Chapter Text
The lukewarm curry takeaway, eaten hastily at her desk while hovering over piles of mundane budgetary documents, had not been a good idea. A delicious one, surely, and really quite enjoyable – until five minutes ago, when Hermione noticed a spatter of it the size of her thumbnail bleeding into the white silk of her shirt, just below her collarbone.
A Scourgify was worthless against the vibrant yellow of the turmeric. Even her trusty Muggle stain remover pen was no match. She was considering soliciting a handkerchief from one of the stuffy old wizards haunting the Ministry halls in order to turn it into a new blouse when there were three gentle raps at her office door.
“Deputy Minister? Your one p.m. appointment has arrived,” her executive assistant, Ned, said through the door.
Fabulous, just fabulous. This was quite possibly the most important meeting of her entire life, and she was going into it with a bright yellow stain on her shirt, takeaway containers spread out across her desk, and a far more frazzled demeanor than she would have liked.
Hermione had always thought she’d have her shit together by the time she turned forty, but the milestone birthday was fast approaching, and alas, here she was. She had poured so much time into her career, into becoming the person that everyone always expected her to be, that sometimes she barely recognized the witch she had turned into along the way.
Which was why, today, Hermione Granger was hell-bent on doing something just for herself.
She barely had a moment to vanish the takeaway containers into oblivion and stand up behind her desk before the door swung open wide and the most pompous, self-centered, obnoxious wizard in all of Britain strode across the threshold in a dark three-piece suit with the faintest hint of a pinstripe, his black dragonhide boots snapping against the marble floor.
Regrettably, he was also the most fit wizard in all of Britain. Hermione’s heart fluttered a little as his grey eyes met hers, and a tiny smirk lifted the corner of his mouth.
“Deputy Minister,” Draco Malfoy drawled, looking her up and down. His eyes briefly landed on the curry stain, and Merlin help her, if he said anything about it, she was going to–
“Special Investigator Malfoy.” Hermione gave him a curt nod before sitting down again, leaning back into her chair and steepling her fingers together beneath her chin in a way that she hoped conveyed authority and demanded respect.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of this mystery meeting?” Malfoy asked, giving her a little bow that seemed far more mocking than respectful, before sitting in one of the chairs in front of her desk. He leaned back casually as if he had all the time in the world, folded one leg up to rest an ankle on the opposite knee, and regarded her as if she were an interesting cold case he was trying to piece together.
“How are you finding the new position?” she asked him. “Settling in well so far?” Bollocks. She was stalling for time, something she’d expressly forbid herself from doing when she had given herself a little pep talk this morning in front of the bathroom mirror.
Rip off the bandage, Hermione. Don’t dance around what you want. Commit to the task at hand, she’d muttered to herself as she swiped toothpaste on her toothbrush. The worst he can say is no.
All of a sudden, with Malfoy sitting in front of her, Hermione realized that ‘no’ wasn’t actually the worst thing that might come out of that stupidly perfect mouth of his.
He might laugh at her. And, in her opinion, being laughed at was generally much worse than being told ‘no’.
Across the desk, Malfoy cocked his head, curious. Somehow, like a damn bloodhound, he had already begun trying to sniff out her real motivations.
“The new job is just fine,” he told her, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “But I don’t believe you summoned me here to ask me about my promotion. Spit it out, Granger. What’s really on your mind?”
With a flick of her wrist, the door slammed shut behind him. Anyone else might have jumped at the thunk it made as the heavy oak flew into the doorframe, but Malfoy kept those stormy eyes trained on her with nary a twitch. And when she murmured a Muffliato charm, he looked quite smug at the idea that this was obviously a matter she wished to discuss with utter privacy.
“Oh my,” Malfoy smirked as he leaned forward, one long, graceful finger resting against his jaw as another traced his upper lip. “Whatever it is, I’m already intrigued.”
Hermione took a deep breath, trying to calm her pulse and quell the nervous magic buzzing right beneath her skin like a live wire. Now or never, she told herself. Rip off the bandage, remember?
“I invited you here today to ask if you would be willing to be my sperm donor,” she told him, hoping her voice carried far more conviction than she felt at that moment. “I want to have a baby.”
As with the slamming of the door, Malfoy didn’t react in the slightest, other than to go utterly still. It almost felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room, trapping them in a soundless vacuum. Hermione cleared her throat just to make sure she hadn’t instantaneously gone deaf. No, she still had her hearing, and she winced at the sound she’d just made, which seemed to echo in the silent room.
For a long moment, Malfoy just watched her. And because Hermione didn’t know what else to do, she let him, schooling her features into something cool, calm, and collected.
Internally, she spiraled into a panic.
Asking Malfoy hadn’t just been a decision out of the blue, though she imagined he probably felt it was. But she was Hermione Granger, for Merlin’s sake. She had made extensive lists, very comprehensive charts, and analysed her options down to the very last detail. She hadn’t gone into this solicitation lightly.
Malfoy was an ideal candidate who suited her needs quite well. He had never been married, was not currently involved, did not seem to have any medical maladies or conditions, and, despite his upbringing and fiendish childhood years, seemed to now have a very good head on his shoulders.
Harry and Ron, who worked beside him in the DMLE, had even vouched for him, which was honestly the highest recommendation Malfoy could possibly have in her book. She’d always trusted her friends’ opinions, and she found them to be some of the most blatantly honest people she knew. Of course, they weren’t at all aware of why she was asking around about Malfoy when they’d met for a few pints and Friday night fish and chips at the pub last week, but that was none of their business.
“I quite like him, actually,” Harry had told her seriously over the rim of his butterbeer stein. “He’s a hard worker, and he’s good at his job, and I don’t even think it’s because he’s scared of going back to Azkaban. I believe he’s really, genuinely turned into a stand-up kind of guy."
“And he’s funny,” Ron had added as he stuffed the chips he’d snagged without permission off of Hermione’s plate into his mouth. “Even for a ferret.”
Malfoy’s Azkaban stint had been a solid entry in the ‘Against’ column of her ‘For/Against’ chart, to be sure, but it had been balanced by a few compensating qualities. For instance, his time had been cut short for good behavior – one year instead of three – and he had immediately joined the DMLE to assist them in rooting out the remaining Death Eaters that continued to roam free.
Though arrogant and pretentious, he’d also had the notion upon his release that everyone he’d even remotely slighted in his life deserved a personal apology. Hermione had received hers while she’d still been working out of a dingy little office, writing legislation for the Department of Magical Creatures. He’d crammed himself in amongst her piles of paperwork and managed to apologize wholeheartedly for not only his, but also his parents’, treatment of her. She had accepted his apology, and they had been cordial ever since.
Now, almost fifteen years of polite not-quite-chumminess stretched between their school years and their adult selves.
That wasn’t to say that she was never around him. She and Malfoy floated in the same social circles, of course. They both worked in the Ministry and often shared a lift or exchanged pleasantries when passing in the hallway. They’d even danced at a few galas together. He was an excellent dancer, always polite thanks to his good breeding, but also steadfastly aloof.
She would occasionally cross paths with him when meeting Ron and Harry out for a drink after work, though he would often find an excuse to duck out soon after she arrived and never stayed for more than one drink in her company. She hadn’t ever taken it personally, but now, sitting in front of him with all of her quite vulnerable cards laid out on the table, she realized she might have made a very grave mistake.
Maybe, she thought, Draco Malfoy actually hated her.
“You look a bit peaky, Granger,” he finally said, his plummy voice shattering the silence they had been stewing in. “Any other surprises you’d like to throw at me?”
Hermione swallowed hard, her throat sticky. “Nope.” The ‘p’ popped obscenely as she said it. Malfoy raised an eyebrow at her denial, obviously not believing her.
He ran a thumb along his jaw for a moment before leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his knees, fingers knitting together as he sucked his lower lip between his teeth. Hermione’s eyes flew to his mouth involuntarily before she dragged them back to meet his gaze. He smirked.
“Alright,” he told her after what felt like not nearly enough contemplation for such an enormous request. “I’ll do it.”
Hermione was sure her eyebrows practically flew to her hairline. “You will? Just like that?”
Malfoy sighed, tapping his boot against the floor with no small amount of impatience. “Just like that, Granger. Is it… not the answer you’re looking for?”
“No, it, ah, it is,” she told him hastily. “I just thought you might have more questions. Or conditions.”
He waved an unworried hand in the air before running it through his perfectly coiffed hair. “That’s for my solicitor to figure out. I’ll have him owl you this evening, but the paperwork shouldn’t be too involved. Besides, you didn’t ascend to Deputy Minister without having all your ducks in a row. I’m sure you’ve thought long and hard about this decision, and I trust you haven’t made it lightly.”
“Well then,” Hermione smoothed her skirt as a few of her nerves subsided, and let out a shaky breath. “That wasn’t too painful, was it? And here I thought you might laugh at me,” she muttered, more to herself than to the man she’d just boldly propositioned to help her conceive a baby.
Malfoy was already rising from his chair. “Assuming the paperwork is agreeable to you, do you have a date in mind for our first liaison? Will you require that I take you out to dinner beforehand? I might need more advanced warning for that, but I’m sure I can move some things around if you–”
Hermione raised a hand in the air to cut him off. “Liaison?” she squeaked, nerves coming back full force.
“Yes, a liaison. When we meet. To have sex.” He enunciated each word clearly and slowly, as if she were a stupid child. “You do know how babies are made, don’t you, Granger?”
Hermione couldn’t help it – she burst into laughter. Malfoy looked absolutely affronted at her outburst, with an expression of surprised disbelief akin to how she always imagined he might look if someone told him he had a hair out of place. Apparently, her giggling over the idea of them having sex was an enormous blow to his ego.
“No actual sex will be necessary,” she gasped, wiping a few tears from her eyes. “It’s… a process called ICI. Intra-cervical Insemination. You provide your… genetic material, and then I… do what I need to do with it.”
Merlin, she was nearly forty years old. Why on earth couldn’t she find the nerve to say words like sperm?
Malfoy switched from affronted to perplexed at her clarification. “So there’s… there’s no sex involved? None at all?”
“I thought you’d be pleased with that,” Hermione told him honestly. “Since I’m, you know, me, and you’re…” she trailed off, gesturing at him and his obnoxiously fit self.
“Granger, I’d like to make something perfectly clear, if I may,” Malfoy told her, stepping forward to brace himself on her desk. He leaned toward her, looming over the piles of paper spread out before her, his voice deep and silky and utterly serious. “It wouldn’t at all be an inconvenience to have sex with you.”
Hermione felt a flush spread across her chest and up her neck, the heat of it settling heavily in her cheeks. She kept her eyes trained steadily on his, which somehow was even worse. His gaze was absolutely indecent. “Alright, well… this is the way I’d prefer to do it, if you don’t mind.”
Malfoy shrugged. “You know that magical pregnancies are already notoriously hard to achieve, right? I’m sure you’ve done your research, so you no doubt know that more traditional methods – and by traditional methods I, of course, mean participating in real, live sex – have a much higher success rate than other methods.”
Hermione nodded hesitantly. She had read all the research papers, all the studies, and all the books. She knew what they said, and she knew he was right.
But that wasn’t how she’d ever planned on doing this.
Malfoy leaned forward, his arms resting on a pile of papers atop her desk, coming so close to her that she could smell his light cedar cologne and probably count every single eyelash if she let her eyes wander. Instead, she fixated on his bright grey eyes, flecked with mercurial silver.
“I’d take good care of you, Granger,” he murmured, voice lowering almost to a growl. “You know that, right? I’d give you everything that you could possibly want, could ever dream of… and then, I’d give you a baby.”
The shiver licked up her spine like a bolt of lightning as Hermione felt her knickers dampen at the absolute mouth on this man. She squirmed beneath his penetrating gaze, tipping her chin up in what she hoped was a convincingly defiant gesture.
And Malfoy smiled, like a satisfied cat who had caught a little bird, because somehow, with barely any effort on his part, he knew she was already dripping for him.
He held her stare for a moment longer as she stubbornly refused to acknowledge his offer before letting out a heavy sigh. “Fine, we’ll do it your way to start. But if it doesn’t work, and you’d still like to keep trying… well, I think you’ll come ‘round to my methods eventually.”
With one last smirk, he pushed off her desk and spun on his heel. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do actually have a job I need to attend to.” He paused on the threshold and glanced back over his shoulder.
“Oh, and Granger?”
Hermione’s stomach clenched. “Yes?”
“You really should do something about that stain on your blouse.” And with that, he was gone.
~
The paperwork from the solicitor arrived that evening by way of a conceited eagle-owl who looked down its beak at the treat she tried to give him before hopping out the window with what sounded suspiciously like a scoff, if eagle-owls could do such things.
Hermione paged idly through the stack of thick parchment as she sat back down at the table to finish her dinner - a half ham sandwich and a bowl of butternut squash soup, eaten cross-legged in her favourite pale-pink pyjama set.
The paperwork seemed reasonable enough. She hadn’t been exactly sure what to expect, but looking at the papers now, she realized that yes, an NDA was certainly acceptable in this instance, and fine, she didn’t mind signing something that said Malfoy was under no legal obligation to pay her or her future child any money for child-rearing expenses, but that instead, a trust fund would be set up for the child to access in the future.
Frankly, the trust fund was quite charitable, and Hermione was pondering how to thank Malfoy for such a generous addendum to their entire arrangement when she reached the last sheet in the stack and promptly dropped her spoon back into the bowl. Butternut squash soup spattered everywhere, though she barely even noticed.
Hermione quickly summoned her Patronus, and when the little otter materialized in front of her, she could hardly gather her thoughts. “Tell Draco Malfoy to floo-call me immediately,” she gritted out through clenched teeth, relaying her floo coordinates. The otter bounded off through the wall.
Hermione rose from her chair with the poised, barely-contained rage of a woman who refused to be provoked by a demanding and insecure prat and yet really, really wanted to punch him in the face. She clenched the sheet of parchment in her hands until it crumpled, pacing in front of the fireplace as she awaited Malfoy’s call.
The fucker made her wait thirty minutes before he deigned to show his face.
“Deputy Minister,” his green-hued, disembodied head intoned as it materialized in the fireplace. “How lovely to see you. I take it you have received the paperwork from the solicitor? Everything looking ship-shape?”
She let out a dry little laugh. “Cut the bullshit, Malfoy. Would you like to explain the very last page to me?”
One emerald-tinted eyebrow quirked. “That packet came straight from my lawyer, Granger. I’ve no idea what the last page might have been. Care to enlighten me?”
“The very last page just happens to be an agreement that a future child resulting from our combined DNA will bear the surname of Malfoy,” she seethed, brandishing the crumpled stack of parchment in the air.
“Oh dear, you’ve made quite a mess of those,” Malfoy mused, disregarding her point entirely. “Silas is going to have a hell of a time rolling that back up in order to return it to the solicitor.”
“Malfoy!”
“I think it’s an entirely reasonable request, Granger.” He was being disgustingly cavalier about it, which made her fume all the more. “It will be my progeny, you see. First-born, surprisingly — I had hoped to procreate before now, but here we are. Me, childless. You, also childless, proposing that I help you beget a child. It seems to me that, due to historical trends and societal norms, that child would bear my surname.”
Hermione thought her head might actually explode. “You want me to sign an NDA saying I’ll never speak of your involvement in this matter. You don’t want to be held liable for childcare costs. Why, then, do you insist the child bear your surname? How shall we work around that?”
Malfoy pondered for a moment, brows furrowed together. “You’re right,” he finally told her. “What a silly oversight. Please feel free to tear that page up, and I’ll wait until tomorrow to fire the solicitor for such a grievous mistake.”
Hermione chewed on her lip. “You didn’t really mean it at all, did you? You just wanted to rile me up.”
He gave her a devilish smirk. “It is so much fun. Mission accomplished, I’d say, judging by the vein sticking out of your forehead. The child should rightfully bear your surname, Granger. I shall call it Granger the Second. Or perhaps Granger the Small? The Miniature? I’ll have to get back to you on that.”
“I’ll owl the papers back in the morning,” Hermione sighed, feeling completely exhausted now that she was coming off her adrenaline high with the knowledge that she’d simply been played. “Good night, Malfoy.”
“Good night, Granger,” he told her, his visage already fading away into the flames. “One last note: you really should do something about that stain.”
Hermione’s eyes tracked down to her chest, where an enormous gob of butternut squash soup had spattered off-center of her sternum.
Perfect. Just perfect.
~
When she arrived at her office the next day, looking forward to the quiet and meeting-free morning that awaited her, Ned greeted her with a smile and a cup of tea just the way she liked - two sugars and a splash of milk, cooled to just the perfect temperature that meant she didn’t have to wait before she could begin drinking it immediately.
She took a few sips as Ned reviewed her schedule with her. A meeting with the centaur contingent at one p.m., followed by a quick one-on-one with Kingsley at half-two for a debrief. It was quite a small load for a Friday, which was wonderful. Hopefully, she could make some headway on the backlog of legislation drafting she’d built up over the last few busy weeks.
Hermione unlocked her office, stepped inside, and turned to deposit her bag and coat into the chair in the corner where such things normally lived. And then she screamed.
Because that chair was currently occupied by Draco sodding Malfoy.
Ned, bless him, came running immediately at the sound of her panic. “Deputy Minister, whatever is the…? Oh, hello, Special Investigator Malfoy.” Her assistant shifted nervously from foot to foot. “How did you, ah, come to be inside the Deputy Minister’s locked office?”
Malfoy smirked, making no move to get up. “I’m a special investigator for a reason, Sherlock.”
“Right.” Ned turned to Hermione. “Do you, ah, need anything, Ms. Granger?” he asked, still a bit shrill from the excitement. The poor wizard was probably worried he’d lose his job over Malfoy’s inability to behave like a normal human being who acted appropriately and made an appointment when met with societal cues like locked doors.
“No, I’m fine, Ned, thank you,” Hermione huffed, unceremoniously dumping her purse and the coat slung over her arm on top of Malfoy’s head. “You can leave us, please.”
With one last anxious look between Hermione and Malfoy, Ned retreated and closed the door behind him. Her blond intruder stood up from the chair, gently placed her dumped belongings on the seat where he’d been sitting, and took a step toward her. “Granger, are you hurt?”
He looked remarkably worried for a man who had apparently begun the day with a wish to scare her to death. All the same, Hermione took a step back, suspicious. “I’m… fine. Other than the heart attack you nearly gave me.”
His silver gaze left her eyes and tracked downward. Was the bloody man looking at her tits? Merlin, this was the last straw; she was going to absolutely–
“The tea didn’t burn you?” he asked quietly.
Right, the tea. The tea she had been sipping as she walked into her office. The tea she had been holding as she found Malfoy sitting like a ghoul in a place he wasn’t supposed to be. The tea she had spilled all over herself when she let out a shriek so blood-curdling she was sure it might qualify her for honorary banshee status.
“Fuck,” Hermione sighed, examining her sopping-wet, tea-stained blouse. Which, conveniently, was also white and now utterly see-through. “What a wonderful way to start the day.” She extended her hand toward Malfoy. “No, it was tepid at best. Give me my bag, will you? I need my wand.”
“You don’t carry it on you?” Malfoy asked, stepping closer again rather than doing what she asked. She took a step back, matching him. “That seems quite reckless for a high-ranking government official to go about without their wand on their person.”
Hermione gritted her teeth. “I entered the floo in my apartment, Malfoy, and I exited the floo in the Ministry. Not sure there were many opportunities for an ambush along the way.”
Another step, both of them in sync. Hermione could feel her heartbeat in her throat. From the anger, surely. Not at all because she was now slightly turned on. “Wand, Malfoy,” she bit out.
He gained another foot, his gaze fixed on her face, his eyes now as dark grey as the underbelly of a summer raincloud. The tension hovering between them felt as electrified as a lightning storm. She tried to take a step back, desperate to keep the distance between them, and nearly cursed when her bum hit the solid wood of her desk.
Malfoy clocked the hindrance to her retreat and smirked, finally closing the gap between them with one last, long stride.
Hermione swallowed hard. She’d been close to him before, squashed into pub banquettes and dancing at galas, but it had certainly not felt like this before. The air around them had never felt so charged, so heated. She felt a deep warmth coil low in her belly.
“Allow me,” Malfoy murmured, his breath ghosting across her cheek. He smelled like fresh snow in a dark forest. “We purebloods are quite good at this sort of thing. Trained from a young age.”
“Allow you t-t-to what?” Hermione could almost scream at the stammer that slipped out unbidden. Pull yourself together, she internally admonished herself. You are a grown woman, not a horny teenager. You are the Deputy Minister of Magic, for Godric’s sake. This man is a menace, and he only serves a purpose for the conception of your future child. Nothing more.
In blatant disregard for that rational internal voice, Hermione suddenly felt the wetness of her arousal between her thighs. Wonderful.
“I’m going to fix your shirt,” Malfoy told her gently and firmly, as if he were consoling a nervous cat poised to claw his eyes out at any second. “A little wandless magic I learned as a boy. Very helpful in social situations.”
“Right.” Hermione gulped. “Proceed.”
With great care and a delicate touch, Malfoy placed his fingers lightly against her collarbone. She nearly gasped as the world seemed to drop away, narrowing down to only his clean scent in her nose and his touch, as delicate as the brush of a butterfly’s wings against her body.
Hermione didn’t even hear the combination of charms he murmured. She merely felt the fabric of her shirt dry against her chest, feathering across the delicate skin. She tipped her head down and watched the dark stain of the tea disappear before her very eyes, evaporating into nothing, leaving behind only her crisp, white cotton shirt.
“Granger?” Hermione looked up into dark eyes. “You really must start keeping the food and drink where it belongs, which is not – and this might come as a surprise – all over your clothes.”
She bit back a laugh. “Thank you, Malfoy. I’ll take that into consideration.”
Malfoy's mouth twitched slightly as he stepped back, giving her some space. It almost felt like a palpable loss to have him at a reasonable distance again.
“Now, if we could get down to the business I actually came to inquire about?” he asked her, leaning a hip casually against one of the chairs facing her desk. “I didn’t actually come here just to be shrieked at and clean up your messes.”
“DMLE business?” Hermione asked, confused.
Malfoy cocked his head at her, as if she’d just started speaking in Mandarin Chinese. “No, Granger. Insemination business.”
She winced. “We need to find a better term for that.”
“Do we? It is quite descriptive for the task at hand.”
“Fine, fine, whatever.” Hermione waved him off and sat down behind her desk, sinking gratefully into her leather office chair. She was only roughly half an hour into her day and exhausted already. “What about it, then?”
Malfoy’s mouth twitched. “My solicitor received the paperwork last night and suggested I determine how to proceed. Seeing as how I have only engaged in actual sex, which you seem completely opposed to, even though it is the most naturally appropriate way to conceive a child, I’m really not sure what the next steps might be.”
“Have you ever had a wank?” Hermione asked him. She swore his cheeks turned the lightest shade of pink at her question.
“Yes, of course.”
Hermione leaned back in her chair and threw her hands up in the air. “Well then! You’re fully qualified for step number two.”
Malfoy stepped up to her desk and braced himself on it, giving her complete déjà vu from the day before. Had it really been less than twenty-four hours since she had asked this prat to help her make a baby? Godric, it felt like a lifetime.
“So you don’t need me to woo you? Court you? Take you on a date?”
She couldn’t help herself – she snorted. “No, Malfoy. I merely need you to wank into a cup, and then you can be on your way.”
He sighed, almost as if he were resigning himself to the most boring, tedious relationship of his life. Actually, come to think of it, he probably was. No sex, no glamour, no notoriety. Just a quick spaff and an NDA saying for all intents and purposes, her child wasn’t his.
“I’ve been tracking my ovulation windows for a few months,” Hermione said conversationally, trying to speak as naturally as if she were discussing the weather. “My planner is at my flat, but if I remember correctly, I’m due for another cycle in roughly one week’s time. I’ll send you a Patronus as soon as I get home so you’ll know approximately when your… services… will be needed.”
Malfoy stood straight and smoothed his robes over his abdomen, giving her a rather formal, serious nod. “Pleasure doing insemination business with you, Granger,” he murmured as he headed for the door. “I look forward to our next meeting.”
Hermione sat for a moment after Malfoy had gone before pressing her forehead to the cool, solid wood of her desk. She was still damp between her thighs, perhaps even more so after their lively back-and-forth. A quiet groan escaped her lips.
What on earth had she gotten herself into?
~
Eight days later, Malfoy swept through Hermione’s floo in dark and dashing formal robes, clutching the biggest bouquet of roses she’d ever seen in one arm, and a paper bag full of what she could only hope was takeaway containers in the other.
“This was just supposed to be a low-key, cosy night in,” she muttered to herself, clutching a cup of tea as she wandered out of the kitchen to greet him in her leopard-print pyjamas. Crookshanks threaded through her ankles in what she could only interpret as a last-ditch attempt to trip her so that she broke her neck and therefore stopped this entire very bad idea in its tracks.
Malfoy’s eyes, which had been cataloguing her flat in a very judgmental sort of way, finally landed on her. His gaze began at her curls, piled in a messy bun on the top of her head, passed over her pyjamas, froze for a moment on her bunny-shaped slippers, and then ended on Crookshanks, who hissed beneath such an appraising look.
“Good kitty,” Malfoy told him. “You’re right not to trust me. I’ve come to do nefarious things with your mother.”
“Artificial insemination isn’t illegal, Malfoy,” Hermione said, rolling her eyes and placing her hands on her hips. “But the size of that bouquet should be.”
At the mention of the flowers, Malfoy held them out to her with a rather pleased look on his face. “For the mum-to-be,” he said, waving them in her face. “I had them flown in from France this morning. Straight from The Queen’s Grove at Versailles.”
Hermione couldn’t help it. She gawked. “These roses are from Versailles? How on earth did you manage that?”
“I’m rich,” he said simply. “And I have a source.” He deposited the roses in her arms, and she couldn’t help but let out a small oof at the weight of them. They were absurdly decadent, far too over-the-top, and yet… Merlin, they smelled heavenly. Hermione buried her nose in the blooms, each a shade of cream or soft peach, and inhaled deeply.
“I would have asked my mother,” Malfoy continued as he followed her into the kitchen, where she summoned a vase for the flowers, and he set the paper bag on the countertop, “as her roses at the Manor are far superior. But that no doubt would have brought up too many questions that I’m not quite sure how to address with her.”
“Ah, yes, the great Narcissa Malfoy. How will she feel, do you think, if she ever finds out there’s a baby out there that shares her blood and has my name?” Hermione watched the arrogant and unaffected mask that Malfoy always wore slip, just a little, at her words.
“I think she would be very pleased to have a grandchild, regardless of the circumstances,” he told her sincerely. His forthrightness left her feeling unsettled, manifesting as a mild ache in her chest. She deposited the flowers into their new home and pointed at the paper bag next to the sink. “What’s that?”
“Your favorite curry takeaway,” Malfoy answered. “I have it on good authority that you’ll do practically anything for a paneer makhani.”
“Not anything, unfortunately for you.” Hermione narrowed her eyes at the utterly innocent look he gave her. “Who’s this ‘good authority’ you speak of?”
“A source,” he said vaguely, opening the bag. The delicious aromas that spilled forth nearly brought Hermione to her knees.
“So… Ned,” she sighed, opening a cabinet and pulling out two plates. “Ned is your source.”
“The first rule of having sources is that you never share your sources, Granger,” Malfoy tutted with a mischievous twitch of his lips. “So I really can’t say.”
Those were the last few words uttered before they ate the curry standing at the sink like starving heathens, shoveling it into their mouths with satisfied sighs and pleasurable groans until the very last smear of sauce had been chased with the very last scrap of garlic naan.
“Salazar,” Malfoy said as Hermione set the kettle on to boil and he charmed the dishes to wash themselves in the sink. “Do you make those sounds in bed as well?”
Hermione swiped one last dab of curry from the corner of her lips, watching Malfoy’s eyes immediately fly to watch the movement of her tongue. It felt incredibly personal in a way that made her stomach flip. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” she sniffed, clinging to whatever ounce of cocky bravado she still possessed. “Now, would you like a tour?”
“This is a rather small flat,” he told her, looking around the kitchen – which was quite good-sized, thank you very much. “I think I’ve seen most of it, haven’t I?”
She smacked him lightly on the arm, not at all affected by the toned muscles she could feel bunched beneath his dress robes. “It’s no Malfoy Manor, but it’s comfortable,” she snipped. “I don’t need much more than this.”
“Yes, but what about the child? Think of the child, Granger! It’s going to need room to stretch its legs!”
Hermione poured them each a cup of tea. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but children are actually quite small when they’re born. I’ve heard of some people turning large closets into a nursery since a baby doesn’t need much else.”
“You really shouldn’t be taking child-rearing advice from the boy who lived in a closet under the stairs his entire childhood,” Malfoy said as he plopped a sugar cube into his tea. “I hear he was really very miserable.”
She glared at him. “This didn’t come from Harry; it came from a parenting blog. Also, babies aren’t racehorses, Malfoy. They don’t need to ‘stretch their legs’ until they’re much older. If anything, it’s good to have a smaller place while they’re young. Far fewer ways for them to get in trouble or wander off. It honestly amazes me that your mother kept track of you in that big, drafty mansion.”
“My mother didn’t have to worry about that sort of thing. Nurse Biggs did.”
Hermione wasn’t sure what to do with the flare of sympathy that burst bright and hot behind her ribs at the thought of a precocious little blond boy growing up in the care of someone who wasn’t his mother, so she cleared her throat and led him back into the sitting room.
Malfoy looked around. “It’s rather dim in here. Don’t you get any natural sunlight in this place?”
“It’s past nightfall, Malfoy. The sun isn’t even out.”
“Yes, I know, but still…” He pivoted slowly in a circle, one long finger tapping at his chin as he considered the space. “You don’t have any south-facing windows. Are you planning on depriving our child of Vitamin D?”
“My child,” Hermione corrected him. “And I am perfectly capable of taking my child out to a park or on a walk for some sunshine. Also, what do you know about Vitamin D? Your skin tone suggests it’s never been acquainted with the sun in all its life.”
Malfoy had extracted his wand from the breast pocket of his robes and was staring thoughtfully up at the ceiling. “Maybe a skylight…” he mused thoughtfully, spinning the wand idly between his fingertips.
“Absolutely not,” Hermione yelped, nearly splashing tea all over herself. Merlin, that would have been just what she needed. “Do you have some mastery in magical architecture that I am unaware of, Malfoy? You are not blasting holes in my ceiling.”
He sighed and replaced the wand in his robes with a shrug. “Fine. Our child shall just suffer from scurvy, I suppose.”
“My child,” Hermione snapped, correcting him again, “will not suffer from scurvy. Also, scurvy is the result of a Vitamin C deficiency, not Vitamin D.”
“It’s all Muggle nonsense to me,” he answered blandly, gesturing at her floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. “Now, are these secured to the wall so they won’t fall over? I’m quite worried for the safety of our baby once it is mobile and begins to explore this tiny little flat, because – knowing the extent of my athletic prowess that it will no doubt inherit – I quite imagine it will try to climb these.”
“My. Baby.” The voice that left her throat was almost unrecognizable. It was low, and deadly, and very, very angry.
Malfoy’s eyebrows knitted together with confusion. “Granger, this is the ultimate joint venture. Your genetic material and my genetic material, combining to create a baby. Is that not the absolute definition of something that is ‘ours’?”
“I recently signed an entire stack of paperwork removing every single responsibility and liability that might attach you to this child,” Hermione fumed, her tone far more shrill than she’d like it to be. She set the teacup down on a side table and advanced on Malfoy like an angry dragon, causing him to take a step back in alarm.
“My. Child.” She pressed a firm finger into his chest to emphasize each word. “Got it?”
Malfoy held his arms up in surrender. He smelled so delicious up close, like warm skin and mellow cedar, and all of a sudden, Hermione’s hormone-flooded, ovulating body went quite weak in the knees. She swayed.
He put out a hand to steady her, placing an enormous palm on the soft curve of her waist right below her ribs. His other hand caught her wrist and brought her own hand up to his chest, cradling it there gently against his sternum. Hermione could feel his fingertips dig lightly into the skin of her hip in a way that really didn’t help matters, and she fought the urge to rub her thighs together as heat flooded her veins and desire pooled low in her belly.
It’s just the hormones talking, she told herself. Just. The. Hormones. Your body wants you to have a baby on a cellular level, and it’s pulling out all the stops to get what it wants.
They stood there quietly for a moment, with Hermione intently studying the weave of Malfoy’s robes, pulled taut across his pectorals as he continued to grip her waist. She could feel his breath, warm on the crown of her curls. It was like being suspended in stasis, unsure of what came next.
A loud meow from Crookshanks broke the silence, and Malfoy’s fingertips squeezed almost imperceptibly at her hip before releasing her and stuffing his hands in the pockets of his robes. “Good?” he asked quietly.
Hermione nodded. Swallowed. Collected herself. “Good.”
He was still far too close, though, and she had the sudden urge to rip his clothes off. She wanted to tangle her fingers through that perfectly-coiffed hair, scrape her teeth along the light stubble that dusted along the edge of his jaw, run her fingernails down the long divot of his spine. A pathetic mewl left her lips as she imagined his wet mouth on her skin.
She heard his breath hitch. “Granger?”
Her voice was barely a whisper. “Yes?”
“I need you to tell me what to do before either of us does something we regret.”
Her mind buzzed, hazy and disconnected, almost as if she were floating far above the ground as lust oozed through her body like sticky-sweet honey. Regret? Would she really regret it? Letting Malfoy have her body, letting him claim her, letting him fuck her so deeply that–
Malfoy cleared his throat. “Granger.” His voice was firm, clinical. Detached. “Next steps. What are they?”
The fog lifted, just a bit. Hermione still wanted to sink her teeth into that sloped juncture between his neck and his shoulder and see what he tasted like, but at least the little voice that told her it would be a bad idea had come back. Don’t do it, the little voice said. This man is trouble.
Unfortunately, the voice was very faint.
Hermione gave her head a little shake and made the absolute mistake of looking up into Malfoy’s face. His pupils had expanded so far that they eclipsed every ounce of silver in his irises. His voice had been detached, but he looked at her as if his entire world had narrowed to her and her alone. Godric, now she wanted to rip her own clothes off.
“Next steps,” she squeaked, fleeing to the entryway and rummaging through her canvas tote hanging by the door. Her trembling fingers made purchase with the little plastic bag the clinic had given her, and she grasped it tightly.
“There’s, ah, a container for your... sample,” she stammered, extracting a clear plastic cup with a lid and offering it to Malfoy. His fingertips brushed against hers as he took it from her, sending a sharp sear of electricity coursing through her limbs. “And… well, you don’t need the rest of this. It’s all for me.” She gave a weak laugh.
“Where would you like me to handle things, since you won’t allow me in the bedroom?” Malfoy asked dryly, seemingly fully recovered from whatever had just happened between them. If anything, he probably felt as if he’d dodged a bullet. The risque comments he made that suggested he was interested in bedding her were obviously just a deflection.
“The loo,” Hermione said hurriedly, gesturing for him to follow her down the hall. She opened up the door to the bathroom, which was small but clean – a shower/bathtub combo fronted by a fluffy blue bath mat, a small vanity with a sink, and a toilet. Malfoy examined the space like a man having been led to the site of his own execution.
“Titillating,” he finally said, raising an eyebrow. “Very erotic. I’ll have absolutely no problem getting myself off into a plastic cup whilst sitting on the toilet.”
“You could always face the mirror,” Hermione said without thinking. “I know how much you fancy yourself.”
She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard Malfoy laugh so genuinely. It had a deep and delicious timbre to it that made her shiver. “You know me so well, Granger,” he told her, amusement playing at his lips.
“Right, well, you can just… take care of business… and then once you’re done, come knock,” she pointed at her bedroom door directly across the hall, “and you can give the cup to me. And then you’re free to leave.”
Malfoy frowned at her, and a muscle clenched in his jaw. “You’re certain you want me to leave?”
“Absolutely. Your sample is the only thing I require.” Godric, why couldn’t she just say ‘sperm’? “I can deal with the rest on my own.”
“Headstrong and independent Deputy Minister Granger,” Draco mused, leaning a hip against the vanity countertop and crossing his arms. “Clinging to her autonomy even as she attempts a biological process that naturally requires the help of another.”
Hermione didn’t appreciate the way her name and title sounded so delicious in his mouth, as if he was savouring every syllable. She also didn’t like him making a jab at her desire to enter motherhood, even if without a partner. “Don’t take too long, Malfoy,” she snipped, feeling quite bruised by his words. “I haven’t got all night.” With that, she turned on her heel, crossed the hall, and slammed her bedroom door shut behind her.
The room was warm and dark. Hermione sat on her bed, sinking into the feather duvet, and tried not to think about what was happening across the hall. Tried not to imagine the noises Malfoy might make as he worked himself up, or the look that might appear on his face when he finally came. Most of all, she tried not to imagine what his cock looked like.
She focused instead on his last words to her as she emptied the bag full of supplies from the clinic and lined them up neatly on her dresser, reviewing the instruction packet the doctor had given her one last time, even though she had memorized it by now.
Headstrong and independent Deputy Minister Granger, clinging to her autonomy even as she attempts a biological process that naturally requires the help of another. What an utter arsehole he was.
It had been approximately fifteen minutes before there was a soft knock on her door. Hermione cracked it open silently, thrusting her hand through the opening, and Malfoy gently placed the cup in her palm. Though she should have expected it, the warmth of the specimen startled her.
Hermione turned and closed the door, listening for his footsteps to walk down the hall toward the floo. Instead, there was a heavy silence. She could see the shadow of him shift beneath the edge of the door.
“Granger?” His voice was quiet, nearly pleading. She didn’t answer, instead setting down the cup beside the other items and taking a deep breath. It was time. She could do this.
She heard a faint rasp against the door, as if he’d placed his hand upon the wood. “I’m sorry,” Malfoy said, his voice muffled but his tone honest. “I shouldn’t have said those things. You’re very brave to go into this alone. I admire you for going after what you want.”
Hermione felt hot tears prickle in the corners of her eyes as the silence descended once more, holding her breath until Malfoy’s footsteps had retreated down the hall and she heard the floo roar to life. Then, determined and resolved, she dashed away the tears and got to work.
~
She didn’t see Malfoy again until seventeen days later, when he politely made an appointment for three p.m. on a Wednesday rather than showing up unannounced and making a second attempt to startle her into an early grave.
“I figured stress wouldn’t be good for the baby,” he said by way of explanation when she stood to greet him as he walked in. His eyes fell immediately to her stomach.
“While I appreciate the fact that you acted like a normal human being, it wouldn’t have mattered,” Hermione told him quietly. “I got my period. I’m not pregnant.”
Malfoy’s eyes flew back to her face. He looked almost… sad, for a moment. Then his normal indifferent mask slipped back into place.
“So we’ll try again.” His voice was firm, broaching no argument. “I’ll await your owl. Sometime within the next two weeks?”
Hermione nodded, and Malfoy left.
~
The evening of the second attempt, Malfoy brought hot, crispy fish and chips and a bundle of peonies, and Hermione tried not to listen to her raging hormones and jump him as soon as he stepped out of the floo.
Speaking of the hormones, they had been quite bossy tonight and requested that she wear skimpier pyjamas than last time. Who was she to argue with her innate biology? Tonight’s set featured flowy bottoms and a buttoned top, made from dove-grey silk with a cream lace trim. The cut was demure, but it clung to her like a second skin.
“Salazar, Granger,” Malfoy said as his gaze swept over her, his voice a touch breathless from the trip. “You keep changing the dress code on me.”
He had foregone the formal robes this time and was instead clad in dark trousers and a dusky blue cashmere sweater that showed off the top half of the Azkaban tattoo on his neck and highlighted his muscular arms quite nicely. Not that she noticed.
They ate the fish in much the same way as they had the curry – enthusiastically, over the sink, hot oil dribbling down their chins.
“So how was your week?” Hermione asked as she watched Malfoy drench his chips in vinegar. He paused, the bottle suspended mid-air, and looked up at her skeptically.
“My week?”
“Yes, how was your week? I’m trying to make small talk here, Malfoy, do keep up.”
He set the vinegar carefully on the countertop. “My week was… fine.”
“Any good cases you’re working on right now?” she pressed, boosting herself up onto the countertop so she could sit with her legs hanging over the side. Malfoy gawked at her, and she sighed. “You really are quite bad at this. Don’t they teach you Purebloods how to make idle chatter?”
Malfoy’s mouth pinched into a frown, his brow furrowing. “Aren’t you going to yell at me? I treated you quite poorly the last time I was here, and I wouldn’t be at all offended if you gave me a dressing down.”
“You weren’t wrong, though.” Hermione shrugged and shuffled her chips around in the takeaway container with her fingers. They had gone a bit soggy, much to her dismay. “I am independent, and I am head-strong. And I am embarking on a solo adventure that was once something only a couple could do. Nothing you said was factually inaccurate.”
Draco looked guilty, almost uncomfortable with her benevolence, as if she were taking away his opportunity to throw himself down on the ground and tell her how sorry he was. It was odd, coming from a man who rarely apologized for anything. And Hermione refused to let her mind wander to what might happen if she found Malfoy suddenly on his knees before her.
“I still said it in a mean-spirited sort of way,” he said quietly.
“Yes, well, I’m chalking it up to you being sexually frustrated at the time. And now it’s nothing more than water under the bridge. So, shall we proceed with the remainder of the night’s festivities?”
Draco looked practically nervous, which seemed incredibly out of sorts for the man. “Are you sure you don’t want to yell at me?” he asked her again.
“Godric, Malfoy, I already told you. No. How much more clear must I make myself?”
Hermione watched silently as he threw his unfinished chips in the trash can, walked to the sink, and meticulously washed the grease off his hands. After he dried them off on a kitchen tea towel, he sat down in one of the chairs at the kitchen table and turned to give her his full attention.
“If you aren’t going to yell at me,” he told her, his voice measured and calm as he leaned back languidly in the chair, “you’re going to have to figure out another way to get me worked up.”
Her mouth dropped open as the implication of what he was telling her slammed into her with startling clarity. “Our bickering last time… turned you on?”
Malfoy smirked. “More than you know, Granger. Got me off in record time.”
“You’re lying,” she scoffed, unable to believe him. “It took you quite a while to get me that sample. Nearly fifteen minutes! I’m not sure about your benchmarks, but that doesn’t seem like any sort of record to me.”
“What if I told you I was sitting on my hands for fourteen minutes thinking about the look you get on your face when you’re admonishing me for being a prick?” Malfoy asked her, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees. He didn’t look like he was joking. He looked incredibly serious. “What if I told you it only took me one stroke?”
Hermione’s stomach flipped. “Well, I’m not in an argumentative sort of mood,” she told him, fighting to keep a nervous quiver from reaching her voice. “Shall I source you some Muggle magazines with naked women in them?”
Malfoy’s gaze turned hungry. “No. I want you to touch yourself,” he told her, dark eyes glinting. “Right there on the countertop.”
Every ounce of blood in her body flooded to her core, leaving her lightheaded. “Excuse me?”
“Touch yourself,” he said again, his voice dropping so low that she nearly had to lean forward to hear him. “I want you to get yourself right to the brink so that later, after I’m gone and you’re doing whatever you need to do, you’re wound so tight that you can’t help but come yourself. It’s mutually beneficial, Granger. A female orgasm is specifically designed to get a woman pregnant, and I am nothing if not completely devoted to bettering your odds.”
All Hermione heard in the ensuing silence was her pulse pounding in her ears. “Okay?” she squeaked, wondering what the hell she was even agreeing to. “I think that can be arranged?”
Malfoy leaned back in his chair with a smirk, one arm folding behind his head so that his bicep bulged in a completely indecent way, even beneath the cashmere. His other hand rested, feather-light, just shy of his groin. Her eyes marked its position next to the hint of an erection that was already evident beneath his trousers.
“Like what you see?” Malfoy asked her, noticing her stare.
“Just establishing where you’re starting from so I can monitor your progress,” she replied, her wit returning just in time to save the day and make her sound far braver than she actually felt.
The ghost of a smile played at his lips. “Naturally.”
Hesitant but resolved to see his request through - he was helping her, after all, it was the least she could do - Hermione placed her left palm on the cool countertop and put all of her weight on it, until the back of her head rested firmly against the cabinet behind her. She could feel the hard peaks of her nipples brush maddeningly against the silk of her top as the fingers of her right hand slipped beneath the waistband of the pyjamas.
Malfoy made a reproving noise deep in his throat. “Come now, Granger. Is that the only place you touch yourself?” His eyes narrowed. “You don’t need to be shy. I’m already wildly pleased with my view.”
With a deep breath, Hermione rested her fingertips at the hinge of her jaw and fluttered her eyes closed. Not to pretend that Malfoy wasn’t there, but to instead give in more fully to the sensations she was about to allow herself. To be quite honest, having him watch her wasn’t terrifying or discouraging. Not in the slightest. It was, frankly, the sexiest fucking thing she’d ever done in her life.
Her fingers trailed down her neck, following the line of her pulse before feathering out across her collarbone. Next, she dipped her hand between her breasts, following the line of buttons on her shirt before branching out and tracing the sensitive areas underneath each of them. She took in a sharp breath as her palm skittered lightly across a sensitive nipple through the silk, and bit back a moan when she moved to the other, sucking her lip between her teeth and biting down hard to silence herself.
When Hermione opened her eyes again, her gaze fell immediately on Malfoy, sitting as still as stone across from her. She expected his own line of sight to be any one of a number of places, but she didn’t expect to make such immediate eye contact. He wasn’t watching her hand, or her breasts. He was watching her face.
“You’re so beautiful when you’re pleasuring yourself,” he rasped, as if reading her mind. “So fucking pretty.”
Traitorously, her eyes fell to his lap, and she let a moan slip free this time as she watched him caress his enormous erection through the fabric of his pants. He caught her gaze and gave her a half-smile. “Still like what you see?”
Hermione nodded in response before tipping her head back, closing her eyes again as her hand moved lower to finally slip beneath the waistband of her pyjama bottoms again. Her fingertips moved down her belly, skating over her abdomen and through the thatch of curls nestled below.
She gasped when her fingers found her clit, already slick with arousal. She wasn’t sure she’d ever been so wet in her life. And then the sight of Malfoy stroking himself flashed behind her eyelids, and the answering gush between her thighs was positively pornographic.
She allowed one fingertip to skate across her clit, and let out a whimper low in her throat as her back arched, hips bucking to chase the delicious sensation. Gods, she was already so close. How was she so close? It normally took her ages to reach the early hints of an orgasm, and yet here she was now, one touch away from falling over the edge completely.
Somewhere, seemingly far off, she heard the scrape of a chair against the floor and heavy footfalls advancing toward her. She could feel the solid presence of Malfoy’s body move into her space, close enough to perceive his presence when he gripped the countertop on either side of her thighs, though he did not touch her outright.
“Granger.” His voice was close and rough. Hungry. “Are you wet?”
She nodded again and whimpered, coherent words utterly failing her.
“Fuck,” Malfoy said under his breath, drawing out the vowel for a beat too long. “You’re being such a good girl for me.”
It was a miracle Hermione didn’t come from his praise alone because Merlin, she probably could have. Instead, she blinked her eyes open, and the sight of him nearly tore the breath from her lungs.
Malfoy – so close she could have easily bridged the space and kissed him – looked completely destroyed. His hair was out of place, falling into his eyes as if he’d attempted to pull it out by the roots. His eyes were fully dark, the pupils blown wide enough to gobble up every speck of grey. His face was drawn tight, almost as if in pain, his mouth slightly parted, and his breathing ragged.
Hermione’s gaze dropped lower, to the erection straining against his trousers. Godric, he was so big, and oh… she wanted. Wanted to touch him, taste him, try to take as much of him in her mouth as she could. She wanted to–
“Granger,” Malfoy croaked, voice breaking slightly. “I’m headed to the loo. Can you make it to the bedroom on your own?”
She nodded. “Yes. I think so.”
He helped her off the counter with gentlemanly restraint, keeping a respectful space between them as he grasped her waist and practically floated her to the floor. Her knees buckled for a moment when she hit the ground. “I’m fine,” she told him, brushing off his displeased hum of concern. “I was just a tad dizzy for a second.”
Hermione took off down the hallway, turning left into her bedroom. Behind her, she heard Malfoy close the bathroom door with a soft click. She flopped onto the bed, lust still thrumming heavily through her entire body, the coil in her belly wound as tight as a bow string, and listened for any sort of noise across the hall.
It wasn’t long at all before she heard a soft grunt that made her clench her thighs together, followed a few moments later by the rush of the faucet turning on, the sound of hands being washed, and then the whoosh of displaced air as the bathroom door opened. Malfoy appeared in the bedroom doorway, holding the specimen cup.
“You can put it on the dresser.” Hermione pointed to the other supplies, laid out neatly in a row, and he stepped into the room to place it where she had specified.
“Do you need me to stay?” Malfoy asked.
“No.” Yes.
Bollocks. The internal voice of reason had betrayed her, like the utter tramp that it apparently was.
“Right.” The disappointment was thick in Malfoy’s voice. He gave her a polite nod. “Best of luck, Granger.” And then he left, just as she’d asked him to.
When she finally came a little bit later, her release barreling through her like a runaway train as her fingers swept over her clit, she pretended it was his hands touching her instead.
~
The day Hermione next got her period, she ran into Draco in a lift. They were sharing it with a wheezy old wizard in tattered blue robes who smelled like mothballs and stood with his nose nearly touching the door, while the two of them leaned against the back wall, the sleeves of their own robes a whisper apart but not touching.
Hermione looked down at her shoes. “The project was unsuccessful,” she said quietly to the floor.
Draco let out a sigh. “There’s always next month,” he finally answered.
The wizard let out a phlegmy bark of a cough, and for a moment, Hermione felt a warm, steady touch as Draco pressed his shoulder against hers, offering what little comfort he could.
When she came back from a meeting later that day, there was an enormous bouquet of sunflowers on her desk, without a note attached.
It didn’t matter. She knew who they’d come from.
~
The evening of their third attempt, Hermione was a bundle of nerves. She cinched a robe over her pyjamas and paced around the kitchen as she waited for Malfoy to arrive. He walked through the floo right on time, as usual, holding a bouquet of tulips and a bag of takeaway from her favourite Thai restaurant. She felt liquid heat flood into her belly at the light grey joggers and v-necked white tee he was wearing, which showed off his Azkaban tattoo in stark relief against his pale skin.
His smile was hesitant as he walked into the kitchen, his now-familiar cedar scent reaching out to greet her. “I finally dressed down appropriately, and I brought Pad Thai,” he told her brightly, holding up the bag with a lopsided grin. “Ned said it was your go-to order.”
Hermione watched him set the bag on the counter and move to the cabinet where the plates were stored. It was odd to see someone she felt she had hardly known mere months ago now move with such easy familiarity around her kitchen. “Malfoy,” she said quietly, putting a hand on the kitchen table to ground herself before plummeting into the unknown. “I’m not hungry for Pad Thai.”
She watched him turn to her, face falling in a completely adorable sort of way. “You’re not? Was Ned wrong? Should I go out and get you something else? I can–”
“I’m not hungry for Thai. Or curry. Or fish and chips.” Her heart leapt into her throat as she slowly lifted her hands to undo the belt of her robe, appreciating how Malfoy’s gaze chased after the movement. He licked his lips with a quick swipe of his tongue, his eyes steadfastly glued to her waist.
Once the belt was finally untied, Hermione peeled open her robe to reveal the pyjamas she’d agonized so long over earlier that night. Well, maybe ‘pyjamas’ was a bit too generous of a term. Who was she kidding?
It was lingerie.
Malfoy’s eyes swept over the sheer, pale pink lace covering her body, clinging to the contours of her breasts and hips, before coming back up to her face.
“That was a really awful way to come on to me, you know,” he told her seriously, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms. “Very corny.”
Hermione took a step toward him. “You told me the very first day that I’d ‘come ‘round’ to your methods sooner or later.” She shrugged, toying with the lace that barely covered her nipples. “And wouldn’t you know… I think perhaps I finally have.”
Malfoy’s face softened, just slightly. “Granger, if this is about you feeling like you need to please me, I hope you know that isn’t at all necessary. You were very clear up front about what you wanted and needed from me, and I’ll admit — I’ve enjoyed pushing your buttons and testing your boundaries. But I hope you know that I don’t expect sex, and I’m perfectly willing to continue to help you in exactly the same manner as I have been.”
Another step closer. She sighed. “You’re such a fool, Malfoy.”
His eyes blazed bright with indignation. “I beg your pardon?”
Another step. She could probably reach out and touch him if she tried, but she didn’t want to. Not yet. “I said, you’re a fool. Here I am, offering myself up after months of you tormenting me with your filthy mouth and your hungry eyes, and now you’re trying to play the nice guy?”
Malfoy took a sharp breath, his pupils blowing wide in front of her very eyes. “I’m not the nice guy, Granger.”
“Utter bollocks,” she scoffed. “You bring me food. You send me flowers. You offer to stay even after I’ve told you to leave. You ask if the bookcases are secured, and you worry about south-facing windows, and you want to set up a trust fund for the baby.” She gave him a rueful smile. “Like it or not… you’re the nice guy, Malfoy.”
His hands clenched at his sides, balling into fists, as if he was pushing back against something she couldn’t see. “I’m not, Granger. I promise you I’m not. If you knew the extent of all the dirty, depraved things I want to do to you—”
“Tell me,” Hermione breathed. “Show me. I’m not scared, and I’m not going to run. I want you to tell me every… single… thing that you want to do to me. And then, I want you to do them.”
For a moment, reality suspended. The blood simmering in her veins began to boil over, as if it was bubbling right beneath her skin, desperate for release. The air swirled wildly, around them and between them, full of charged magic and delicious tension so thick Hermione felt she couldn’t even take a full breath.
So she held it. And she waited.
Malfoy hesitated for a moment, his dark eyes fixated on her mouth, his breath ragged in his throat. And then – finally – he pounced.
The kiss was animalistic, starving. When Malfoy closed the space between their bodies and crashed his mouth into hers, spinning Hermione so that she was pressed up against the countertop, she was struck by the blatant hunger that manifested in every single touch he branded on her body.
One large hand threaded through the curls at the nape of her neck before pulling them taut as he tilted her head to just the angle he wanted. His other hand slid down the curve of her hip and palmed the soft flesh of her arse, kneading it beneath his fingertips. The planes of his body fit perfectly with hers as Malfoy pulled her flush to him, almost like he had been created specifically to fill the blank space of her curves with himself.
And his mouth… gods, Hermione had never been kissed like this. It was a complete claiming of her for himself, as if he was unable to hold back from taking everything he wanted. Good. She wanted him to take, and take, until there was nothing left.
There was no hesitation to the onslaught of his mouth against hers, no softness to his lips as there had been with all the men she’d kissed before. There was only the brutal insistence that she give herself, fully and completely, to him. Malfoy swallowed her gasps, her moans, licking into her mouth as he explored every inch of it with his tongue, conveying a boldness that suggested he was merely acquainting himself with something that had always been his.
The hand at the back of Hermione’s head, fisted into her curls, pulled more insistently, asking for more. She tipped her head back and chased the sharp sting of his demanding touch, taking pleasure from the pain. His mouth tore from hers to mark a path down her body; she felt the firm scrape of his teeth along the sensitive skin of her neck, felt his tongue trace the ridge of her collarbone as his erection pressed insistently into her belly.
“Do you know how much I’ve dreamed of this, these past few months?” he murmured between placing hot, open-mouthed kisses along the swells of her breasts. “The day you finally chose to give in and let me put a baby inside you? Fuck, Hermione, I’ve thought of little else.”
She had the sense of mind to gasp at the way her given name sounded on his lips for the first time.
“Thinking about how your skin would feel beneath my fingertips. How wet you would be when I peeled you out of your silly pyjamas. How tight your cunt would grip me as I spilled my seed into you.” He resumed his journey down her body, laving his wet tongue over her lace-covered nipples as his hands gripped her arse so hard she was certain he’d leave bruises.
With little effort, Malfoy hauled Hermione up against him, and her feet left the floor to wrap around his body. Her thighs gripped his hips like a vise, her calves digging insistently into his arse to bring him impossibly closer. She could feel the hot, hard length of him through his joggers, pressing firmly against her clit. Her cunt clenched, despairingly empty.
Malfoy must have felt the faint movement of her against him, because he stilled, his breath warm against her neck as he carried her to the bedroom. “What a needy little thing,” he tutted, nipping at her earlobe. “So hungry for my cock. Don’t worry, princess, good things come to those who wait. Be patient for me, and I’ll make sure you’re deeply rewarded.”
Hermione squealed embarrassingly as he dropped her on the bed. “Is now the time for me to go into the loo and provide my sample?” he deadpanned as he loomed over her, breathing heavily. “Tell me to stop, Hermione, and I swear to you that I will.”
She propped herself on her elbows, sensitive nipples rasping uncomfortably against the silk of her lingerie, so utterly wet between her thighs that it was almost embarrassing, and scowled at him. “If you even think about trying to leave before you fuck me, I will chain you to this bed,” she snapped.
Malfoy smirked at her words as he swept the tee he was wearing up and over his head in one fluid movement, and Hermione whimpered again as her gaze landed on his muscled chest and abdomen, seeming carved straight from alabaster. It was unfair, really, how fit and beautiful he was.
Why would he want you? The little voice was back, and it had turned on her with vicious, biting teeth. Why would he want you when he could have anyone?
As if Malfoy could hear all that negative self-talk swirling through her head, he palmed his erection through his joggers, swiping up and down the length of it in slow, lazy sweeps as his eyes travelled over her body.
“You are an absolute vision, Hermione,” he growled from low in his chest. “So soft, so perfect for me.” His voice dropped another octave, so deep she had to strain to hear him. “I can’t wait to see you once I breed you, once you grow so round and full with our child. You’re going to be even more beautiful than I can possibly imagine.”
The breath caught in her throat at his words, another gush of arousal soaking the sheets beneath her.
“I need… I need…” Gods, for perhaps the first time in her life, Hermione had no words. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t speak. All she could do was lie spread out before him, willing him to fill her in exactly the way she needed.
“Shh, I know, princess. I’m going to take care of you. But first, I need to see what you taste like.” Malfoy moved to dip his head towards her cunt, and she clenched her thighs together tightly.
“I can’t,” she gasped. “Truly, I can’t. If you want me to cum when you do, then I need you to fuck me right now. Please. I’m not going to last.”
Malfoy lowered himself over her, his movements controlled and precise, allowing just a little bit of his weight to settle on her. She could feel his heavy cock press insistently into her slit, growing impossibly wetter as she imagined what a mess she was making all over his sweatpants.
“Maybe you don’t know this,” he murmured in her ear before tracing the shell of it with his tongue in a way that caused a delicious shiver to flow down her spine, “but women have a far narrower refractory period necessary to build up to another orgasm. You can have as many as you want this evening, because, unfortunately for you, my performance is actually the star of the show in this equation.”
Hermione’s temper flared at this wizard’s audacity to explain something to her that she was already aware of. “If you think you can – oh, fuck.” She gasped, back bowing off the bed so dramatically she thought her spine might snap as Malfoy took one of her nipples into his mouth and nipped it admonishingly with his teeth.
“Now, are you going to be a good girl and let me breed you in precisely the way I’ve been dreaming of, or would you rather lecture me on whatever you seem to have on the tip of your tongue? Because believe me, I’d much rather it be my tongue having its way with you.”
The only answer she could give was to card her fingers through his silky hair and push his head insistently toward her cunt. Malfoy smirked. “Excellent choice, princess. Now, where were we?”
He inched down her body with a pace so agonizing she nearly screamed, pressing wet kisses to her breasts, her belly, the notch of her thighs, the inside of her knees. Finally, she felt his fingers hook into the lace covering her cunt and pulled it to the side, his breath blowing hot against her clit.
Malfoy’s breath hitched at the sight of her, finally bare to his gaze. “Fuck, you’re so wet for me. Such a needy little cunt. I know you want a baby, but fuck, I think you might want me too.”
“I do,” Hermione whined, fingernails dragging against his scalp. “I want all of you, Draco.”
His name from her lips seemed to break something loose inside of him, something raw and unchecked. He groaned as he lowered his lips to her cunt and licked a wide, searing stripe directly up her slit. "Fucking Salazar," he breathed. "You taste better than I could have possibly imagined." The next lick left her breathless, writhing beneath him. And then there, right on the glorious knife-edge of pleasure, he sealed his lips around her clit and sucked the delicate nub into his mouth. Hermione wailed, hips bucking, as he toppled her over the edge.
“That’s it,” Malfoy murmured into her sensitive flesh. “Take your pleasure, Hermione. Take everything you want from me. It’s yours.”
Her orgasm crashed through her like a shattered pane of glass, breaking her into a thousand pieces of pleasure. He licked and sucked her through its entirety, murmuring quiet praises into her skin as the pleasure shuddered through her limbs.
When she was finally boneless, panting, he lifted himself off the bed and stood to remove his joggers. Hermione propped herself up to watch him openly, entranced as he slid the fabric down his defined hips and muscular thighs before straightening once more so she could appreciate him.
Malfoy’s cock was thick and proud, with a generous vein carving along the underside and a swollen, purple head. A trail of pre-cum glittered in the low light of the bedroom as he gripped himself by the base before gliding his hand upward in one smooth stroke. His palm pivoted over the head, collecting his arousal from the slit of his cock and sweeping it down the shaft again.
“Look at you, so needy for what I’m about to give you. Fuck, you are absolute perfection, Hermione. Are you ready for me to fill you so full of my cum that you have no other choice but to get pregnant?”
“Yes, Draco, please.” Hermione’s voice was needy, insistent. Impossibly, she felt the beginnings of another orgasm bloom low in her belly as she writhed beneath his gaze.
He continued to stroke himself, a pleased smile pulling at his lips when she uttered his name. “Say it again, princess. Louder. Say the name of the man who’s going to give you exactly what you want tonight.”
“Draco, please,” she wailed. “I need you to fuck me.”
He sank onto the bed between her thighs, hands resting on the mattress beside her ribs as he leaned in close. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to hear those words, Hermione,” he murmured. “Even before you asked me to give you a baby. All those galas, all those nights at the pub. I could barely keep my hands to myself, imagining all the dirty things I wanted to do to you.”
Hermione’s memories flared to life. All the times he’d seemed aloof, uninterested, unable to be in her company – it hadn’t been because he couldn’t stand to be near her. It had been because he wanted her.
The recognition must have flashed across her face because Draco chuckled and leaned in, his tongue sweeping into her mouth before sucking her lower lip between his teeth. She could taste herself on him – the salt, the musk. It was deliciously intoxicating. He released her mouth and sat upright, gripping his cock again.
“That’s right. Do you know how many nights I got myself off to the thought of you, just like this? So wet for me, so ready for me to fill you.”
Hermione rolled her hips toward him, indeed so ready for him she was about to beg in a terribly embarrassing way. “Draco… I need–”
“I know, princess, and I’m going to give it to you. I’d normally try to open you up a bit more, but fuck, you’re so wet. I think you can handle me.”
“I can,” Hermione said immediately, panting a little as she stumbled over her words. “I’m an overachiever. You know this. I can definitely handle all of you.”
Draco stilled her hips with one enormous hand spanning across her belly and guided his cock to her entrance with the other. With the slightest grind of his hips, the head slid inside, stretching her so wide she wondered for a devastating second that she had perhaps been to hasty in her promise that she was ready.
In that same moment, Draco paused, giving her time to adjust to his girth as he looked down at the place where their bodies joined, almost as if he couldn’t believe what was finally happening.
She shifted desperately beneath the leaden weight of his hand, the stretch of his cock vacillating between pleasure and pain desperate for friction. “More,” she pleaded, her voice practically a sob. “I need more.”
Dragging himself from whatever he’d been thinking, Draco shifted forward again, giving her another inch, her dripping wet cunt making the most lewd noises she’d ever heard as he sank deeper. “Oh, Godric,” she moaned. “More.”
Draco looked up at her, dark eyes practically glowing. “More, you say? Am I not giving you enough, princess?” A feral smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Fine, if you insist. I do aim to please, after all.”
He lowered himself closer to her, his voice barely more than a whisper. “I’m going to fill you so full of me that you may as well take my last name.”
And with that, his hips surged forward in a punishing thrust, sheathing himself in her cunt with one fluid stroke. Hermione cried out as she felt the head of his cock nudge firmly against her cervix. Draco could apparently feel it too. “Good girl. I told you I’d give you a baby, Hermione. With my cock right there and your womb so needy for my seed… I hope you’re ready for me to fulfill the promise I made you."
Still buried deep inside of her, Draco hooked his hands behind Hermione’s calves and pushed her legs up past her waist, until they were settled into the mattress on either side of her ribs. “A breeding press,” she panted, lungs constricting as he drove her into the mattress. “So glad you did your research and came prepared.”
“You think that was the only way I prepared for tonight?” he asked her. She clenched around him and his eyes rolled back in his head as he let out a groan. “I haven’t let myself come since the last time I was here. It’s been absolutely torturous, not least because you plague my every thought. But I did it... for you.”
His cock dragged out of her, slick and smooth along her inner walls, before slamming back in with a brutal thrust. Hermione gasped.
“I did it all for you,” Draco told her. “It was always all for you.”
Hermione felt her cunt flutter around him as he set a driving pace, rubbing across that deep, sensitive place inside of her so perfectly that stars burst across her vision. Her orgasm began to build at the base of her spine, curling upward with startling intensity and speed.
“Draco, I’m going to come,” she gasped, hands fisting tightly into the sheets beneath her as the hot coil began to unfurl within her belly.
“I’m right there with you, baby,” he groaned, slamming into her so hard she slid up the bed an inch or two. His pelvis ground, immovable and firm, into her clit. “Come for me, Hermione. Let me see how pretty you are when you fall apart on my cock.”
His words sent her tumbling into the void, his name spilling from her lips in a guttural scream as her cunt spasmed around him. With one final thrust, pleasure washing plainly over his face, Draco spilled into her with such force, such volume, that she could actually feel his cum pulsing inside of her.
Breathless and utterly wrecked, he sat back on his heels, his gaze drawn back to where their bodies fit together once more. Hermione whimpered as his cock pulled free, leaving her devastatingly empty. As her legs drifted back into a more manageable position, she felt a gush of Draco’s spend leak from her cunt.
“Oh, my darling,” he tutted. “That simply won’t do.” She watched him guide his cock back to her core, sweeping the escaped cum onto the head before pushing it back where it belonged. They both groaned as he sank into her again.
“There,” Draco murmured. “Right where it belongs. Much better.”
With a sigh, he slipped out of her again and grabbed one of the pillows from the head of the bed. “Lift,” he murmured, motioning for Hermione to raise her hips. Once she did, he situated the pillow beneath her bum and lay down beside her.
“You really did do your research,” she said with a soft smile.
“Actually, everything I read told me that keeping your hips elevated after intercourse is an old wives’ tale, but I suppose it can’t hurt to pull out all the stops.”
They lay quietly for a while, warm skin against skin, their breath returning to normal. “Do you think it worked?” Draco finally asked, nuzzling his nose into her neck.
Hermione chewed the inside of her cheek, pensively staring up at the ceiling. “Not sure. We’ll know in a couple of weeks, I suppose.” She paused. “To be honest, though, what I’m most intent on right now is some of that Pad Thai you brought over. I'm absolutely famished.”
Draco pressed a kiss to the pulse now beating lazily in the hollow of her throat. “Fine, we’ll eat Pad Thai tonight. But later this week, I’m taking you on a real date. The mother of my future child deserves no less.”
“Our child,” Hermione chided, pushing him away playfully. She sat up on the edge of the bed, wincing at the delicious ache already blooming deep into the muscle of her hamstrings. Merlin, she was going to be so sore tomorrow.
“I’ll go fetch the food, and we can eat it in bed,” she told Draco, rising from the mattress and casting her gaze around the room for something to wear over her lace bodysuit, which was completely askew and probably torn.
As she straightened fully, she felt the lewd slip of cum drip from her cunt and course down her leg, past the ineffective crotch of the lingerie that was still pushed to the side from Draco’s earlier ministrations and was now digging unhelpfully into the flesh at the apex of her thigh.
“Do you happen to have your wand?” Hermione asked him. “Mine’s in the kitchen and I just… I could really use a Scourgify right about now.”
Draco’s eyes inched down her body, honing in on the slick, shiny trail of his spend on the inside of her leg. His mouth lifted into an appreciative smile as he admired his handiwork, the ultimate finale to the way in which he’d claimed her.
“Scourgify? Never. I rather like seeing my cum on your thigh, knowing I filled you so full that it can’t help but leak out.” He winked. “You’ve been thoroughly, utterly, and very well bred. Walk proud, Granger.”