, he will always want more. You’ll never be rid of him,” the older woman said.

“What does that mean?”

—

Hermione knew what it meant.

It meant leaving Greenhouse Six and him bending to nuzzle her neck while she told him, “I’m hungry.”

And Draco laughed and walked her past the Hogwarts wards. Hermione took his hand before he could take hers and apparated them to her flat. He watched her heat cheap frozen food (which was the opposite of flower petals and everything she needed at that moment) while she explained the concept of a microwave. Hermione hummed in pleasure as she ate processed food heated by electromagnetic waves while he looked on horrified. Draco wouldn’t touch her dinner, but he did let her feed him some Cadbury chocolate.

He tasted like chocolate when they were in her bedroom, and they kissed and kissed and fell asleep wrapped in cotton sheets and a quilt made by her grandmother. It was covered in roses and hummingbirds.

It meant in the morning she thought he might be gone, but he wasn’t. Draco fucked her slowly from behind, while on their sides, her legs splayed wide, while he grasped her hips. Hermione asked him to go faster. He didn’t. Instead, he brought his fingers around and circled her clit slowly with the same steady rhythm.

It meant Draco would only let her come when she told him she was his.

He didn’t really leave her flat after that. All her nights became his, and his things began to appear day by day, delivered by a harried little House-elf named Lonny (Yes, he’s well-paid, Granger, and he is very put out with you stealing me from the manor).

It meant that when she asked from a place borne of insecurity why he didn’t ask her to move in with him, he responded with, “Someday, but here I get all of you and just you.”

He claimed her immediately in public, and no one was surprised, much to her consternation, because apparently they were that obvious. There were no discussions or questions on his part.

Ron and Harry were content in a way she could feel in her bones. Trust, they said over and over. They trusted her, they trusted him. Ron chucked her under the chin. Harry kissed her cheek.

And Matsumoto asked, “Do you understand? The power of these bonds?”

And Hermione replied, “Am I blessed if I’m not cursed?”

It meant everything.