Call Me Draco
Hermione could not believe that she was successfully able to avoid Malfoy for the next few days after their encounter in the courtyard. She had a sneaking suspicion that he might have been avoiding her as well.
She was getting used to the mostly-Malfoy-free time, but truthfully she was starting to miss his little comments. Weird. So, she was woefully unprepared when Malfoy walked past her at breakfast and instead of his usual glare accompanied by her surname as a greeting, he said, “Morning, Hermione.”
The toast in her hand slipped, getting marmalade everywhere.
Hermione stared at him. No words, just a dumbfounded stare.
It wasn’t his use of her first name so much as the way he said it. Smooth, casual, familiar. Like it was the most natural thing in the world and he had been calling her that for years.
She blinked at him, still no words forming in her brain.
Annoyingly unaffected, Malfoy sipped his tea like nothing was out of the ordinary. “Problem?” he asked, voice the picture of innocence.
Thankfully, Hermione had recovered her power of speech by this point. She fixed him with a glare and said, “Yes. You.”
“Shame.” He set down his tea, completely unbothered. “Because, I quite like the sound of it.”
Once again, Hermione’s brain short circuited.
Professor Sprout, who had been busy minding her own business several seats away, gave him a cheerful smile. “That’s nice, dear. First-name basis is a good sign for workplace harmony.”
Hermione tried her best not to make a disgruntled face. Seriously? Sprout had to pick this time to voice that opinion?
Malfoy just grinned, taking another slow sip of his tea.
Hermione refused to let him see how she was affected by this. She turned back to her breakfast and hurriedly ate so she could get up from the table as soon as possible.
—
Hermione was proud of herself that she had managed to get through her classes that day without sprinting up to the owlery to send a message to Ginny. She was starting to think that Ginny was tired of getting owls from her with increasingly erratic messages. She had sent so many letters in the past few days that she was beginning to realize just how insane she was acting.
Ginny, He held open a door for me. What is he playing at?
Ginny, He saved me a seat at the staff meeting. What am I supposed to do with that?
Ginny, I am pretty sure he overheard me ranting to myself about his previously mentioned acts of ‘civility’ and then I ran straight into him and he caught me and told me “If you wanted to fall into my arms, Granger, all you had to do was ask.” WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?
Ginny, He didn’t sneer at me in the corridor today when we passed each other. How is he still managing to find ways to infuriate me without actually doing anything?
She needed to get herself back on track, so she focused on work. She had a new unit to plan for, and she found herself in the library late that evening. She sat, hunched over a pile of parchment, quill scratching furiously as she worked through her latest round of curriculum updates. The library was quiet at this hour, except for the occasional flicker of candlelight and the turning of pages.
As she was thoroughly distracted, she barely noticed the presence that slid into the seat across from her.
Malfoy. Because, of course, it was Malfoy. She didn’t bother to look up.
“Shouldn’t you be off somewhere fine-tuning your enchanted combs or—Merlin forbid—doing your own work, Malfoy?” she asked, dryly, eyes remaining on her work.
Malfoy leaned back in his chair lazily. “I was doing my own work, but then I heard you muttering at you parchment like a lunatic and I thought I should check to make sure you hadn’t lost what little sanity you have left.”
Hermione rolled her eyes but didn’t dignify him with a response.
Silence settled between them. The only sounds came from Hermione’s quill and Malfoy flipping through the pages in a book he was pretending to be invested in, but clearly wasn't actually reading.
Then, without looking up, he said the most bewildering thing she had heard him say by far.
“You know, you could just call me Draco.”
Hermione’s quill froze mid-stroke. She slowly glanced up, eyebrows raised in suspicion.
“And why exactly would I do that?”
Malfoy shut his book with a soft thud and tilted his head, pondering her question. “Oh I don’t know. Maybe because we see each other practically every day. Maybe because it’s ‘good for workplace harmony’. Maybe because hearing you say Malfoy like it’s a curse word is getting a bit old.”
Hermione narrowed her eyes. “I don’t say it like it is a curse word,” she said flatly.
Malfoy’s lips twitched. “Granger, you say it like you’re hexing me with the syllables alone.”
“Well, it is your name.”
Malfoy shrugged. “So is Draco, but I guess you didn’t know that, did you? Since you refuse to use it.”
He said it so smoothly, so matter-of-fact, like it wasn’t anything. Like she was the insane one for ever calling him by his surname. She stared at him for a second too long, pressing her lips together, scrambling to find some reason—any reason—not to give in.
Perhaps it was all of the work she had been doing that evening, but her brain could not seem to find a reason. With pointed reluctance, she inhaled, squared her shoulders, and went for it.
“Draco,” she said carefully, testing the out like a foreign word on her tongue.
They both paused, letting the name hang between them, more tense than it should have been.
Malfoy’s demeanor didn’t change much, except for the slight flicker of pleasure in his eyes. He waited an eternity before he spoke. “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it, Hermione?” he asked with a smirk, smug with triumph.
Hermione groaned, throwing her quill at his head. Annoyingly, it bounced right off and he just laughed.
Ginny, He made me call him Draco. I feel dirty.
—
Hermione was determined not to let Draco Malfoy worm his way into her habits. Just because he had coerced her into calling him by his first name once did not mean that it would become a regular occurrence. She had spent years calling him Malfoy, and she saw no reason to change that now.
No reason at all. It’s not like they were friends. They were coworkers. She called plenty of her coworkers by their surnames, though that was normally accompanied by their title of professor. It didn’t matter however, because Malfoy was always going to be Malfoy to her. If he was allowed to call her Granger, she would call him Malfoy all she liked.
Hermione was chatting with Professor Sinistra in the staff lounge swapping tales from their respective experiences so far that year.
“Professor Granger, do you think a term-long research project is manageable for Sixth years?” Professor Sinistra asked, taping her quill against the edge of the table.
Hermione barely glanced up from her own notes before answering. “Absolutely. They’ll have the necessary knowledge by then, and with a bit of guidance, they should be able to—”
“Except half of them can’t manage to track planetary alignment without mistaking Venus for Mars,” Malfoy cut in, voice smooth and maddeningly casual as he leaned back in his chair.
Hermione immediately bristled, looking up with automatic irritation. “And how would you know that?” she questioned him.
And then, without thinking, she continued. “Draco, you can’t just assume—”
Silence.
Hermione felt it the moment it left her lips.
She could feel a shift in the room.
Realization slammed into her a second too late to take it back.
Across the table, Malfoy had gone completely still. Then, like a storm rolling in, the corner of his mouth curved upward. Slow. Deliberate. Smug beyond all comprehension.
“Sorry, what was that?” he asked, voice positively dripping with glee.
Hermione’s stomach dropped.
Professor Sprout barely looked up from her tea. “She called you Draco, dear.”
“Did she? How fascinating,” Malfoy said in mock surprise.
Hermione wanted to disappear into the stone wall behind her.
Flustered, she straightened her shoulders, mustering every ounce of composure she had left. “It was an accident,” she said stiffly.
Malfoy leaned forward, his grin widening. “Oh, was it? Because it sounded rather… natural.”
Hermione’s face flushed. “It wasn’t.”
Malfoy ignored her comment, continuing on. “I mean, I knew you’d come around eventually, but I never expected it to happen so soon—”
“Malfoy.” Hermione snapped, practically depulso-ing the name at him, voice full of irritation.
Draco laughed. A full, delighted, infuriating laugh.
Professor Sinistra sighed. “I don’t know why you two don’t just duel already and get it over with.”
“Because, professor, I quite like winning without lifting my wand,” Malfoy said smoothly, still looking directly at Hermione. She swore she could see an actual glimmer in his silver eyes.
Hermione gritted her teeth. She was never going to be able to live this down.
Ginny, I messed up. I called him Draco by accident in front of the whole staff. I will never be able to live this down.