coffee cantata
The coffee machine roars, the barista with a Geneva World Cup T-shirt and a thoroughly checked background busy behind the counter. This early in the morning, the cafeteria is sparsely populated—lucky for her, because Hermione's been dragged here on a coffee run, and apparently this one serves the best caffeine, 24/7 to boot.
Parvati slurps on a truly monstrous sugar-milk-with-coffee order—ironic, given her Healers' specialty in nutrition—and chats idly with Selwyn about yesterday's assigned duties: Wood couldn't keep still for the preliminary vertebral column scan—I know, I know, were you using the lateral method though?—Circe, can you imagine if I did—It's a mundane conversation, something light and easy to match with the atmosphere, but all the same a minefield for Hermione's too-tangled thoughts: specifically, one of her two patients yesterday.
Well, to be fair, it's not her unsuspecting colleagues' fault. It's everything here, actually. Hands, Quidditch, Malfoy. The little golden snitch pin on the barista's apron, the skylight cloudy grey, wet with a summer storm.
Even every waft of coffee—black, caramel, flat white, mocha, matcha—today reminds Hermione of Draco, and when she looks at her palms wrapped around the white ceramic (Brought to you by Baristas for the Geneva World Cup!), she is startlingly, rudely reminded of the way his fingers move, the potential for movement captured even in stillness, the cool weight of a ring pressing into flesh.
See, the act of scenting is an invasion, a consumption, a consecration in the blandest of terms.
When you smell something, you take a little bit of its essence into yourself. Your olfactory receptors register the chemicals, and signals fire up branching nerves into your brain to match them to hidden vaults and libraries in your mind, and always, always, there will have been the secret intimacy of it, the silent indignity of allowing such an invasion because you could not help but do something as fundamental as breathe.
(Hermione, being a Healer and an Omega and a woman, has many thoughts on the aspects of existence of the human body. The silent indignity of breathing is one of them. The secret intimacy of breathing is another.)
Today her coffee is plain, a light roast on the edge of too hot, and she rests her lips on the rim of the cup but does not drink, not yet; the wafting heat, the scent, the slow inhale.
There is the anticipation of the first sip, the liquid creeping within reach, the question of her judgement: has it cooled sufficiently, or will it burn? And she thinks this is what it would feel like, to have her nose at his neck, her mouth on his skin, swallowing him up invisibly to disappear into whatever vast libraries reside inside her.
In what she will later deem as some kind of contradictory foreshadowing, the coffee never passes her lips.
Draco Malfoy hates this sodding job. Why did he ever join Puddlemere United again?
First he wakes up at a truly heinous hour—with barely enough time to disengorgio himself because his dreams were full of some elusive honey scent that, at that hour, is torturous—because Wood's weather forecast predicts rain in the afternoon; then it turns out to start drizzling at swear-to-Merlin six a.m.
It's not so bad for a bit, even with the drizzle and the bite of ozone; the flying, sort of, clears his head. Though Granger-related thoughts keep cropping up whenever he sees Weasley, their edges somewhere between intrigue and jealousy, frustration and want. (How much information about her can Draco dig out of him before he gets suspicious?) This is how Draco nearly gets his nearly-perfect nose broken with a Bludger.
Then Wood gets pissed because if someone gets injured now there's no way they'll be assessed as fit to play—though, privately, Draco thinks it's really just because none of them have had any caffeine yet.
And then it starts pissing down.
Suffice to say, the muddy, soaked, sleep- and tea-deprived wankers that troop through the corridors are not a happy bunch. And yes, Draco can freely admit he's a wanker; he has conscience de soi, thank you very much. This nobly charitable view of himself may be helped by the frankly delicious smells wafting through the air from the nearest cafeteria. He can already see Weasley practically start salivating at the aroma of fresh toast and coffee; understandable, really. (See? Draco is charitable.)
His view of the no-good-very-bad morning improves a little when he gets his much-needed Earl Grey, and has a laugh at the barista's passive-aggressive demand for all their autographs. For a moment, Draco dares to tempt the Fates by thinking that maybe, just maybe, Wood will allow them to laze around a bit, do some indoor exercises because of the rain—
And then he trips over someone's outstretched leg—a brief glimpse of strangely-familiar Healer's clogs—and his day goes to complete and utter shit.
"Fuck—"
"Ow, shit—"
"I'm so sorry—"
"Off, off, get it off—"
Draco's brain short circuits a bit here, because there are slender fingers scrabbling at his jersey, and this is not the context in which he's imagined Granger trying to rip off his clothes.
He registers belatedly the crack of a ceramic mug shattering into three large pieces on the very nice hardwood floor.
Then the smell of coffee, puddling, spattering shoes, arm, shirt; smells kind of nice, except for the fact that it's hot and it hurts—even as his jersey is yanked off—for just a second more, before a stream of cool water from a wand hits him square in the chest.
He's never before been so grateful for a stranger (not a stranger, Parvati Patil, some still-coherent part of him recognises) practically shooting freezing water up his nose with aguamenti, because it gives his body something to focus on other than the instant reaction to a certain Hermione Granger's hands, her hands on him—
He looks over, and has to immediately look away; there's a lingering sort-of-pain on his torso from the hot coffee. He tries to focus on that. For a second, he succeeds.
Granger is right there, sitting in that chair, nearly at eye level with Draco's fly. Granger is wearing a white shirt, which is currently no longer very white. It sticks to her skin: the rounded bone of shoulder, the swoop of clavicle, the edge of a bra beneath. Brown. Nude. Salazar, he'd like to see her nude. Granger is brown-curls-soft-throat-honey-scent—not that he can smell anything now but black coffee, even as his brain determinedly dredges up the memory of those faint hints of sweetness. Granger tergeos herself—
"—Malfoy, are you bloody fucking kidding me?" Wood's voice startles Draco back into sanity, what remains of it anyway. "If you get benched from even the first game because you got burnt by coffee—"
"Calm down—"
"Don't tell me to calm down, Patil, tell him to stop nearly bloody getting injured—"
"It's not serious—"
"It is serious because this idiot can't watch where he's going—"
"Hermione's our best Healer, alright, she has a specialty in complex wound healing including burns—"
"Well, he'd better bloody heal," Wood mutters, and seizes Draco's arm as if to shove him in Hermione's direction. Draco shakes him off. Wood raises his wand threateningly.
"Fifty laps, Malfoy, if you don't—"
"Well, that won't help him heal faster—"
"Shut up, Patil!"—and yeah, there's something between those two, alright, and Draco actually has to work to keep his expression level. He crosses his arms, gaze flicking between his far-too-agitated team captain and Patil (who looks as sadistically pleased as a Healer can get), now seemingly arguing over treatment of Draco's injuries (he's only slightly scalded) even though they're both on the same side (he suspects Patil is just provoking Wood, now).
Beside him, the quiet reparo of the cup falters, and Draco tries to resist the temptation for exactly two seconds before he looks over and down.
Oh god, several alarm bells are ringing in her head, not least the fact that Hermione's anatomical vocabulary apparently has regressed to a distressing extent.
There is arm (biceps! triceps!)—arms, and shoulders, crossed over a torso (broad, lean, slightly reddened). A torso of abnormal bareness, to be exact, a state which she'd instinctively helped to effect, as the normal temperature of hot coffee can cause almost instantaneous injury, not that she's really thinking about that now—god. Fuck. Bloody fucking fuck (as Wood has just said, though they're not exactly worried about the same thing).
Malfoy has abs, understandable, fine, perfectly great—she's seen them before, she examined him yesterday and he took off his shirt then too—but now they're abs that are dripping from hopefully-sufficiently-diluted coffee, and there's a pale blond trail of hair just below his navel, darkened by the water, leading down between the beginning of the sharp cut of hips, just barely visible—
She has to try a second time to reparo her mug before it finally puts itself back together. Only then does she allow her body to straighten up. Which is, in retrospect, a bad idea.
Hermione's neck has to crane to a frankly ridiculous angle as she forces her head up and up, to the curl of a half-bewildered, half-amused mouth. Her gaze hovers there for a moment.
Malfoy! Shirtless!, her brain helpfully reminds her; his jersey, a navy blue splotched with mud, drips in his hand, soaked by a rather zealous Parvati.
There are words coming from her friend next to her; Hermione wrenches her head to the side, forcibly focuses on actually understanding the words.
"Still, there's really no harm done, Wood, we shouldn't have any serious damage now except to her coffee," Parvati says cheerfully—too cheerfully, is she enjoying this? How much does she know, and why is Hermione even thinking about this now—"Hermione can heal him in a jiffy, yeah?"
She watches the half-apologetic, half-permanently-smug set of Malfoy's lips before—"Hermione?"
Too late, she nods; too late, she realises there are eyes on her, Parvati and Wood and Malfoy, and she's just agreed to—her brain supplies her with a rundown of the past five minutes: lots of back-and-forth, lots of swearing (from Wood), lots of yes the coffee was hot, no he won't even feel it by the evening, calm down for heaven's sake—she sighs and stands up.
"Come on, then, Malfoy," she says, a little too snappishly.
"Hey, it was your coffee, Granger—"
"I changed my mind—"
"No, you haven't," come Wood and Parvati's voices in sync. They share a mutually horrified look before Wood continues, "Malfoy needs to be in top condition for the first game on Friday—we all do—she"—a slightly-disdainful wave of the hand toward a highly-amused Parvati—"said you specialise in burns, and technically you're Malfoy's assigned Healer—"
"Technically," Hermione says, because she can't resist, "this would be a scald."
Wood, wisely, nods and mutters "scald", recognising her tacit admission of defeat.
Because make no mistake, Hermione's had the last word, but she's certainly not having the last laugh; she drags her feet next to Malfoy's still infuriatingly shirtless, tall, dripping self, all the way to her oblong little examination room.
The walk to the clinic lasts five minutes, which means an eternity.
And all the while, she can feel Malfoy's gaze on her; he matches her pace easily with the ease of a loping panther, maybe drags one or two steps behind, she doesn't really care—she can still feel him, just staring, the rise and fall of his chest noticeable but slow, the quality of the look in his eyes hard to decipher. It puts her in mind of an owl, woken up in the day: the startled awareness of a predator, something fully intelligent yet fully unsure what exactly to do.
It's cool and quiet inside, when they arrive, the receptionists not yet at the front desk, reminding Hermione of how early her day has started devolving into a mess. The air smells of lemon glass cleaner and coffee, less strong now, making space for the scent of cut grass, parchment, petrichor.
She casts an antiseptic charm over the patient's chair. Not looking at Malfoy. Corpus scourgify cleans her hands. Malfoy in her peripheral vision. She tells him to sit down. He obeys. Thank him, her brain says, and she obeys.
Now they're at eye level, him on the patient's chair, a callback to yesterday, except he's wet and something, somewhere, in her mouth aches.
Draco is being good, alright? Granger says close the door and he does; Granger says sit and he sits, Granger says thank you and he does not, does not, look at the way her mouth moves when she says it—
Draco forces his eyes away.
Granger says thank you, says sorry about the coffee, and her voice is cool and quiet in the cool and quiet of the small room, an unreadable set to her shoulders, and it's so bloody difficult when she's just out of arm's reach, apologising and thanking him with big eyes—
He really, really should not be thinking about that now.
He thinks about it anyway, just for a few seconds.
Draco has never felt the plebeian urge to clear his throat ever since he started etiquette training before he could even ride a broom.
Draco clears his throat and replies it's fine, really, Wood's just a paranoid git, inwardly thanking the four Founders—hell, even Gryffindor now—that his voice comes out smooth.
The slight quirk of her mouth is everything.
It's like flying, but the opposite of it. It makes the air still, the drive to seek become the urge to touch: an undefinable kind of hunger curling low in his gut, bone-deep and heavy.
There is the tantalising brush of her magic, a gentle cleaning charm across the skin before a waft of cool air soothes any faint lingering irritation; latex-gloved hands on skin, an anti-inflammatory balm smoothing across his chest; so close, now, a little crease between her brows, her neck so close he could just lean up and lick—
Draco is suddenly, undeniably, absurdly hard.
The dittany balm is sharp and astringent, but even so, Hermione is mostly sure it's not her imagination—that Malfoy's scent has deepened in intensity, becoming even more present, somehow richer, a soft curl in her nose, settling low in her belly; she straightens up, pulls away, and he follows her almost unconsciously before he catches himself.
His eyes flick to hers, after a beat—she realises, as she watches him watch her, that his gaze has been fixed on the open collar of her shirt, at the soft hollow of her neck. The thought is a sudden thrill; she shoves it away, sits on it firmly.
His eyes are unnervingly bright and clear. (A distant voice in her head, comparing the shade to yesterday's dark cloudy grey; clearly, he's not Occluding now, for whatever reason.) She hears herself say it as she peels off her gloves, the question that's been plaguing her thoughts for hours now: "Do you—tend to Occlude? Often?"
She can't resist the sharp inhale she gives as his hand comes up to grip her wrist, preventing her from moving away fully. Draco's hand is large, solid, firm, fingers wrapping around the skin, heat sinking into the bone, branding it—his thumb rubs over the scent glands at the base of her palm and her stomach flips, her cheeks grow warm.
"No," he says, simply, eyes dropping to where his skin touches hers. "Only when—"
She visibly sees him inhale, observes in each minute segment of time the expansion of his pupils, dark swallowing up light. The pheromone-dampening wards in the room hum louder. Neither of them notice.
"Only when—?"
Malfoy looks at her; one beat, two, three.
He leans forward, up, traverses the length between their eyes and mouths and bodies; his nose brushes featherlight against hers before he tilts his head incrementally. She can count every eyelash, sketch out every angle and point of his teeth.
"Only when," he breathes, but he doesn't finish the sentence, because Hermione's mouth is on his.
Malfoy's mouth is fire; not forest but peat, the slow, almost gentle kind that can last underground for months. It's hot and sweet and hungry, a thing brutal in its softness, and she runs her tongue along his lower lip, no longer able to differentiate scent from taste.
(They're the same, anyway, when it comes down to it, inseparable from the other, down to the bone.)
He makes a low, pleased sound in his throat; pulls away, just enough to breathe. Hermione isn't done, bites him lightly as punishment before letting go; gasps for air and demands, "Only when?"
He laughs, obliges, kisses her again and again, until he can't breathe, until the oxygen in his lungs grows thin, until her scent is sharp and sweet and blooming in his nose.
"Only when I want something so badly I can't stand it," Draco tells Granger, and it's an accusation, a confession, a plea. He can smell her, more fully now, an ache in his teeth, honey and salt, and—"Let me," he begs, "let me have you—"
And Granger looks at him with wide eyes; mirrors of his own. Hungry. Dark. It's better than he's imagined. It's worse than he's imagined. It's all he's ever wanted.
"Get on your knees."
Granger is an inviting thing, a damning thing. Draco gets on his knees so fast he hits the ground before she even sits on that damnable patient's chair. Damnable, because it's not a bed, not a sofa, not a desk. He wants to splay her out across his coffee table and drown in a feast. He wants to put her in his bed and eat her until she cries.
He'll settle for this.
He reaches up her skirt, groans at the sight of her underwear, once-sensible white turned translucent, indecent—her mouth is pink and soft and wet, kiss-swollen, and really, it's a crime, for her to be pink and soft and wet everywhere. His mouth waters. He looks up at her, just to see the way her lips tremble on an inhale.
"Is this what you want me to have? You"—he runs his knuckles up along her thigh, the skin soft, a single freckle above her knee—"your taste"—he hooks a finger at the edge of the gusset, tugs it aside—"your cunt in my mouth? You want me to smell you and taste you and have you?"
Her swallow is audible. Her inner thighs gleam: wet, slick, perfect. He's a weak man; he leans in, just enough so his nose brushes her skin, can't resist a single lick, open mouth pressed to flesh. He aches in his trousers. He thinks he might die. He thinks he hasn't ever lived, before this.
"Tell me yes," he says, voice rough: order, supplication.
Hermione's hand clenches in his hair. Damnable witch always has to go above and beyond.
"Please."