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“One of these days, witch, you’re going to send me blind.” Draco snorted quietly, using the back of his thumb to push his glasses higher on his nose before doing what he knew was a rudely accurate impression of his wife as he deciphered her minuscule handwriting in the recipe book resting in front of him. “‘Just lean over, my love. Your spine is younger than mine.’”
He never bothered to argue that less than a year between them made much less difference than their respective heights did to such statements.
Lifting the lid on the pot that had been simmering on the hob, he stirred the filling once, then nodded to himself and turned down the heat. The pastry was already rolled, waiting on the floured counter, so he draped the first sheet over the pie dish and began pressing it neatly into the base.
The low sound of one of his favourite records floated through the cottage. They were no longer played on the gramophone he’d told Scorpius was an heirloom – the one Astoria had cherished and brought with her when they’d made the cottage their home.
No, that one lived in the library now.
His clever witch had found the perfect gift the previous Christmas – a much fancier setup that meant she could play CDs and he could keep all the vinyl he’d collected. There was something about being able to hold the music in his hands that made it feel special; not just his own collection, started when he and Astoria were courting, but the ones she’d touched so often, that she’d had since she was a girl.
The rain had set in just after five; a thin drizzle that had crept over the loch, unfurling in mist that made everything look mythic and then decorating the windows with sparkling drops chasing each other down the panes. It was not enough to be useful to the garden, which was irritatingly Scottish of it – thinking that sentence alone should have been enough to prove that Draco had, in fact, become an old man before his time.
That, and the fact that he still enjoyed what some called miserable weather. He liked the windows turning pewter before the house fell fully into darkness. He found it comforting when there was something warm on the hob, just as there was tonight.
He enjoyed it all the more when Scorpius’ boots were not abandoned in the middle of the kitchen; a habit he had long tried to correct in his son and the cheeky little witch – well, wife, now – who’d taught it to him after she moved in.
She’d taught Scorp so many things since she’d come to live here at the cottage.
How to leave a book open on the arm of a chair and insist that meant she was ‘still reading it’. How to charm his socks warm before breakfast. How to say ‘actually’ with precisely the right amount of indignation without making whoever was listening think you were insufferable.
She’d looked right at Draco as she said that; when he’d put an offended hand to his chest, her answer was simply ‘otherwise his father might hear about it, hmm?’ and a smirk that he’d kissed right off her mouth.
Draco had yet to decide whether the particular lesson about boot abandonment had been intentional, or simply absorbed through prolonged exposure.
She had also taught him how to ask for what he wanted, which had very nearly killed Draco at their wedding. Scorpius had come to him before the dancing with his tie slightly crooked and his small face unusually solemn, fingers worrying at the cuff of his jacket.
“Dadda?”
“Yes, love?”
“If I ask Hermione something important, will she be cross?”
Draco had stopped with his drink halfway up to his mouth and set it down right away. He knew all too well that there were some questions children asked that you could never answer the way you wanted – whether that be in the middle of your own wedding reception, in a room at St Mungo’s, or in the gallery corridor of the Manor. A corridor full of talkative relatives, where no portrait of a young witch waited to smile in oils at the very real son she could now only see from wherever she’d gone when she left her boys behind.
Stori’s memory was preserved in other ways, but never like that – she’d known her husband would have spent far too long standing in front of it, instead of taking the chance to live.
The chance to have overheard, only a few nights earlier, as Scorp stood by his window and looked out, speaking to his mother. For him, she was in every cloud, every star, every ray of sun that bounced off the water.
“She might be surprised,” he had said, lowering himself to one knee and straightening the little bow tie (mostly because his hands needed something to do). “But she would never be cross with you for asking something.”
Scorpius had nodded, not looking at him. “And… Mumma won’t be sad?”
And there it was. Draco had needed a moment then – several, really, though only one was available because he’d spotted George coming over and he wasn’t going to continue talking about this with anyone else. “No,” he said, once he trusted his voice. “No, darling. Mumma will always be Mumma.”
“And Hermione can be…” He didn’t finish the sentence, his little brows pulling together.
“She can be whatever the two of you decide she is,” Draco had said, brushing imaginary lint from a ludicrously small lapel. “But you must ask her. It has to be her choice too.”
Scorpius’ eyes had lifted to his, and for a second he saw Astoria there, in the blue of them. “And if she says yes?”
Draco had smiled then, or tried to. “Then you come and tell me.”
Scorpius had walked back across the parquet with his hand in hers, smile bright. “She said yes, Dadda.”
He had loved Hermione before that, of course, but there had been something about the way she looked at him afterwards; as if she understood perfectly how much it meant to him to have been allowed to… well, to be so utterly lucky.
His wife. His son. Stori, still his in her own way. The cottage, as past and future.
Draco drove the fork slightly too hard into the pastry as he pressed at the edge of the pie dish, and had to smooth it with the back of a spoon; his heart was doing all manner of silly flip-flops at the realisation that Hermione would be home soon when he should have been concentrating.
Glancing down at the recipe book again, he noticed a smear of flour – he took the cloth from his shoulder and leaned closer, squinting through the lenses as he brushed it off to look at the next step. It listed a number of the ingredients to go into the mix and right beside it was a smaller note, in pencil.
‘Yes, I said mustard. Stop being difficult.’
Draco huffed. “I am never difficult.” The cottage, traitor that it was, offered no agreement; he added the mustard and more pepper as well, because while the handwriting was atrocious, the next accusation was legible enough. ‘More pepper, coward.’
When it was ready, he spooned the filling into the pastry. Chicken, leek, bacon, thyme, cream, and all the rest of the flavours – her notes might be rude, but her recipes were beyond reproach.
Clever little wife.
He did as instructed to join the seams of the top and bottom, leaving a little pattern of criss-crossing lines just as she did, though perhaps more neatly – the neatness would not improve the flavour, so he didn’t bother feeling smug about it.
A sigh of satisfaction escaped as he sipped the chilled glass of Chardonnay beside him – he’d opened it for the pie and then decided it was perfectly acceptable, as a newly married village doctor, to drink a glass of wine while he made dinner for his family.
For his wife.
A year ago, he had brought Hermione here for an anniversary weekend and asked her a question at sunrise with his heart trying to beat itself clean out of his chest. Less than a fortnight ago, she’d stood in the gardens at the Manor in white, laughing with her hand in his as she let him call her ‘Mrs Malfoy’ in a whisper he had repeated every night since as they went to bed.
And this morning, she had gone to Hogwarts as Professor Granger-Malfoy.
Merlin, he needed to get hold of himself before she came through the door and found him having a spiritual crisis in front of a pie. He took another sip of wine, set the glass down, and looked at the pie with the final steps in mind – trim, egg wash, oven.
Manageable, even though her next note said ‘oven gloves are for people who haven’t ridden dragons, if you ask me’, which was both amusing and a matter of future concern for if Scorpius ever read it.
He set the fork down, reached for the knife, and only then noticed that his right cuff was loosening – stepping back, he removed one cufflink and then the other. As he started to roll his right sleeve up, Draco felt the tingle in the wards that he’d been anticipating; he could only imagine how he’d look to her when she came in – glasses halfway down his face, sleeves halfway up his arms, and a pie only halfway to the oven. A hopeless mess of a wizard, lying in wait for his witch like some sort of ridiculous kitchen pervert.
Well, she’d married him, and he’d been a rather embarrassing creature before that, so perhaps she found that sort of thing thrilling in her own way.
He started on the other sleeve, and snorted quietly to himself.
A gust of cold air – complete with the smell of rain, and heather, and the loch – entered first; the small irritated exhale she made whenever the weather made the terrace slippery came next. Then her boots, of course, and the third dull thud – of her satchel – near the door.
Draco pressed the knife down against the rim of the dish, with care and precision and breath held as he waited for her usual ‘hi, love’.
“Hello, husband.”
Oh, well. That was unfair.
He had heard her say it multiple times since the wedding – laughing into his neck, or muttered into her pillow… tossed over her shoulder when she was leaving a room and knew perfectly well he was watching her go.
Whispered at him in the dark to wake him, when her hands needed somewhere to be and his permission.
But this? This was the doorway of their home, a place where they’d carried each other in different ways – her, in his arms as he lifted her over the threshold, and him, in the early months of their courtship when he’d been terrified of what it meant to go beyond the life he had and into the one she was willing to make with him.
He’d said it, that afternoon, when he’d turned twenty-five with so much to show for it and not enough of it in his reach – that there’d only ever been one other person who’d made him wonder what life beyond whatever end the war was going to give them would look like.
And so now, Hermione Granger-Malfoy was standing before him – damp cloak, cheeks flushed from the cold, and her curls twisted into a severe, shining knot at the back of her head.
His lovely, lovely, lovely little wife.
Her glasses had misted slightly at the edges – the charm had kept off the drizzle, but not quite managed to combat the sudden change when she entered the warmth of the room. She took them off, and he watched her slip them into her pocket without comment because he knew it was futile to tell her she’d be looking madly for them again come morning.
As she tugged off her cloak, he saw the ensemble she’d chosen for her first proper day back – she’d dressed this morning and dashed out the door and he’d barely caught a glance. Goodbyes to Scorpius had been done still in pyjamas, before Draco had taken him through the Floo for his Tuesday lessons at the Manor – he’d barely been back out of the flames as she scampered past saying ‘sorry, sorry, I love you’ and the door banging in her wake.
Such was the life of a man married to a witch who was determined to run here, there, and everywhere as if she didn’t have a moment to spare.
There she was, like some sort of autumnal mascot, in shades straight from a fairytale wood with crunchy leaves and bright eyes peering from the darkened corners. A dark brown sweater vest, wide-legged tweed trousers, cream blouse still buttoned all the way up.
Her cloak, cinnamon or russet or some nonsense shade that Blaise had insisted brought out the flecks of gold in her eyes, floated off to the hook with her eyes following it for half a moment before she looked back at him.
“You’re late.”
“I am six minutes late, Draco.”
“Seven, by the kitchen clock… it was obviously eager.” He put his hands on his hips, briefly forgetting that he’d just touched the counter where he’d spread the flour, and decided he would simply live with it. “How was your day, Professor?”
“It was good,” she said with another little sigh. “Exhausting. Odd. Lovely, actually.” A pause. “One of the third-years asked if being married to you meant I would be less strict because I’d be happier.”
Draco grinned. “And?”
“I told him happiness had no bearing on homework.”
“Cruel.”
“Hmm.” She looked at him knowingly. “But necessary.”
“And my wife is never one to overlook the necessary.”
“Where’s Scorpius?” Hermione had to force herself not to blurt out ‘Gods, help me’ and ask a normal question instead – she managed it by the sheer fact that she loved the little boy so much it made her heart ache. That, and because her pride would not allow her to become ridiculous about something so banal as her husband’s forearms.
She probably wouldn’t have needed to concentrate so hard if he hadn’t been wearing the bloody glasses.
“With Daphne.”
Her face was very normal, thank you. No hint of excitement, not at all. “For the night?”
“For the night.” Draco dusted his hands, then tried to brush off the flour on his trousers which only made it that much worse. “Asti had apparently been saying his name since breakfast, so they were there when I went back for lunch. I told her if our little pumpkin would be pleased to host him, we had no reason not to let her.”
Hermione’s chest squeezed; it always did when anyone mentioned their niece, with her solemn blue eyes and tiny Greengrass chin. Old photographs proved that she was baby Astoria, remade in miniature – her pumpkin-ness precluded everyone from any and all forms of protest against her demands, regardless of the linguistic limitations of her age.
It was almost certain that ‘Ranger’ would ride again before too long.
“I’m sure ‘Scohps’ took it as a formal invitation.”
“Of course he did.”
“Did he take the little dragon?” Hermione knew all too well she’d be hopping in the Floo with it if not, having given it as a gift to help him survive their long flight to Australia during school holidays. She now regretted having given the thing such a wise personality; he was forever answering questions in a voice she might have borrowed from the mildly irritating teacher of French from her old school.
“And two books, a pair of galoshes that I am convinced won’t fit, and his green jumper, because Daphne’s house is apparently colder than ours.”
“Did you tell him that it absolutely isn’t?”
“No. I packed the jumper.” Hermione laughed, fingers up to push in one of the pins in her hair, and then sat her wand in its place on the sideboard beside Draco’s.
“You know…” she said, smiling to herself, “I still think it’s extremely sexy that my husband was the master of the Elder Wand at one point.”
“And I think it’s sexy,” he responded, looking at her over the top of his glasses, “that you set Severus on fire because you thought he was being mean to Potter.”
“You do not think that’s sexy.”
“I think you’re sexy.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“You know, I don’t think I shall?” He set down the knife he’d picked up to score the top of the pie, and folded his arms – this had no effect whatsoever on Hermione or her knickers. After a moment of silence, his grey eyes locked on her, he crooked two fingers. “Come here.”
Hermione thought about staying where she was, and waiting. Not because she didn’t want to go to him, but because the way her body responded to him when he spoke like that was obscene, and she wanted to know what else he might do, or say – unfortunately, Draco did not repeat himself. He simply stood with his arms folded and watched her, and the steel of his gaze was magnetic enough that she felt her body moving towards him.
The first step felt like surrender, the next like she didn’t know why she was still so far away. Either way, she’d accepted that her husband’s forearms were a threat to public safety if not dealt with immediately. She stopped in front of him, close enough to feel the warmth of his body and smell white wine on his breath.
He looked down the bridge of his nose at her through the lenses; his lips, pressed together firmly, parted on a breath and he exhaled, eyes still piercing as he lowered his chin. Hermione’s mouth went quite dry.
“Now, Professor – or should I say… wife,” he said softly, “what exactly were you trying to achieve,” he closed his eyes, taking another breath before opening them again, “by saying ‘hello, husband’ in that tone?”
Hermione opened her mouth, but nothing particularly clever came out.
Draco’s eyes moved over her face, and then lowered to the top button of her blouse; his pupils were huge, making his eyes look positively dangerous. “Because unless I am very much mistaken,” he continued, “you had an ulterior motive.”
She smiled before she could stop herself; she felt a mixture of nerves that had come out of nowhere, and a sense of triumph at the look in his eyes. “Well, Doctor Malfoy,” she said, because two could play at titles, “I wasn’t expecting to come home to you looking so domestic and handsome. It just… rolled off my tongue.” She licked her lips; there was the slightest narrowing of eyes and a flick of brows that anyone else would have missed. He was delighted, and trying not to look it.
“So,” he said, voice lower still, “you wore this to… what? Hmm? Tease me?”
Hermione glanced down at herself; the ‘Professor Granger-Malfoy’ look she’d left the house in that morning was hardly scandalous. “No,” she said, lifting her eyes to his again. “I wore what’s underneath to tease you.”
His lips parted further this time, and his eyes dropped; oh, she loved him like this. Not that she didn’t love Doctor Malfoy (in fact, if someone were to check her vitals any time she saw him in a white coat with a stethoscope she would probably give a most concerning result). She adored him no matter which version he was – Healer Malfoy, Scorpius’s Dadda – but the one she really loved, the one she married, was the one who looked like the grown up version of a boy who’d once been handsome, but cruel and frightened.
He wasn’t frightened any more, and he was so, so kind; happily, the being handsome part had only continued with age. Hermione’s entire body went hot and tingly with the pleasure of it.
“Oh?” he said in a terrible attempt at remaining composed – the same sort of aristocratic faux calm he used when flustered by some lascivious joke she made in front of their friends (though it was his own fault if he wanted to walk into the Burrow kitchen while she was waxing lyrical about his romantic and loving ways, and then someone – Ginny, of course – asked her whether he really was the ‘sex god’ they’d all heard about at school).
Hermione hadn’t realised he was there, and so she responded with a look at Pansy who was grinning and rolling her eyes into the tea they’d laced while the boys were playing Quidditch out the back. The scene had deteriorated from thrilling (seeing them on the brooms, all sexy and athletic) to Ron and Draco ganging up on Harry because… she couldn't even remember why, but between the roaring of manoeuvre names and foul language the three women had decided just to come inside.
“No,” Hermione said, considering the question with the seriousness it deserved as she looked out the kitchen window. “I don’t think ‘sex god’ is right.”
Ginny’s eyes lit up. “No?”
“Don’t get me wrong – it’s not… that just makes him sound as if he stands there waiting to be worshipped.” Hermione took another sip of tea. “Draco isn’t like that.”
Pansy snorted, and Ginny shot her a warning look. “If you say one word about Ron-”
“I don’t kiss and tell.” Pansy’s hazel eyes twinkled in Hermione’s direction. “Though if I did, Granger and I could compare notes.”
“Oh for Godric’s sake, Pansy,” Hermione laughed. “Kissing Ron once in the stupid Chamber of Secrets is hardly the same as you spending most of fifth year in Draco’s dormitory.”
Ginny sighed. “Alright, you were saying?”
“He’s… well, if I had to put it bluntly? He fucks like he’s trying to find out exactly how long it takes to make me forget my own name.” The kitchen went silent, Ginny’s eyebrows rising above the rim of her cup as she drank. Pansy sipped in silence and nodded as if to say ‘continue’.
“At this point, you could probably call me anything.” She sniffed, shrugging. “And honestly, you’d think a doctor would know better than to try and argue with me about my gag refle-”
“Blimey, Hermione!” Ron’s voice came over her shoulder, and she turned to see all three of the boys standing there with their mouths open – Draco’s entire face, not just his ears, was a shade of pink that couldn't be blamed on the wind.
“Well, I – ahem, I might just…” Draco had mumbled, and immediately turned around, walked into Harry, said ‘sorry, Potter’, and then wandered back outside.
It had taken some time and a lot of convincing to get him to come back in, pointing out ‘at least I didn’t tell them the whole story?’ – the whole story, of course, was that she’d given a sharp slap to his wrist after he tried to pull back as she gagged; he’d insisted that her ‘I know what I’m doing’ hadn’t been what he’d intended to refute, and that he was only concerned as to whether she was in pain or uncomfortable.
He’d hissed ‘Hermione!’ and looked around in horror; she’d laughed so much he’d started to sulk, which was only made worse when Ginny proceeded to say ‘oh, and whatsername over there’ and cackle every time she remembered the joke.
Still, she knew he didn't dare argue with her on that particular subject again.
Hermione smiled at the Draco in front of her, still flustered but now standing in their kitchen covered in flour and looking sinfully good with his sleeves rolled and perfect hair falling slightly into his eyes.
“Yes, ‘oh’. I had no idea we’d be all alone… I half expected you wouldn’t see it until much later.”
“And yet here I am. All alone.” It was obscene, really, how slowly he opened her top button; how carefully. How much patience he gave one tiny pearlescent round holding together cream fabric when they both knew perfectly well whatever was beneath it would send him out of his mind.
Hermione had fastened it in front of the mirror with both hands steady and a wicked little ball of heat curling low in her stomach, and dashed out the door with a grin both because putting it on properly had made her late but also because she wouldn’t have been able to resist saying something if he’d looked at her.
The second button opening let the air touch the top of her chest, and Draco’s gaze dipped. For a moment, he didn’t react – then he looked back up through the lenses, and his calm died an undignified death as his pupils practically swallowed the grey in his eyes.
“You wore this to school.”
“I wore clothes to school, yes.”
“Hermione.”
“What?” She shrugged, nonchalant – as if she hadn’t spent most of the day noticing the feel of the knickers climbing up her bum or the way her nipples responded to the lacy mesh every time she wrote on the blackboard. “It’s not as though anyone could see.”
He undid the third button, eyebrow cocking as he did, and then slid two fingers in and pulled the blouse and her vest forward so he could peek at her properly. The look he gave told her he liked what he saw – it was emerald, sheer at the edges and embroidered over the cups, and she’d bought it with the exact wolfish grin he now had on his face in mind.
When he exhaled, breath warm and then cool against her breasts, it ruined her. “Do you like it?” she asked; his eyes moved from the lace to her face.
“I like it very much.”
Hermione’s thighs pressed together, which was ridiculous given that the man had literally promised to love her for the rest of her life (regardless of her lingerie choices, though that hadn’t been in the vows, so perhaps she was wrong). Everything about him turned her on, but nothing more than the way he could make her feel like the only woman in the world.
“Now,” he said softly, “I need to make sure I don’t burn dinner.”
Hermione blinked. “I… I beg your pardon?” She stared at his back, aghast, as he turned away from her. “Draco Malfoy.”
“Yes, my wife?”
“Are you seriously thinking about the pie?”
“No.” He took his wand from the counter, flicked it once toward the hob, then once toward the pie dish, putting it under a stasis charm. “I am thinking about having you now, and the pie later.” He glanced at the recipe book, then back at her, one brow lifting. “And the recipe says it only takes twenty minutes.”
There were implications in that sentence; like the recipe book, it came with inappropriate footnotes.
“It does.”
“Mm.” He set his wand down beside hers. “And I intend to take my time.”
Hermione couldn't help the smile that appeared on her face; she bit her lip as he turned back towards her, his eyes intense in a way that made her feel hunted and adored all at once. She had enough time to make a small, questioning sound as his hands curved around her bum before he lifted her onto the counter. “Draco! There’s flour all over the-”
“So there is,” he said, stepping between her knees.
“My trousers!”
“A tragedy.” He flicked his eyes to the streaks of white now marking the outside of her thigh, then dragged one finger through the flour beside her hip and added another, lower down. “Oh no.”
Hermione stared at him; he looked down at his own already dusty trousers, and then rubbed his palms against them with a click of his tongue. “And now mine, too. Shame.” He pretended to pout, then pulled her to the edge with a hand firm against her back. Hermione’s legs opened around him without argument, and she felt the hard line of his body through his trousers, the press of him against the inside of her thigh. She gripped his shirt and he made a sound against her mouth; his glasses nudged her cheek. Breaking the kiss only far enough to breathe, she said, “You need to take those off.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I haven’t finished looking at you.” He kissed her once more, slower this time, dragging his mouth over hers before biting lightly at her throat, soothing his tongue over it. His hands moved from where he’d been cupping her breasts through the sweater vest to the hem, speaking against her lips. “Arms up.”
Hermione smiled back, mouths still touching, before pulling back. “You’ve become very bossy since the wedding.”
“I’ve always been bossy.” His fingers slipped beneath the hem and tugged at the blouse underneath, untucking it. “You knew that before you married me.” He tugged lightly. “Now, arms up.” He didn’t speak again, but his face said everything when it reappeared, the vest landing somewhere behind him.
Another button opened, then another; Draco’s jaw clenched and Hermione felt her nipples tighten beneath the lace. His hand moved from her now open shirt to the fastening of her trousers, and he looked up. “Yes?” Even now, even with her sitting on the counter with her blouse open and her legs around him, even when she could feel exactly how much he wanted her. Hermione’s throat tightened with something that was not quite lust and not quite love, because with Draco the two had become inextricably intertwined.
“Yes,” she said with a gulp and a breathy almost laugh. Button, clasp, zip – he drew it down slowly, watching her face as he did. Hermione’s hands braced on the counter behind her as he slid both hands beneath the opened waistband.
“Lift for me.” She lifted her hips and the tweed slid down, catching slightly at the curve of her arse.
“Problem?”
“No,” he said, voice rough. “Absolutely not.” He worked the trousers down over her thighs, slipping them off easily once that was done; next thing, her very respectable ‘Professor Granger-Malfoy’ trousers were on the kitchen floor in a heap, quickly joined by his flour-dusted shoes.
Hermione sat on the counter in her open blouse, emerald lace, his stare heavy on the spot in between her legs. His hands came back to her knees, moved slowly up the outside of her thighs, lightly skimming her bare skin, to the edge of the matching knickers with gold hardware and sheer little panels. “Racy enough?” she asked.
Draco’s eyes lifted to hers, and his pupils were so enormous his eyes were practically black. “No.”
Hermione’s stomach flipped. “No?”
“No, I mean – yes. Fuck.” He closed his eyes for a moment, jaw flexing, and she smiled as she waited for him to gather his wits. “Yes, Hermione. They are racy enough.” He opened his eyes. “Don’t look so pleased with yourself.”
“But I am pleased with myself. Don’t you appreciate the effort?”
“I am trying very hard,” he said in a tight voice, “not to appreciate it too quickly.” Draco leaned in, pressing his mouth just below her ear. “But yes,” he murmured. “I appreciate the effort.” He kissed lower, then lower still, following the open line of the blouse, his glasses bumping against her skin before he drew back just enough to look again. The cool kitchen air touched all the places he had uncovered, but his hands were warm against her bare legs. His cock pressed hard against the front of his trousers where he stood between her knees.
“Draco?”
His gaze snapped to hers, as if her voice was a hand around the back of his neck. “Yes?”
She did not know what she meant to ask… More, perhaps? Now. Please. Bed. Mouth. Hands.
Everything.
Draco’s hands slid beneath the open blouse, pushing it back from her shoulders; Hermione arched slightly so the fabric slid down her arms; he helped it off past her elbows, dropping it somewhere near the trousers. Her hair had already started to give up – she felt his fingers tangle against her bun and one pin fell, then another, and one whole section of curls slipped down over her back before he pushed his fingers against her scalp, cupping her head and pressing firm circles so the whole lot would come loose. She tipped her head back with a moan, and he answered it by kissing down the line of her throat with a hum.
Hermione dropped her chin to look at him. “Well?” His eyes moved from her hair, to the emerald lace, to the knickers, to her bare thighs, then back to her face.
“No,” he said.
She frowned. “No, what?”
“No, I am not saying whatever smug thing you are trying to make me say.”
“I merely thought you might like to compliment your wife.”
“My wife,” he paused, running his forefinger against the inside of one thigh then the other, eliciting quiet sounds from her each time, “knows exactly what she’s done.”
“Perhaps she’d still like to hear it.”
“You are astonishing,” he said, kissing the corner of her mouth, then her cheek, then the line of her jaw. “And irritating.” She laughed softly. “And very pleased with yourself.”
“Mmhm.”
“And you’re mine.” His hand slid to the back of her neck, fingers beneath the fallen curls. “My wife.”
When her hands went to his shirt, fingers curling in the placket and dragging him closer to her, Draco went willingly; while he had some dignity left – somewhere, perhaps on the floor beside her trousers – he had no interest whatsoever in pretending he didn’t want his wife’s tongue in his mouth. She gasped as the movement brought her right up against the hard heat of his cock, throbbing through his trousers. The lace between them was thin, but the patience it took to behave like a civilised man was far thinner.
She kissed him like she’d been waiting all day – or maybe longer. Her fingers slid under his collar, pushing his shirt farther open, and he lost whatever thought had been forming. His hands found the delicate emerald lace, fingers finding damp heat where her thighs met. “Draco.”
“What did you expect?” he asked, voice lower than he meant it to be. “Dressed like that, hiding this underneath.” He kissed her jaw again. “I noticed the blouse… the vest.” Another kiss, lower. “The trousers.” His fingers traced the shape of her wet little cunt. “These obscene fucking knickers.”
“You can take them off,” she whispered.
“I can.” He brushed his thumb along the lace this time, watching her stomach tighten. “I will.”
“Well, what are you waiting for?”
“Hermione.” He lifted his eyes to hers. “If I take them off here, I am going to want to put my mouth on you here.” Her lips parted, eyes dark and shiny with lust. “And while I would enjoy that very much,” he continued, “I am not fucking you on the kitchen counter.”
Her fingers clenched in his shirt. “You’re not?”
“No.” A counter had uses, yes, and it was the right height – it wasn’t as if he hadn’t considered the easy, filthy practicality of it and the way her legs would open around him if he pushed, the way she would let him because she wanted him enough to not give a fuck about flour or pastry or whether they had to make breakfast on it tomorrow.
But Draco knew himself, and he wanted her in their bed. On her back beneath him, curls loose on the pillows, eyes on his, his name in her mouth. He wanted to see his wife’s face when he slid inside her, so hot and perfect and fucking tight.
He wanted all the time the recipe promised him, and then more besides.
Hermione watched him as if she heard every unspoken word, swallowing and flicking her eyes down to where she must have known his cock was leaking, hard as ever for her. “You’re still wearing far too many clothes.” Her hands shoved his shirt, which she’d been unbuttoning, from his shoulders. He shrugged it off, and she tugged at his belt – as he caught her wrist, her eyes lifted to his – the little devil was smirking. “Cheeky,” he said, and her smile widened slowly as she shook her head. Draco let go of her wrist; the relief as she slid the zip down made him close his eyes for a second.
Her fingers slipped just inside the waistband – her hand smoothing over his cock and then cupping his balls, still trapped in his pants, was enough to make every muscle in his stomach lock. “All this for me, my love?”
Ah, she’d done it now. Draco bent and kissed her – tightening her legs around his hips, Hermione rocked once against him. The sound that came from him was not one he would have chosen to make. “Merlin help me,” he said quietly. He moved his hand again, firmer, and her hips lifted – his cock twitched hard, and then the thought of her teaching classes dressed like this made him groan into her mouth. “Do you know how many people I had to speak to this afternoon?”
Hermione made a sound that might have been confusion, but it changed quickly as he kept touching her. “What?”
“At the practice.” He kissed along her jaw. “Three children with colds, two elderly men pretending they don’t need to hear properly, and Mrs McIver telling me in some detail about her neighbour’s bunions.”
Hermione let out a breathless laugh. “Why the fuck are you telling me this now?”
“Because all day, you were at Hogwarts like this.” He pressed again, watching as she dropped her head back with a quiet ‘oh’, taking a breath that trembled. “And I was discussing bunions.”
She laughed into his shoulder, and he was just as hot in his chest as he was hard elsewhere. It was always this way with them – funny until it wasn’t, tender until it was filthy. Domestic and quiet until the counter had flour and his wife wet through emerald lace on it. Hermione’s hand slid into his hair, knocking his glasses slightly crooked. “You’re ridiculous,” she breathed.
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I love you,” he said, and touched her with more purpose now – her eyes squeezed shut. “Uh-uh,” he murmured, and they opened. There she was; his clever witch, his wife, looking at him with wanting and trust and the kind of impatience that made him want to laugh just a little. “I want to see you,” he said, “I want to see the way I make you feel.”
Hermione’s hands went to his shoulders. “Draco, I need you.” She swallowed, one hand moving to grip the back of his neck. “Get me off this fucking counter.”
“With pleasure.” He slid one arm behind her back and the other beneath her thighs, her hold on him getting tighter as he lifted her off the counter. Long legs and soft stomach, perfect lush tits and full hips, thighs soft against his forearms. The curve of her arse sat warm against his palm, and her hair and body smelled faintly sweet, like florals and fruit – under it, there was the scent of wanting. His wanting. Hers. Theirs, tangled together in a kitchen where he had intended to make a pie and instead found himself carrying a basically naked witch down the corridor with his trousers unzipped.
Her mouth found his jaw, then the corner of his mouth, then slid to the hinge beneath his ear where she knew perfectly well he had no defence. The hand at his neck tightened, nails pressing lightly, and Draco nearly turned too soon into the wall. “Careful,” she breathed, laughing against his skin.
“I thought you were tired of careful.”
“Always correcting me.”
“You need it, naughty little witch.”
“I need many things,” she said, wriggling against his hands and fuck, he loved her like this; not making herself smaller in his arms for the sake of being easier to carry. She let him have her, all of her – all of her ridiculous, clever, impossible body tucked against him while firelight flickered over the hallway walls and the rain pattered against the glass.
Really, she was not little, no matter how often the phrase found its way out of his mouth. ‘Little witch’ had never meant small, not really. Not since the first time she’d looked at him like she would set him on fire if he stood between her and what was right.
This Hermione – his Hermione – was softness and curves and muscle and warm skin wrapped around the wicked intelligence of a woman who wore emerald lace beneath tweed because she knew how to make him weak.
He reached the bedroom and paused only long enough to kick the door wider; their room was a dim orange from the low fire he had set before going to cook, bed already turned down because he was, embarrassingly, the sort of husband who knew his wife would want warm sheets after coming in from a wet September evening. The windows were dark, and the curtains had not yet been drawn.
He lowered her to the edge of the bed – their bed, the place where she slept with her hair everywhere, where Scorpius sometimes came thumping in before breakfast if he had dreamt of dragons or thunderstorms. Where Draco said ‘Mrs Malfoy’ in her ear as he held her tight, before he’d even opened his eyes.
He stayed between her knees, straightening up; it probably should have made him feel stupid, standing there looking like that – trousers undone, shirt hanging loose, glasses crooked, breathing like he had run from the village and back.
Instead, he only felt grateful.
Hermione’s eyes lowered, and he watched her take in the shape of his cock still trapped beneath fabric that had been doing valiant and increasingly unsuccessful work. “Still too many clothes,” she said. He touched the side of her face, brushing a curl back with unsteady fingers.
“Perhaps you can improve the situation.”
There was a whole argument to be made, by someone tiresome and probably dead, that underwear was meant to conceal; Draco thought if such a person existed, they had been an idiot. This did not conceal, no – it framed her, made him aware of every part of her that it touched and even more so, the ones it did not.
Yes, it held her breasts in emerald and shadow, made her nipples visible enough beneath the embroidered panels that his mouth had gone dry, and still the most obscene part of it was that she’d chosen it – that his wife had dressed herself for the purpose of his eventual looking. He bent and kissed the lightly freckled skin just above the lace; Hermione’s hand slid into his hair.
“Draco.” Her eyes were dark, the brown almost black in the low light. She had gone pink – he could see the flush spreading beautifully even in the low light – her luscious mouth made more plump by their kisses. “I want you,” she said, and that was enough.
Draco lowered to one knee, and Hermione’s thighs opened wider to let him closer; he held his breath, eyes closing, because she knew what his mouth might do, what his hands might ask, what his body wanted… and yet she opened for him like it was his Merlin-given right. He put both hands on her thighs, her legs trembling; making broad strokes over bare skin, he watched her body answer in a shiver. Her hand, the one with the diamonds and gold, was buried in his hair as if she might guide him and hold on at once.
“I want you more than I’ve wanted most things in my life,” he said, and she smiled faintly.
“I had gathered that, actually.” Her fingers tightened in his hair. “You’re not as subtle as you think.”
“Well, yes… I’m on my knees in front of you with my trousers open.” He pressed his mouth back to her knee, working higher – he needed the heat of her skin under his lips, the quiver in her thigh as he moved closer, proof that she really was this warm, this wet, this open, this alive beneath his kisses.
“Draco,” she whispered again, and this time there was warning in it – he looked up, not removing his mouth from where it had almost reached the apex.
“Yes?”
Her chest rose and fell. “If you keep doing that, I’m going to… oh, Gods… let you.” Her words may as well have been spoken directly to his cock.
“Temptress.”
“Mmm… wife.”
Hermione looked up at him, lips parted, and he reached down to take her face in both hands. “Back,” he said, tilting his chin.
Turning her head to the pillows, then back, she grinned. “Bossy.”
“Married.” He kissed her once, hard, then he helped her shift backwards up the mattress – she laid back, flicking her hair out from under her shoulders. The emerald lace flashed between her thighs as she opened to make room for him, but Draco moved back and then stood – Hermione made a small, betrayed noise.
“Don’t be impatient,” he said.
“But-”
He stripped off his trousers and pants as her gaze moved over him – with obvious hunger, and without an ounce of shame.
Chest, stomach, hips, cock… then back to his face.
“You are beautiful,” she said; he watched her eyes follow as he took his glasses off. “And I like those a lot.”
“I’m aware.”
“Then why-”
“Because,” he said, setting them carefully on the bedside table, “I intend to be close enough that I won’t need them.”
Her mouth closed, and he climbed onto the bed over her, one knee between hers, one hand braced beside her head. “Now you,” he said, lowering himself until her breath touched his mouth, “are overdressed.” She laughed, and he kissed it from her lips.
The bra went first, with some care, because the thing was intricate and also because he suspected it had cost an obscene amount of money, and he knew she would be most displeased if her rare display of enjoying their wealth was destroyed after a single occasion.
Little did he care; he could have her in a new set every day and never know the difference – but she cared, so he made sure she knew he understood that.
Honestly, it was ridiculous that she could still silence him like this – a man surely could not spend years learning medicine, healing theory, Muggle anatomy, Latin and French as well as the very particular language required to discuss things like blood curses and death certificates, only to be left wordless by his wife’s bare breasts.
Her nipples went tighter still, and he lowered his mouth; she arched when he kissed her. Her hips shifted under him, his cock brushing the inside of her thigh – hot and hard and leaking against her silk-soft skin.
“Gods,” she said, and Draco made a sound against her breast that he hoped sounded like something comprehensible. The knickers… fuck, he wanted them gone and yet also to look at her in them until he was an old man, no longer pretending he had any dignity at all. Unclasping them, he couldn’t hold in the smile at the sight of her glistening – swollen just enough to make him certain that her desire was uncapped, matching his.
“You… are… beautiful,” he said, echoing her words – then he tossed the lace aside, and buried his tongue in the sweetness that was his wife’s cunt.
“Oh fuck, Draco – oh… god!”
Hermione’s voice sounded far away to her own ears as his mouth settled between her thighs; she wondered between various flashes of colour behind her eyes if her husband knew what he did to her when he went from looking like a starving man to actually behaving like one.
It was hardly a surprise that a doctor would take keen interest in his wife’s anatomy; it had been one of his favourite subjects for some time now. He knew where to put his hands so that her hands fisted in the sheets, and his hair – he was so well-versed in her that his mouth, hot and wet and exactly where she needed it, had her back arched instantly against the smile he wore when she cried his name.
He held her thighs open with both hands, long fingers spread and thumbs pressing into the places that made her legs shake; Hermione’s head fell back against the pillow.
“Eyes on me, darling,” he said against her, the words a vibration more than sound; she lifted onto her elbows and he was looking up into her eyes. His hair was in disarray, and the firelight caught against the angle of his cheekbone, the sharp line of his nose. The dark intensity of his gaze from between her thighs glimmered as if he had been summoned from some sinful depth.
“Draco,” she pleaded, begging for ‘more’, or to ‘wait’, or perhaps just saying ‘please, I can’t’ – but he knew she definitely could, and so his fingers pressed more firmly, holding her in place as his tongue moved with more purpose. Her hips lifted into it, shameless and needy.
She was wrecked for him, by him – had been since the first time he’d gone down on her – and the thought made her face burn with a sort of embarrassment. Even while naked in their bed with her husband’s mouth on her cunt, Hermione Granger-Malfoy was still sometimes just a girl who’d wondered once or twice in her youth if Draco Malfoy was a good kisser and now she knew, with every inch of her skin, that he was the best.
Since their first time, the one thing that never changed was his generosity; now, though, he let himself take pleasure and give it without any hesitation. Now, there was command, and knowledge, and confidence – when used outside their bedroom, it still made her weak for him, but it was so much worse (better) here. Now, they made love, they fucked, they sometimes did things that made them both blush afterwards.
She gasped as his tongue dipped into her entrance; he let out a rasping groan, and hearing him enjoy her made the low tingling heat curl and tighten. “That,” she begged, “yes, that, there.” He did it again, making her thighs tighten around his shoulders – the tremor in her legs didn’t stop him from pressing her wider again. “Fuck… yes.”
He wanted all of her wanting with no apology, he told her time and time again. ‘I want to worship you, Hermione. Let me.’
And so she was consecrated, over and over and over as she prayed out loud, his name as litany.
He hooked one hand around her thigh and the other over her hip, pinning her to the bed because her body had begun to move; that was not her job, not her responsibility. Draco knew what she loved best was for him to find a rhythm and then alter it; he would never deny her, of course, and if they had limited time he would let her settle into it and ride it the whole way. On this rare occasion, with the house to themselves, he was going to make sure he dragged it out, make the rapture build and swell, instead of the flare and vanish that was still so fucking good it made her want to scream.
“Fuck,” she breathed again. “My fucking god, you’re good at that.” He laughed – the bastard laughed against her cunt, and Hermione’s entire body jerked. “Oh, you-”
His eyes flashed, and he gave another flick of his tongue just like the one that had made her lose her words in the first place. She could feel the shift of the bed and knew he’d be doing his best not to thrust into the mattress; he kept it up until she tilted her hips again, breathing hard and loud like she was barely hanging on, one hand slapping uselessly at the sheet before she grabbed for his shoulder.
He held onto her, and the surge of her climax started – she wanted to fight it and fall into it at the same time, and in the end her body chose falling. Her spine curved so that the crown of her head was against the bed; her cunt clenched around nothing, desperate now, and she was babbling.
“Draco, oh, Gods, yes, yes, I’m coming, I- unh-”
Her orgasm flowed through her in a hot rush, her body drawing tight as she ground against his mouth, thighs shaking, fingers locked in his hair.
When Hermione came back to herself, he was still kissing her; first lower, then her thigh, then across her hip where his hands had been holding her. Tiny, useless aftershocks zapped each time his mouth touched skin; at the sound of his name, he looked up. Mouth wet, eyes dark – her husband on his knees like he was exactly where he meant to be.
“Well, that was rude.” She felt his cheek lift against the inside of her knee as he moved, hands planted either side of her.
“Was it?” he asked, dragging one hand over his mouth. “I’ll make a note.”
“You will not.”
“No,” he agreed, kissing the soft place just below her navel and moving up her body. “I won’t.” Her laugh was a broken thing, her voice ruined after being allowed to make the noises she always wanted to but often couldn't. He kissed upwards, his mouth lingering on her nipples until she made a noise of protestation. By the time he reached her throat, she had one hand on his back and the other in his hair, not pulling now, only needing the contact; she was still too sensitive and somehow already wanting him again.
He kissed her mouth, and Hermione tasted herself on him as his body caged her. The broad line of his shoulders blocked out the notch in the ceiling she’d been looking at, and his chest pressed against hers, skin to skin. His cock dragged hot and hard against her thigh, then lower, the slick slide of him through the mess he had made between her legs drawing a gasp from both of them.
She saw the flush across his cheekbones, the tiny break in his control when they were against each other like this. Hermione adored the way his eyes searched hers; she lifted both hands to his face, and his eyes closed in surrender. He’d always needed to be touched tenderly, even when he was clearly trying not to lose himself too quickly.
“Look at me, love,” she said in a whisper, and his eyes opened.
Her chest filled an aching warmth that matched the rest of her body – sated, yet still desperate.
There were all sorts of things she loved about Draco Malfoy; his hands, obviously, and his wicked tongue. But more than that, it was the silliest things – his voice when he was trying not to laugh, the way his brow furrowed as he listened to stories with no endings as if they were vital fact.
But his eyes were something else.
Grey and dark and close enough that she could see how much he loved her, wanted her, needed what she alone gave him; he loved so deeply, and had always made her feel like he had infinite stores of it. She saw it behind his eyes, and it made her own well, the next breath harder to take.
He shifted, and the head of his cock caught against her, reminding her that loving him was one thing but being fucked into the mattress was another, and she was lucky enough to get both. “You want that?” she whispered.
The answer was a hissed ‘of fucking course I do’, and she smiled at him being quietly demanding.
“Gods, I want you,” she said, and his hand moved between them – he watched her face as he guided himself, and her body tightened before he touched her, from the anticipation alone. The thrill she knew would come from the stretch, and pressure; the heat, the way he would fill her and then look at her with that face that told her everything.
She loved him so much she could hardly stand it.
“Ready?”
She nodded, a little too eagerly, like it was her first time and she could hardly wait.
Or perhaps her eagerness came from the fact that she’d come on his cock so many times before, and knew how good it was; whatever the reason, he still entered her slowly-slowly-slowly because he was well aware that she needed that.
Hermione’s mouth parted, but no sound came at first; the sensations took all of it. The slide, the stretch, the deep, thick pressure of him sinking into her while his eyes stayed on hers. She could feel every breath, and the way his shoulder trembled; he was close enough that when he finally bottomed out, she heard the sound of his teeth grinding together.
“Merlin… fuck,” he whispered, and Hermione’s legs wrapped higher around him.
“More,” she said, and he breathed in through his nose as he drew his hips back, nodding.
“Anything for you.”
Draco knew when he said it that it was too much to say, and still not enough; that was always the problem with Hermione. She made words feel both necessary and utterly inadequate, because no matter what he said, he wanted to repeat it so he could see her eyes light up. At the same time, he wanted to stay silent and listen to each breath, every word from her lips – whatever sounds she made, he wanted to hear them.
He gave her more, just like she asked; he pushed into her again, deeper this time, and her eyes rolled back as both hands tightened their grip on his shoulders. Her hips moved so she could find the angle she wanted, and the feel of her opening further around him was enough to steal his breath.
There were many things he knew about his wife; some were ordinary, and some were more private – those were the ones that flooded his mind now. The exact place on her neck that made her giggle if kissed too softly, how she went quiet when she was overwhelmed, how she sometimes pretended to be annoyed right before she threw her head back against the sheets and said ‘fuck’ in a tone that belied her desire.
He loved knowing these secrets – the way she trembled against his hands as he kissed her cunt, how it felt when her body was hot and slick and drawing him in as if there were nothing in the world she wanted more than the next stroke of him.
He looked into her brown eyes, dark and fixed on his, lashes fluttering. His next thrust came harder, and when she made a sound at the same time as she clenched around him, he didn’t stop himself from tilting his head and asking if that was what she needed.
He knew, but he wanted her to tell him anyway.
“Yes.” Her nails pressed into his back. “There… Draco, yes, there.”
His hips jerked at the words, and then at the tightness of her – she’d done it deliberately, he was almost certain – he couldn’t help but breathe out his next words. “Gods, Hermione, you feel so fucking good.”
“You make me feel good,” she whispered back, watching him closely. “So good.”
She had no clue what it felt like for him, to be deep inside the heat of her; the damp press of her thighs around his hips was more proof that everything he gave, she wanted. She pulled him down, his chest now brushing against hers, and her breath hot against his mouth. The rhythm changed at once, and he could feel everything this way.
Her breasts against his chest, the soft warmth of her stomach beneath his, the firm muscles in her thighs that squeezed his hips – the grunt that escaped him was no more or less embarrassing than the other sounds he heard from himself as he found the angle that meant he could go no deeper. Her hand slid from his shoulder into his hair, then back down, restless and greedy, and the other settled at his hip, fingers digging in so she could tell him without words where to go, and how much, and more, more, more.
He obeyed; he always would, when she asked like that.
The bed shifted a little bit, the antique wood giving a quiet complaint that might have worried him if he had a single spare thought left. The fire threw amber light over her face each time he drew back enough to see her, soft and fierce and undone. Her curls were wild and dark across the pillows, mouth wet from his kisses.
He wanted to say something, to remind her or maybe himself that he was real, this was real, because it felt so much like a stolen fantasy. What entered his mind was something ridiculous; that he found it unfathomable that this was their life now – not a tentative weekend where she had her own room, or a letter full of longing, but simply a Tuesday night in their bed while a pie waited downstairs and Scorpius slept safely under Daphne’s roof. Despite the fact that when his cock was inside her (in any capacity) he lost the ability to think clearly, he managed to say something much less stupid.
“My wife.”
“… mmm, husband.”
He lowered his forehead to hers. “Say it again.”
“My…” – she sighed, smiling – “… husband.” His entire body answered with a hard thrust, and Hermione’s gasp broke into a breathless laugh. He muttered an apology, though the way the coil of desire had turned in on itself indicated that his body wasn’t even a bit sorry. “Don’t you dare,” she chided softly as her hand dug into his hip, dragging him back into her. “Again, love.”
There was a reason, he thought vaguely, that people wrote poetry about such things. Ridiculous creatures, poets, but he understood.
He moved again, and she met him, body pushing back into his; slower, deeper, the heat of her gathering around him with each stroke until her body began to hold him tighter and he knew she was getting closer. He’d learned her in darkness and morning light, and in the breathless hush after Scorpius had finally gone to sleep; through her uncontrollable laughter and unavoidable impatience, and now it was one of those rare, glorious evenings when there was no need to keep quiet or hold back.
Her left hand went first, as it always seemed to – it tightened in his hair and then loosened, fingers sliding to the nape of his neck as if she could not decide whether to pull or hold. Her breathing became shallow and her thighs trembled around him, her heel pressing into the back of his leg.
He could see the way she was trying to keep her eyes focussed on him as they rocked against the mattress, but the closer she came, the harder it was for her not to close them. He touched her face with the hand he’d slid under her head after she’d brought them closer, thumb against her cheek.
“Hermione.” Her eyes opened at once, and it was like falling into a memory as he watched the way she flickered her gaze across his face. His clever witch, his wife, his impossible Granger, looking at him as if he’d brought her to some great height and trusted him enough to fall. That look nearly did what her body had not yet managed – he was close. Too close, and maybe too soon, but the thought didn’t stop him now the way it might have before.
There had been a time when losing himself in someone else’s touch had seemed impossible, selfish, almost dangerous; a time when receiving had felt like taking, and taking had felt like one more thing Draco Malfoy ought to be ashamed of wanting.
Hermione taught him, gently at first, that even if that had been true or only felt it, she wanted him to take from her because she fully intended to give if he was willing to let her. ‘Is this OK?’ became ‘now, Draco’ and ‘mmhm, so good’.
She had taught him that being wanted was not an act of theft, that pleasure did not need to be justified by service, that he could give and receive and still remain someone who didn’t need to atone or repent. That the woman beneath him could be the one to tear him apart just as easily as she could come undone on his tongue, and then still demand more.
He kissed her hard, breaths dragging out of him, her tongue against his; with his lip trapped between her teeth he felt her body grasping, cunt clutching at him, his cock getting harder and heat pulling his balls tight.
“Draco,” she said against his mouth, “I’m close.”
“You are.”
Her disbelieving laugh broke at the next thrust, became a gasp, then a sound he knew he would think about at very inconvenient times for the rest of his life. Moving his hand from her cheek, he reached between them, letting her head fall back on the pillow.
“Oh.”
He touched her, pressure and pace a practiced thing, and she whined, brow furrowing.
“Look at me,” he said. “Stay right here, Hermione.”
“I’m… with… you,” she said through a hard swallow.
Her mouth dropped open in a scream with no sound, eyes wide and locked on him as she came – of course, she took him with her. His hips drove into hers once, twice, and then he was coming, coming, coming, spilling inside her with his forehead pressed to hers and his own jaw slack.
Like her, it hit him in a wave so hard he went silent – breath gone, body locked, her hand at the back of his neck – and when sound returned, it was her, musical with the sighs of release.
Draco’s own breath was rough and unsteady, and he couldn't move other than the involuntary sag of his spine when the last hot pulse left him. He heard the loud thudding of his own heart and immediately pressed his cheek to hers, letting himself feel her breath on his neck and shoulder. She still had one hand in his hair, the other spread over his back, and her legs wrapped around him – now it was an embrace, instead of the involuntary cling of her climax.
He loved that, loved it so fiercely he had to close his eyes as he pulled his face away.
“Draco,” she whispered; at once, he shifted some of his weight onto his forearm.
“Too much?”
“No.” Her leg tightened around him before loosening again, and she shook her head. “Just… hello.”
A helpless laugh escaped him. “Hello?”
“You looked very serious, I wanted to check you’d not started thinking about the pie already.”
“I have just had a religious experience. I care not for pie.”
“Because of my excellent interpersonal skills?”
“Among other things.”
“Mmm.” Her hand slid down his back, slowly tracing against his skin. “List them.”
“I can barely remember my own name.”
“It’s Draco.”
He kissed her shoulder. “Ridiculous woman.”
“You like it.”
“I adore it.” He lifted his head and looked at her; cheeks flushed, eyes bright, hair absolutely everywhere.
His wife, warm body still joined to his, hands on him, eyes on him.
“Alright?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Withdrawing slowly, and listening intently for the soft sound she made when his body left hers, he kissed her mouth, then her cheek, then the place beside her eye. “Stay there.”
“Where exactly do you imagine I’m going?”
“With you? One never knows.”
“I’ve been rendered ornamental.” She smiled without opening her eyes properly. “An occasional table? Though on this occasion I am more of a rug, or something else that lies very flat.”
Draco snorted, and she bit her lip before beginning to laugh silently. He slipped from the bed and crossed to the washstand – his legs were somewhat unsteady, which he chose to ignore.
The jug was warm thanks to its proximity to the fire, so he poured water into the basin, testing it with his fingers before soaking a cloth. The act steadied him in a different way from Occlumency, from work, from spells. Warm water, his hands, the swirl of the cloth in the eddying liquid rather than his thoughts in a cauldron inside his head.
When he turned back, Hermione had moved onto her side, one knee bent, head resting on her arm. She was watching him through half-lowered lashes, drowsy and naked and obviously feeling very pleased with herself. There were faint pink marks on her hips where his hands had been, and the flush still lingered across her chest; he sat on the edge of the bed.
“May I?”
Her eyes softened. “Yes.”
He began between her thighs, careful and thorough, rinsing and returning. She exhaled, eyes closing, as he cleaned the slick mess from her. He refreshed the cloth, coming back to the crease of her thigh, then lower, watching her face more than his hands because he knew where his hands were.
“Alright?”
“Mmm.”
“Words.”
“Yes,” she murmured, taking a long breath and letting it out as a satisfied sigh. “Lovely.”
It made his throat tight to see her like this; even while she was completely and only herself, he could never forget that she was not the first woman he’d tended with a doctor’s hands and a husband's heart.
Hermione had become the mother of his son in every way that mattered now, except the one that had been and would be Astoria’s forever. The witch who had said yes to every answer that mattered, no when it counted, or sometimes said nothing and made that the right answer too.
He leaned down and put his lips to the spot above her navel again; she smiled serenely. “You’re very quiet,” she said.
“I am occupied.”
“With my thigh?”
“Among other things.”
She opened one eye. “That sounds suspiciously like feelings.”
“I’ve never had one of those.”
“No, of course not.”
Kissing her hip, then the soft place just above it where the cloth had left her skin damp and warm, he moved to rinse and wring out the cloth, tossing it to the basket where their clothes would have ended up if they hadn’t been abandoned in the kitchen. He went back to the bed and sat, studying her as she shifted and a tiny crease appeared between her brows. “Are you sore?”
“Not badly.”
“Hermione.”
She sighed, less peaceful this time. “A little. In the good way.”
He reached for the nightstand, where a glass of water sat – emptying and refilling it from the ceramic water crock in the other corner, he handed it to her and watched until she drank enough to satisfy him.
She lowered it with narrowed eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Ensuring adequate hydration after strenuous activity.”
“You are being very ‘Doctor Malfoy’ right now.”
He took the glass from her and set it down. “Would you prefer someone else?”
“It’s not that… I just don’t need a doctor. Nothing at all wrong with me, aside from a dreadful case of loving you.”
“Oh, you’re outrageous.”
“I am.” She reached for him. “Now come here.”
He did – of course he did. Climbing back into bed, he gathered her against him, one arm beneath her shoulders, the other around her waist. She was warm and heavy into his arms, pliant with exhaustion but still able to grumble when his skin was cooler than hers.
“Terrible service in this establishment.”
“Says the woman married to the proprietor.”
“Questionable judgement.”
“Yours or mine?”
“Both, probably.”
He pressed his mouth to her hair, and for several minutes, neither of them moved. The rain kept on, the fire burned a little higher from the fresh log Draco had placed on it. He breathed in, quietly amused at the idea that the same little witch he was holding now would likely spend tomorrow morning casually correcting some seventh-year’s footwork on Shield Charms – as if she hadn’t spent the evening being the most destructive force in all of Scotland.
Downstairs, he remembered the pie that he’d put under stasis; as if on cue, Hermione tilted her head back. “I’m hungry.”
He laughed into her curls. “I made pie.”
“An interrupted pie.”
“You were the one who interrupted it with your… delicates.”
She cackled at this, the same way she always did when he said old-fashioned things that made him sound like one of his own elderly patients. “Imagine my surprise when my strategic underthings came to fruition much sooner than expected.”
He looked down at her; her eyes were half-closed, but her mouth had that smug little curve he had never learned to resist.
He hoped he never did.
“Let me up and I’ll put it in the oven.”
“Now? No. Stay here for one more minute.”
He settled back on his pillow, letting her tuck herself closer. The pie could wait – everything could wait, really, except his wife with her hand resting over his heart.
One more minute, she’d said.
He gave her three.
“We need to eat,” he murmured after too short a time.
“No.”
“Hermione.”
“Sorry, I live here now.”
“In the bed?” She felt his laugh, heard it, through his chest; something about it made a lump form in her throat. Not because she had never slept beside someone, or eaten in bed, or joked with a lover while naked by a fire; she had lived a life before Draco, a real one, and he knew that.
But this was different – had always been different, from the minute he’d looked shocked at her admission of what life in Australia had been like – because there was no part of her she needed to leave behind when she lay beside him.
Beside her husband.
The village doctor, who was also ‘Dadda’, and Healer Malfoy (and an impossibly good man with a penchant for treating her body like an altar).
She recalled with a huff of laughter that she too was a woman with many names – Hermione, ‘the doctor’s wife’, ‘Mrs Malfoy’ when Draco was feeling particularly sentimental and of course, Professor Granger-Malfoy. The same professor who’d been unbuttoned and left downstairs in a pile of flour and tweed. It felt, as it so often did, like every version of her had come home two years ago.
It was hilarious, really; she could scarcely imagine what the girl who packed up her things to leave Ash’s flat for the final time would have said if she’d been told choosing the earlier Portkey meant ‘you’re going to marry Draco Malfoy, become a mother to his child, and wake up overlooking Loch Ness’.
Draco’s mouth touched her temple and she blinked, remembering where she was.
“I shall return.”
Hermione lifted her head enough to glare at him; it would probably have been more effective if she were not naked under a sheet with hair stuck to her cheek. “You’d better.”
He kissed her one more time, then got out of bed again. He moved about the room without hurrying, picking up his trousers and then deciding against them in favour of the robe over the chair. It shouldn’t have been attractive, by all accounts, but she was just ridiculous over this man in any sort of coat, or cloak, or robe.
Perhaps she was simply ridiculous about him in general.
It was soft, dark material, nothing flashy, kept there to be ready at any minute if he needed to go to Scorpius at night. He slipped it on and tied it haphazardly before finding his glasses and looking over the top of the frames at her. Hermione’s entire body, despite its very recent activity, instantly reacted.
It was offensive, really. “Oh, come on.”
“Problem?”
“Yes.” She held her hand up at his face.
“Would you like me to take them off?”
“Hardly.”
“Then I fail to see the issue.”
“The issue is that I am trying to recover.”
“From?”
“You.”
That pleased him, if his smirk was anything to go by. He came back to the side of the bed and leaned down, robe falling open and glasses glinting in the firelight. “You’ll manage,” he said.
She dragged him down by the bloody robe, close enough to kiss him (she probably should have bitten him, the cheeky bastard); his hand pressed down beside her to stop him falling all the way over.
It was meant to be a small kiss. A peck, really.
It was not.
Even while being recently worshipped, Hermione remained insatiable.
“Pie,” he said, voice rougher than before. “I’ll be quick.”
She nodded, and he went. Hermione lay back against the pillows and listened to him move through the cottage – footsteps down the hall, a clatter of kitchen things, the oven door.
The pie took as long as the recipe had promised; Hermione used the time to become less naked, and to make the bed less of a monument to iniquity. By the time Draco returned, she was under the fresh sheets in her new pyjamas – cream, soft, with tiny buttons (and shorts that were comfortable enough to sleep in yet pretty enough that she couldn’t even attempt to say she’d bought them by accident).
He came in carrying two plates, robe now tied properly – and still in the glasses, because he knew exactly what he was doing. They ate in bed with far less ceremony than the dish deserved, because he had followed the recipe to perfection and baked it for one minute longer just to make sure it was the right amount of crisp. The sounds of cutlery faded eventually, and Draco set the plates aside. He reached for the book on the bedside table, and Hermione – who’d nestled into pillows that she’d propped behind herself to eat – opened one eye.
“You want to read that now?”
“I fear neither Amy nor Jo will read themselves.”
“True. Marmee and Meg probably would… and nobody cares what Beth does.”
“Precisely.”
She tucked herself into his side, with one arm over his stomach and her leg hooked over his.
His voice was lower when he read aloud at night, softer – flannel, instead of the starched cotton of the tone he used when explaining something medical.
Hermione closed her eyes with every intention of listening.
Truly.
Draco read the same sentence three times as a test; Hermione’s cheek was against his chest, curls hanging loose, her hand resting over his stomach. The pyjamas she wore were ridiculous, and perfect – just like their wearer.
“Are you listening,” he asked, not looking away from the page, “or sleeping?”
“I’m listening.” Her eyes were closed, but the smile she gave said she was pleased with herself even at the edge of sleep.
“Menace,” he said softly.
“Devoted wife.”
He looked at her for a moment, because he could – because there had been years of his life when this woman had been not much more than a remorseful memory. Draco set the bookmark – a parchment dragon, crafted and coloured by an industrious boy with the help of that same woman, the one he now called ‘mum’ – carefully between the pages. Then he took off his glasses, and rested them on top of the closed book on the bedside table.
“No,” she murmured.
“They’re off shift.”
“Shame.”
He lowered himself beside her, and she turned over, putting a gap between them – he found that totally unacceptable, so he spoke into the darkness as he turned the lamp down with a wandless command. “Come here.”
She wriggled back toward him, letting him wrap one arm around her waist and lifting so he could put the other around her shoulder, pressing his ribs to her spine.
“Better,” he murmured.
“Bossy,” she whispered thickly.
“Mm.”
“Love you.”
He wasn't convinced she’d hear his reply, but he said it anyway. “I love you too.”
The rain kept on, and so too did her quiet breaths as the stars came out.