Chapter Text
At seventeen, Draco Malfoy fell head over heels for his new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Hermione Granger. Her sharp wit, unwavering principles, and maddening concern for his endless detentions and duels convinced him she must feel something too—until a bold kiss earned him only a startled shove and the cutting reminder that she was his teacher.
Five years after graduating, Draco returns to Hogwarts—older, wiser, and with one goal in mind: as the new Potions Professor, he’s determined to make the woman who once dismissed him see him as anything but a boy—and possibly even break off her engagement with her fiance.
---
“Will you please stop treating me like I’m still your student?” he snapped, his restraint fraying. “I’m your colleague now, for fuck’s sake!”
“With the way you’re behaving right now, I can’t help but treat you like one, Mister Malfoy.”
His voice dropped, quiet and dangerous.
“Call me Mister Malfoy one more time, Professor Granger, and you’ll regret it.”
He strode around the desk and toward her, caging her against the towering bookshelf in the shadowed corner of her office.
Hermione’s pulse jumped—it was obvious to him. She swallowed hard, the sound loud in the stillness. She refused to move, refused to let him see her falter. Logic was probably telling her she had no reason to back down; she was older than him, steadier. But logic was a fragile thing in moments like this.
The air between them thickened. It was hot and heavy, even in the middle of autumn.
Draco almost smirked at the nearness. She looked breathtaking like that—stubborn, defiant, cornered.
“I’m warning you,” he murmured, face dipping closer, gaze locked on hers.
She tried to look away—at the desk, the parchment stack, the clock—but his eyes dragged hers back like a tide.
“Can we just—” she began, palms pressing lightly against his chest, meaning to push him back, to create the distance she desperately needed. “—just talk like professionals here, Mister Malfoy?”
The moment the name left her lips, his restraint snapped.
His hands framed her face, his mouth crashed against hers before she could inhale. This wasn’t the clumsy, startled kiss from years ago. His arm wrapped around her waist, locking her against him, her hands trapped between them as she pushed in vain.
Then—she froze, breathless—because something shifted. The push of her palms softened; her fingers curled into his robes. And against her better judgment, against every rational thought—
Hermione Granger kissed him back.