Chapter 1
Summer2005
“Merlin, fuck .” Draco pants into her neck, slowly unhooking her legs from where they have wound around his waist.
Limp and sated, they both slide slowly down the wall that supported their latest tryst and come to rest on the floor. Hermione had hardly managed to shut the front door, welcoming Draco inside only to receive an onslaught of ravenous kisses.
Wordlessly vanishing the mess between their legs and righting her skirt somewhat, Hermione tries to even out her breaths.
It’s impossible, not just because of the intensity of the sex but because of the way her heart races when she looks at him. He is so beautiful like this, hair disheveled and chest flushed. She usually does not let her mind wander into such dangerous territory, casual and discreet as their arrangement is, but now, loose, satisfied, sitting on the floor of the entryway to her late parents’ home, Hermione lets herself indulge.
His Adam's apple bobs and she follows it with her eyes.
“Granger,” he murmurs, passing a hand through his mussed hair before looking at her, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“Oh.” It’s more of an exhalation than a word but it is all she can muster. This is what she gets for her indulgences. Hermione swallows, looking down to pick at her fingernails. “Your mother finally found someone for you then?”
Draco’s laugh is hollow. “Oh, no, no, not yet.”
Not yet.
But Narcissa will. It is inevitable.
Rehabilitated as the Malfoy name has been in the years after the war, his inheritance must pass to someone. Someone who does not exist yet, someone borne by the future Malfoy bride.
“Okay,” Hermione nods, partially to convince herself that this doesn’t hurt, and draws her legs into her chest. She always knew this would happen. “Okay.”
When their eyes meet, amber on silver, Draco frowns.
“No, wait, hold on, no, that’s not–” he groans, head shaking frantically, “I’ve done this all wrong, that’s not what I meant.”
He is so stoic, demeanour always cool. A product of his upbringing, of the governesses and etiquette classes and emotional neglect that have worked in tandem to render him so collected and oh so out of touch with his own inner world.
The glimpse of true feeling, of distress, is so rare that it freezes her momentarily.
With a tired sigh, she lifts her brows. “So what did you mean, then?”
After a long exhale, he says “I don’t want to keep doing things the way we have been.” He pauses, face open, insistent. Draco seems almost pained by the raw emotion that seeps into his words. “I don’t want it to be this way anymore: secret. Casual.”
Blinking, Hermione takes longer than she would like to catch his meaning. It is hard to make sense of when just moments ago she had resigned herself to this being over.
“So,” she swallows, looking at him cautiously, “what do you want?”
“More.” His answer comes without a beat and something in her chest flutters at the surety of it, at the evidence of his forethought. He has thought about this. Draco licks his lips, looking down at hers briefly. “I want to be yours.”
Her breath catches in her throat and for a few moments she does nothing but gape at him in silence. Eventually, her heart restarts, louder and faster than before, and she manages to swallow around the sudden dryness in her mouth.
“And w-what does that look like?”
Again, his answer is prompt, certain. “Exclusivity. For both of us”
No more half-hearted dates for her then, not much of a sacrifice. For him, however…
“And what will Narcissa say? Isn’t twenty-five quite old for a Malfoy man to be unwed?”
His birthday had just passed, a small affair with their mutual friends at the usual pub.
Draco scoffs. “It’s a new age, Granger, and I have been able to convince her of the lack of urgency with regard to my marital status.”
Her eyes widen. “I– really? ”
He nods. “She has agreed to stop searching for a wife for me.”
The for now goes unspoken but Hermione hears it all the same. An echo of the not yet from earlier.
Draco Malfoy is not married, and he wants to be hers.
For now.
She will take what she can get.