Professor Hermione Granger sloshed through a stream in the Forbidden Forest and held her long skirt above the flowing water. She needed leeches for her class tomorrow, and while she could source them from Hogsmede, fresh was always more potent. She made a mental note to take the kids out here before Fall settled in. Foraging, it turned out, was one of the more enjoyable aspects of being a Potions Mistress.
She pushed the large sun hat from her head so it lay flat on her back, with the braided strap catching along her collarbone. The sun was just falling below the trees, and the hot day promised a misty, warm evening.
“Hello, Professor Granger, out for a stroll?” A drawling voice made her jump. She turned to see Professor Malfoy through a copse of trees.
“Leeches,” she panted, placing a muddy hand on her hip. “You?”
“Hunting a Boggart for my third years."
She nodded and smiled. “I remember that lesson. I never got to go because we ran out of time. Probably for the best, as it would have been a failed homework assignment or something equally embarrassingly mundane.”
“I was first up,” he offered. “I expected it to be a vampire or werewolf, but it was just the ghoul that lived in our attic at the Manor.”
“A ghoul?!” She laughed.
He nodded with a smirk. “Only I could hear it - my mother made me feel like I was crazy.”
“Is it still there?” She asked, and he sat on the bank and shook his head.
He threaded his long fingers around his knees as he squinted up at her against the setting sun. “No it's not. One evening, after supper, I decided I’d take it on myself.”
“Oh no,” she said, sitting on the bank just close enough to hear.
“I didn’t even have a wand yet, so I thought I'd defend myself with a candlestick holder.”
She opened her mouth in surprise. “Merlin, were you scared?”
“Wicked,” he huffed, and she laughed.
“We had generations of junk up there. Honestly, the ghoul was probably the least dangerous thing I could have stumbled upon. Cursed mannequins, boxes of billywig nests stowed away by my barmy late grandfather...”
“If you caught it off guard, you may have been able to...” She interrupted.
“Would you hold your hippogriffs?"
"Sorry! Sorry," she blushed, "you were saying?"
He sighed. "I had just about given up, and I could hear our house elf at the time, Mitsy, calling for me to come for supper.” He smiled at her intent stare and lowered his voice. “I had just turned past this scrying mirror when I saw it.” His gray eyes danced with anticipation. “Twelve feet tall and uglier than Bins.”
“Oh, stop,” she said, laughing.
“Standing right between me and the attic door.”
“Well, what did you do?”
He looked forward, and his cheeks turned pink. He scrunched up his nose and eyed her sheepishly. “I screamed.”
“Oh no, you poor thing!”
“Yeah, Mitsy came barreling up the stairs and banished it with a snap of her fingers.” He snapped his long fingers, and she smiled.
“Well, I think you were brave to go up there in the first place.”
“Yeah, but that’s the thing about Slytherins. No follow through.”
“Well, a Gryffindor wouldn’t have called for help and died in a puddle of ghoulish glory.”
She huffed a curl out of her face. The late summer humidity made her hair wild, not to mention the dirt she’d inevitably combed through it when batting it away.
“Do you remember when we had detention out here, our first year?” He asked.
She shook her head incredulously. “Of course! Merlin’s beard. I wouldn’t give my seventh years detention in the Forbidden Forest!”
“It’s a different time,” he said.
“The war changed a lot,” she agreed.
Another silence hung between them, made louder by crepuscular wanderings.
Hermione had started as the potions master not long after her own graduation from Hogwarts. When Professor Snape passed away at the battle, she did everything she could to convince Professor McGonagall she was right for the job. She’d studied Snape’s copy of Advanced Potion Making like a bible. And then five years later, after a stint in Azkaban for his part in the war, Draco Malfoy was appointed to the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. Some parents grumbled at having a former death eater teach their students, but since many of them had dark wizards, werewolves, frauds, or imposters in the job when they were in school, the Hogwarts alumnae had grown more accepting. So far, Professor Malfoy had held the position for longer than anyone before.
It’s a lovely evening,” he said, rolling up his sleeves and brushing blonde hair from his eyes. Hermione couldn’t help but stare at the serpent and skull tattoo on his forearm.
“It’s just a tattoo now, you know,” he said, and she darted her eyes away. “With him gone, there’s no magic left in it.”
“Why don’t you get it removed?” She asked, “I hope that’s not a rude question.”
“It’s fine,” he smiled and shrugged. It hit Hermione how familiar she'd become with that smile. In school together, it had always been a sneer or a smirk.
“It’s a good reminder, he said. “Not just for me, but for my students.”
“And I’m sure it scares them straight,” she said, and he laughed. Hermione realized she was staring again and cleared her throat.
“Do you remember,” Professor Malfoy started, and he lay back on the grass with his hands behind his head. A flush ran across his cheeks. “That hypogriff?”
“Buckbeak?” She asked.
“That was his name,” he said, covering his eyes with his hand.
“Of course, I remember Buckbeak! He’s still alive, you know,” she said, and she scooted up to her knees, just slightly closing the distance between them on the bank.
“Get out,” he said, looking at her wide-eyed and rolling to face her.
“Goes by Witherwings now.” She bit her lip.
“Do you remember,” he started.
“When I hit you the night he was supposed to be executed?”
“You broke my nose, Granger,” he cleared his throat, “um, Professor Granger.”
She sat in stunned silence at the flood of memories and turned to gaze at the river.
“I’m sorry about that,” she looked down at her hands.
He scoffed, “No, you’re not.”
She erupted with laughter. “No, I’m not. Or I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have been.”
He picked apart a blade of grass as Hermione leaned back on her wrists.
Even as the forest crawled to life, in that moment, they stood still. He looked up at her, and Hermione wasn’t sure at what point they had gotten so physically close, or who made the first move.
His eyes searched her face as though remembering every jab or argument in each of her new laugh lines.
“It took me until I was much older to realize that you didn’t deserve all of the hateful things I said," he began.
“Professor Malfoy,” she began, but he looked down as though afraid she’d forgive him before he could finish.
“And it’s not an excuse. I could never ask your forgiveness for how I can only imagine I made you feel. But, at the same time, you were so bright, you are so bright, and clever and quick and brave. And you had these friends who loved you, and you loved them back. I realized I admired you, but I didn’t know how to reconcile that with what my father thought and wanted for me.” Hermione felt a flush creep up her neck, and Malfoy chewed on his lip.
He looked up, and his gray eyes caught the light of a passing firefly.
“You’ve thought a lot about this, it seems,” she mused.
“Yeah, well, I had a lot of time to think.”
“But you had friends,” she scoffed, a knot forming between her eyebrows.
“Do you have any idea what being best friends with Crabbe and Goyle was like?”
She laughed a little too hard, as she was likely to do to ease tension, and laid down on the grass. Her curls fanned out among the closing mallowsweet flowers like clouds against the night sky - so close he could reach out and touch them if he wanted.
“Oh, those daft buggers, could you imagine what it must have been like to be their teachers?” He asked.
“I can,” she rolled her eyes. Thinking of a pair of third years who tried her patience.
He gazed down at her outstretched arm, his fingers an inch away from her own brand from the war, accidentally displayed as she’d gazed up at the canopy. She felt his finger graze the top of the L in “mudblood,” and she pulled her arm to her chest.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling his hand back.
“No, it’s ok.”
“It’s not. I shouldn’t have touched you,” he said.
“Here. Just like yours, it doesn’t have any magic left in it. It’s just…a reminder.” She rolled onto her side, took his hand, and touched his fingers to the crude letters. He traced them, and even though they’d long since become a memory filed away, she felt tears at the corner of her eyes.
“Blimey, Hermione, I am so, so sorry.” He said, shaking his head.
The memory exploded in her brain as though let out of a cage - His aunt carving them into her skin as Malfoy...Professor Malfoy watched. She swallowed.
“I think that’s the first time you’ve ever said my first name,” she said, “and, for what it’s worth, I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago. I had to. But...if you struggle to forgive yourself, well, I understand.”
He traced the jagged lines with a softness she wouldn’t have imagined possible from him. She blinked and released traitorous tears down her cheeks.
“Oh, bollocks, I’m sorry, this isn’t fair. Me dredging all of this up,” he said. He hastened to wipe her tears away with his thumb and knuckle. She recoiled a little and wiped harshly at her skin.
“No, it’s ok, it’s important.” She swallowed the emotion and smiled.
“Remember when you called me a mudblood, and Ron tried to curse you with his busted wand and started burping up slugs?”
“Oh, that poor bloke,” he quirked his head towards her with mischievous curiosity, “whatever happened there?”
“What do you mean?” She asked, not meeting his gaze.
“He loved you, like really loved you, like worshiped the ground you walked on.”
“Well, you answered your own question there, didn’t you?” She said, but sighed. “And he wanted a big family. After the war, he wanted back what he’d lost, but I didn’t want seven children. I wanted to work, to learn. No offense to Molly - she’s lovely - I just. Anyway, he’s with Hannah now, and they’re batty for each other.”
He nodded and returned to fraying the edges of a mallowsweet leaf.
“Alright, nosey,” she said, rolling on her side to face him, “What about Pansy?”
“Pans,” he sighed. "I couldn’t put her through being with me after the war. I certainly couldn’t ask her to wait for me while I was locked up. Not after what I did, what my family did.”
“I heard you had quite the army of fans when you were in Azkaban,” she smirked. She moved a little closer to trace her fingers along his dark mark. To his credit, he didn’t flinch.
“The number of blokes who tried to trade goods for photos...”
“You got photos as well as letters?” She asked. For some reason, she hadn’t even considered that.
He nodded and buttoned his lips together.
“Azkaban’s most eligible bachelor,” she laughed.
He looked down at her fingers - close enough to feel her blush.
“It’s getting late,” she said, her voice a little raw, “dinner will be halfway through.”
“You said you brought leeches, and here I thought this was a picnic."
She huffed a laugh. She leaned in first but waited as her lips grazed his until she felt him push against her. He breathed her in and grabbed a fistful of the back of her hair.
“Oh, don’t. It’s wild right now in the humidity,” she said, touching the back of his hand.
He gripped harder and ran his eyes along her hairline - along each curl outlined by the purple shadows of the forest.
“It’s perfect,” he kissed her again, deeper, and she shifted onto her back as he angled over her. She touched his chest, the evening dew creeping through the fabric.
He cradled her head and moved his kisses to her neck. “Hermione, is this ok?” He gasped.
“Yes, um, Professor Malfoy, it's ok,” she said and immediately cringed.
He laughed and rested his head on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she said, blushing and covering her eyes. She shook with giggles.
“This is just so strange. It’s been so long, and this is not how I expected to spend my Thursday,” she babbled.
“Say it,” he beckoned, brushing his lips along her collarbone to kiss below her throat.
“What," she breathed.
“My name."
“I mean, in school, we usually just called you ‘git."
He poked the back of her rib, and she squirmed beneath him.
“Please? I want to hear it,” he looked down at her, “I want to see what it looks like…” He ran his thumb down her bottom lip.
“Git,” she whispered. He groaned and started to sit up.
She grabbed his forearms and whispered, “Draco.”
She pulled him on top of her and into a deep kiss. He seemed to be everywhere - so much of him for Hermione to arch into.
“Hermione,” he groaned, and he ran his hand up her side to land on her breast. He thumbed the stiff nipple beneath her top. She fumbled with the front laced corset along her abdomen when Draco vanished it for her.
“Hey! I’m going to want that back,” she said.
“Don’t worry,” he smiled against her mouth, “I’m just trapping you into talking to me again after this."
She pushed him onto his back and straddled him. He massaged her thighs above her long skirt while she took her time unbuttoning her blouse. Draco cast a silent charm.
“What was that for?” she asked, pausing.
He reached up to finish with her buttons. “Midges,” he said. "Would hate for you to remember this night by the number of bites on your skin.”
“Well, midge bites anyway,” she said, her tongue between her teeth. Her shirt fell behind her. She’d given up wearing a bra years ago.
“Hermione Bloody Granger,” Draco said, running his hand up her curves and grazing a nipple with his thumb. She gasped into another full-body wave.
“What,” she said, rolling her hips against him, “am I some bloody conquest then, from your schoolboy days?”
“Of course,” he smirked.
She leaned down to pin his hands beside his head. “Will you trade a photo of me to Blaise Zabini for a fizzing Whisby?”
“Whatever you want,” he breathed, distracted by her chest and trying to free his wrists.
“Your turn,” she said before grabbing her wand and vanishing his shirt.
“You can keep that,” he laughed, and his eyes trailed down her body.
“Is it alright if I,” Draco started, and he lifted the long hem of her skirt with his now free hand. She bit the corner of her lip.
“Yeah, alright."
As he moved his hand up her calve and knee, she felt him harden beneath her, and she rocked her hips, finding friction along their clothes. Her lips trembled mere inches from his.
“You didn’t sound entirely sure there,” he chided as he ran his thumb along her inner thigh with brutal slowness.
"Yes, it’s fine,” she squirmed.
“Fine?”
"More than fine."
Finally, he found her core and stopped.
“Please,” she gasped.
“Professor Granger,” he said, his tongue licking his incisor. She gripped his wrist tighter against the grass in an illusion of power.
“Are you not wearing knickers?”
“I haven’t had a chance to do laundry,” she whispered.
“A chance to do laundry?” He asked as he started drawing slow circles around her. “Don’t the school elves take care of that for you?”
“I’ve asked them not to,” she gasped. Rocking against his length beneath her. He shook his head and rolled her over so she lay beneath him in the dewy grass.
Draco knelt between her thighs, looking down at her, her moonlit chest cresting with anticipation.
He lifted the hem of her skirt to her knees and then to her waist.
He kissed up her thigh, punctuating with little bites.
“I’m glad you performed that spell,” she gasped. “Wouldn’t want to mistake you with a…"
He moved his hands beneath her so he could lift her to his mouth.
“...a midge,” she squeaked as he gave one long lick up her center. He twirled his tongue around her clit, finding a torturously slow pace that made her whole body buck.
When he took another spin around her, she grabbed fistfuls of his hair and pushed him to her. She felt him breathe in the smell of her soft, wiry hair and moaned when he sucked her clit between his teeth. She loosened her grip, and he pressed one finger inside her and groaned at her warmth, her wetness. She rocked into his face, and he picked up his pace and replaced one finger with two.
“Draco,” she moaned, and he squeezed her thighs.
She could come apart so easily like this, but she desperately didn’t want to. What if she didn’t want to keep going after? What if, once the endorphins flushed from her, she came to her senses? She pushed back against his head, and he sat up and looked at her curiously, still stroking her bud with his thumb.
She sat up and grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him with every part of her mouth. She toppled onto him as her tongue grazed the roof of his mouth, her teeth nipped his lips, and her smile relished the taste of herself on his. The forest buzzed and chirped and squealed around her as though egging her on - as though welcoming her as one of their own.
“Draco,” she panted.
"Hermione," he matched, grabbing a handful of her arse.
“Can I ride you?”
“Can you ride me?" He sneered. "Been mucking about with the centaurs, have you?” And for a moment, that aristocratic bite pulled her back to all those jabs, arguments, and snide remarks that she’d denied intrigued her as a girl.
“I mean,” she said, “Firenze is a very giving lover.” He gaped at her until she laughed and rolled her eyes.
"You’re more gullible than Sybill Trelawny,” she said. She ran her hands along his warm chest and sat up to straddle him before unbuttoning her skirt and tossing it to the side.
“Look at you, wild little thing,” Draco said, pinching her nipple. “You sure you’re not the bloody boggart?”
"A woman naked on top of you is your biggest fear, eh then, Malfoy?"
She vanished his trousers beneath her.
“Granger, I needed those to get back in the castle!”
“Oh, right, I didn’t think of that,” she giggled.
“Bloody prefects will think they're mad when they see a flying pair of trousers zooming through the Great Hall..." he muttered.
“I can conjure you some trousers, Draco. Now quit moaning." She ran her hands down his scarred chest, and gave him a look of propriety. "You’re about to get laid.”
That is so…fair,” he gasped. She vanished his boxers and lowered herself onto him.
She circled her hips slowly, and he arched his back beneath her.
“Professor Granger, don’t you bloody stop,” he groaned.
She began to rock faster, and he moved his hand to stroke her clit with his thumb. He sat up and pulled her close, and suddenly she felt like she, the wild thing riding his cock, was a part of him. She ran her nails up and down his broad back, feeling his spine through his skin as he gripped her. She kissed his temple and brushed her nipples along his chest with each stroke. He breathed in her neck, and bit her earlobe, and grabbed fistfuls of her hair.
“Come for me, Hermione,” he said when she began to buck with fury.
“No,” she said, but she couldn’t slow down.
He leaned back on his hands again, pushing up into her as she rode him. Her stiff brown nipples bounced against the darkness, and her abdomen tightened as she took every inch of him again and again. She gazed, fixated by his chest, and how his long neck caught the moonlight, how he smirked as he watched her.
“Oh, Merlin,” she said.
“Another man’s name, really?” He chided. But she could see it in his wide eyes. He was on the edge too, and holding out for her.
“Oh, Draco, Draco!” She cried into the darkness. Her eyes rolled back in her head. He came into her, grabbing her hip for support as he bucked, but she continued to writhe above him.
He pressed her clit, eager to see another round, and kissed above her heart.
“Oh, fuck,” she said. She felt him smile wide against her chest - he’d never heard her swear.
“Again, Hermione,” he soothed, and she writhed against him as another wave of pleasure consumed her.
“Oh, Draco, oh my,” she slowed, and he pulled his hand away.
She slowed to a roll.
“Oh, that was…thank you,” she said, and he kissed her tender nipple with a little huff of laughter.
“You are welcome, Professor Granger, truly, my door is always open,” he growled. She laughed and moved off of him. She tried to stand on shaky legs.
“Wait, he said, and he pulled her back down to him.
He held her and rocked her in his arms, his long length pressed along her stomach. He ran his hands along her back and kissed her neck, while his other hand moved between her legs.
“It’s sensitive,” she chided.
“I know,” he said, and he stroked lightly above her clit.
“I just don’t,” he started,
“Want this to end,” she finished, and he nodded into her neck.
He lifted his face and kissed her softly, luxuriously.
“Alright, Professor Malfoy, let's find you some trousers.”
Later that night, Hermione sat in her quarters. She wore Draco’s shirt and nothing else as she stroked Crookshanks on her lap and absentmindedly charmed her kettle to pour her a cup of tea.
Her time with Draco had been lovely and thrilling and arguably the best sex she’d ever had, although that wasn’t saying much. But he’d brought up all of the pain he’d caused and even the pain he’d witnessed. She’d buried those memories in a dark vault in her mind and slapped them back down if they ever came crying for attention. But coming from his lips, they gained a new voice, a new perspective, and she couldn’t bring herself to hush them away.
She heard a knock at her door, and looked at the clock. It was nearly one AM.
She considered putting on pajama bottoms, or even pants, but the only person it could be was McGonnagal. Hermione could be wearing nipple tassels and a muggle strap-on, and the headmistress would merely raise an eyebrow and continue with her business.
“Coming!” She called, shooing Crookshanks from her lap and padding to the door.
She opened it to see Draco leaning against the frame, eying how his shirt fell along her curves.
“I thought I’d return this,” he said, holding up her corset by one long finger.
“You could have waited until morning,” she said. He moved on her like a man possessed. He grabbed her waist, and she slammed the door behind him.
“I really couldn’t.”