The jolt reminds Hermione of riding a rollercoaster, right before the drop when her head smacks against the seat and a scream rips out of her despite how hard she was just biting down on her cheek.
She lurches forward, seat belt cutting into her sternum. There’s a beat of silence, just her heavy breathing, fingers clenched against the steering wheel. And then the sound of a door slamming.
Hermione exhales, closing her eyes or a moment before she unbuckles and steps out of the car.
She’s on a stretch of relatively quiet road, still early enough that London hasn’t ventured out yet. A passing car veers sharply to the left to avoid the scene, the passenger shooting her a sympathetic glance before zooming through the light.
The sun’s so bright she has to shield her eyes before she confronts her perpetrator. He’s making the same gesture, and the light bounces off his watch, striking her pupils and making her wince.
He’s already twenty feet in front of her before she’s able to take him in: tall, with hair so blonde she wonders if it’s bleached. There’s a canyon forming between his eyebrows; he looks her over–cursory, disinterested–before he speaks.
“Pardon me.” He points at her car, lip curling, before sweeping his arm back towards his. “But what the fuck did you just do?”
She blinks, wets her lips. “I’m sorry,” she says in the same tone she says I believe you when her patients swear they’ve been flossing twice a day, even though she’s wrist deep in their mouths, scraping away gunk, “but I believe you read-ended me, which puts you at fault.”
“Well, my apologies, but I assume everyone on the road is licensed to drive, as in, familiar with the regulations governing operating a car.” He sniffs. “Do you have any idea how expensive it is to repair a Range Rover?”
The hairs on the back of her neck straighten. “Pardon?”
“I just assumed you must have been driving without a license, given that you decided to randomly freeze in the middle of the road.”
“The light was yellow.”
“Yes, yellow as in slow down not come to a complete and unwarranted stop.”
She places her hands on her hips, thumb and forefinger jutting into a V that stabs her hip bone. “The light would have turned red at any second. It would have been irresponsible to go speeding through.”
He laughs then, all teeth––white, shiny squares that mock her. In all her years being a dentist, Hermione Granger believes in one thing above all: the people who least deserve nice teeth are always gifted them.
“Right, and it was incredibly responsible to brake suddenly and without warning instead.”
“Well, perhaps if you hadn’t been tailing me so closely, you would have been able to stop in time as well.
“Again, I was driving assuming that others around me would adhere to the same regulations, paramount of which is being mindful of the drivers behind and around you.”
She inhales, squeezes her eyes shut. Her Apple watch buzzes, mocking her with how behind schedule she is. There’s a new patient today, the son of a scion. Hermione hated how excited she had become when her receptionist told her about this, but she also knows it’s an amazing opportunity for her new practice.
“We could call the police then. Let them decide.” A pressure-panic mounts in her chest; she hopes he doesn’t call her bluff. Anyone up this early must have somewhere to be, and she’s banking on the fact that he can’t afford to lose any more time either.
He exhales, tips his head back. “I’m late. I have an appointment.” When he looks at her again, he’s pinching the bridge of his nose. “Let’s just exchange information, and we can sort it out later.”
When they hand over their respective insurance information, she notices the Mont Blanc pen he’s clutching in his hand and wants to roll her eyes. Of course. Back in her car, she squints at his writing, the loops so tight and small she can’t quite make out his name, just the first two letters, D and R.
On her drive to her office, she runs through different permutations of his name, lets her spite imagine him as a Draden, Dreyfus, Drater, Dragon. Her fantasies turn lurid; they buoy her through the door of her practice and into the exam room. Maybe it wasn’t an R that I saw. Maybe it was an E. Maybe his name is actually Demon. She smiles as she readies the metal instruments.
“Dr. Granger?” Her receptionist, Claudia, raps on the door, her ponytail swinging into sight first. “Your 10 AM is here.”
“Great.” Hermione runs a hand through her hair and then grimaces, shucking off her latex gloves and reaching for new ones. “Can you send him in?”
She hears his footsteps first, the taptaptap of expensive soles. But she’s so busy arranging al her instruments, checking the dental chair configuration, that he clears his throat twice before she finally looks up and–
“It’s you!” The words fly out before she realizes, and she’s left standing there, one gloved hand thrust in his direction while a corner of his mouth rises.
He looks somehow more imposing in the fluorescent lighting of the exam room, which makes everything else seem shabby in turn. Hermione feels underdressed in her scrubs, as if she should have made more of an effort for him, and she hates that he manages to summon that insecurity in her. She crosses her arms.
“Well, I had the same realization when I parked and saw the name of your practice, a name that was conveniently also written on this.” He holds up the white slip of paper, Hermione’s familiar handwriting sprawled across. “I’m surprised you didn’t make the connection sooner.”
He settles into the chair before she moves from her position by the sink. Her whole body goes into temperature shock, heat erupting under her skin, a sensation that’s promptly chased by an onslaught of cold. Is she in shock? What should she do with her indignation and rage? Who the hell–
“So are you going to perform my exam or did your poor driving also render you incapacitated?”
He doesn’t look at her when he says this, and somehow that action feels the most disrespectful out of everything, that he can’t even bother to meet her eye while insulting her.
Her fingers curl into a fist, but she walks towards him with what feels like exaggerated, even steps. He’s smirking, which feels somehow obscene in his half-supine position. The dental light accentuates his cheekbones, turning his hair an even-whiter blonde.
“Please open for me, Mr–” And she trails off. She isn’t even sure what his last name is. She had been so busy cursing his first name that–
“Malfoy,” he says. His eyebrows furrow. “I wrote it down for you, earlier, when you caused that accident.”
“I didn’t cause–” she stops herself, exhales, inhales. “I was a bit distracted–”
His eyebrows shoot up, and she hurries to clarify, to ensure he recognizes this isn’t an admission of fault. “No, not–– I wasn’t distracted while driving. I mean, I just haven’t had time yet to look at the card you gave me because–”
“You were rushing to this?”
She’s near enough now that she can scrutinize his mouth as he speaks. His gums are a perfect, even pink. Hermione feels a spark of indignation at this, that such an asshole can have such nice oral health. If he had gingivitis at least she could derive some pleasure from this exam. She imagines his gum swollen and puffy, and it brings a brief smile to her face.
“Am I amusing you, Dr. Granger?”
“No, not at all.” She reaches for the sickle probe, waits or him to open up. He stares at her for a second longer, as if he’s the one doing the assessment, before his lips part.
Her suspicions are right. He has perfect oral health, beautiful, even gum pockets. She can tell he’s a religious flosser, which makes her so indignant she huffs behind her mask.
“Something the matter?” he says, or at least that’s what she thinks he says. His voice is garbled by her fingers in his mouth.
She shakes her head. “You clearly take care of your teeth. Everything looks good, so far.”
Even in this position, there’s something somehow regal about him. Her hands are in his mouth, pressing this way and that, and she feels as if she’s the one being examined. “Are you a flosser?”
There’s movement near her right hand; she feels the pull of his mouth stretching slightly up. There’s something so intimate and terrible about this moment: she can feel him smirk from inside of him. She pulls her hand back, and waits for him to answer.
He closes his mouth, touches his jaw, prodding at the ramus bone and frowning, as if she had hurt him. She fights the urge to roll her eyes. “You couldn’t tell during your survey? I’m an excellent flosser.”
“Humble, too.” She winces, hoping he can’t see the way her mouth flatlines behind her mask. She should be making more of an effort here, with him. He could provide referrals. He could–
“Do you treat all your patients with the same bedside manner?” He cocks his head to the side, and something flashes across his face, too quick for her to categorize.
She clears her throat. “Shall we continue the exam?”
There’s a beat: his gaze on her makes her skin prickle, but then he nods and leads back, mouth opening under her fingers, and Hermione lets her muscle memory commence.
The only sound in the room is the scrape of her instruments, the low buzzing of the fluorescent overhead lamps. When she finishes, she lays down the metal tools and hands him a cup of mouthwash. “Your gums did remarkably well.” She hopes it isn’t too late for flattery.
She hears what she thinks is a chuckle, but he’s turning away for his coat by the time she looks up from her clipboard.
“We can schedule you for your next visit, if you’d like,” she says.
But when she looks up, he’s already in the lobby, speaking with Claudia, one hand perched on her desk. Claudia giggles at something he says, and he flashes her a smile: those teeth, so straight and square, that startlingly white color.
Hermione returns to her tray of instruments, letting the metal cool her palm, letting different tools clank against the tray this way and that. It creates an almost-soothing background symphony of labor, and before long, she hears the bell over the door chime, and she lets out the breath she’s been holding.
That night, she dreams of giving him a root canal. She imagines his hands curled around the arms of the chair, the slight kick of his legs as the metal funnels towards root. It’s not that the dream pleases her; it’s just that she wakes up feeling really refreshed.
He comes back, two more times this month, and then three more the following month, for random pains that she’s convinced are phantom in nature. His tone borders on accusatory a few times, as if she’s the one who’s made his central incisor cold-sensitive. He develops a preference for which angle the chair can be set at, and they spend one appointment arguing over the geometry and layout of her exam room. When he leaves that visit, she find a brochure for an interior design firm that specializes in medical practices near the exam room sink, and she has to take a walk outside to calm herself down.
The insurance process is surprisingly painless; he’s amenable to a settlement in a way that surprises her. He’s polite to her through written correspondence, and in the emails they have to exchange, she feels almost grateful for him. The emotion dissipates every time he comes in, always with a smirk, always with some other issue that needs urgent attending to.
By spring, he’s her most seen patient. He calls for cosmetic and medical concerns. She’s seen the inside of his mouth so many times she feels as if she could sketch it, in her sleep. Sometimes she catches him looking at her, head tilted, mouth slightly pursed, and she bristles under the scrutiny, convinced he’s sizing up her bedside manner, her orthodontic technique.
The day before she closes her practice for Christmas, he comes in complaining about his third molar. They bicker over her findings, which are innocuous. “Mr. Malfoy,” she says. “Your teeth are perfect.” It pains her to admit this, that despite his intolerable attitude, his oral health is exquisite, the architecture of his mouth crafted to such a degree of perfection she cannot find fault.
His answering smirk makes her want to pour mouthwash on him.
In the new year, she gets dinner with Pansy, and the other woman announces her engagement. “Harry and I are thinking about a destination wedding,” she says, and Hermione chokes on her wine, pivoting at the last second to turn her sputter into a cough. She cannot wrap her head around the expenses: the flight, the hotels, the bridesmaid dresses. She thinks about Draco then and how he hasn’t yet referred any of his trust fund friends. She must be furrowing her brow because Pansy waves a manicured hand in front of her face.
“What’s that face, Granger?” Pansy leans her chin in her palm, head cocking. “Is this personal or professional?”
“Oh, no, no, nothing.” Hermione rearranges the flatware. “But yes! The South of France. It’ll be so beautiful this summer.”
Pansy’s eyes narrow, lips pursing slightly before she takes a sip of wine. “Do I sense male troubles?”
“What? No. Well, technically, yes, but not in the way you’re thinking. I mean, he is male, but I–” Heat floods her cheeks, and she reaches for her water, watching the ice cubes click together with movement.
“Is this male a dentist as well?”
“No, a patient.”
Pansy laughs then. “Granger, you might not have patience for love, but there are some forces in the world you can’t control.” Pansy’s laugh is so bright, so infectious, that Hermione doesn’t bother to correct her.
She dreams about him that night, and she’s not performing a root canal this time.
In February, during Valentine’s day, he calls for an emergency appointment and shows up twenty minutes later. Something about his posture seems nervous: hands in pockets, back slightly slouched. He steps into the exam room and hangs his coat up on the hook. It amuses her to think they already have a routine down. When he turns towards her, he has his hands stuffed into the pocket of his slacks, his mouth slightly ajar. She waits for him to say whatever it is he needs to say.
They’re standing at an impasse it feels like. Her hand halfway into a latex glove; his words lodged in his throat. His face is unguarded, a look at odds with his normally pristine appearance. He looks, she thinks, nervous.
He clears his throat, cards a hand through his hair, loosening the gels. A few curls escape their imprisonment and tumble onto his forehead. “What are you doing tonight?”
Hermione frowns. “I’m doing your exam.”
“No, no. I mean, after this.”
“I–” She snaps her glove into place. He cannot possibly expect her to cancel all her plans to attend to his issues, can he? Technically, she doesn’t have any plans anyway, but the principle of the matter bothered her. “Well, I don’t think this should take too long, so I–”
“Go to dinner with me.”
“What?”
“Come to dinner with me.”
“What?”
“Do you like French food? Mexican?” He grimaces. “Please don’t tell me you like Chinese food best? I know a place, but I just find the sodium content so high.” He cuts off, stares at her, squints.
“What are you talking about?”
He looks up, exhales, shoulders dropping. “Do you really need me to spell it out?”
Her frustration swells into anger, which makes her rip off her glove and cross her arms. “Oh, well my apologies for any inconvenience my confusion causes you.” She shakes her head. “I mean, how could I possibly be confused by this sudden shift in your demeanor. It’s not like you’ve been insufferable–”
“I’m insufferable? You are the most oblivious–”
“Oblivious?”
“Yes, oblivious. I mean, christ, why do you think I come here so often?”
“I don’t know! I wish you could tell me why you have all these imaginary pains–”
“My mouth and dental health are perfect–”
“If they are then why are you–”
“Hermione,” he says, and something about his voice finally gets her to stop. “I’d like to take you out on a date.”
The room grows so quiet she’s convinced she can hear the second hand of the clock. “I–”
“I know a really nice Japanese restaurant,” he says. “Do you like Japanese?”
The night has taken such a strange turn that Hermione stays silent for a long while, thinking over her day, just to make sure she hasn’t ingested something or given herself nitrous oxide accidentally. “I–.” She shifts her weight, runs a hand through her hair. “Do you still need an exam?”
His face falls then, hands digging deeper into his pockets. “I–no, that’s not why I needed to come here tonight. I’ll leave you to your plans then.” He turns to leave, and without thinking, Hermione grabs his hand.
“Wait.” His skin feels brutally warm under her palm, and her heart hammers against her ribcage. “I do like Japanese food.”
There’s a beat, and then he laughs, a bright, voluminous sound. “Do you like it a lot? Or a little?”
It takes her a moment to realize he’s flirting, that his voice dips into a lower register when he does. “I like it enough,” she says.
His eyes are a startling blue, and she watches his pupils dilate, noting the way the black encroaches into the vibrant cobalt of his irises.
“Enough sounds alright to me,” he says. “I can work with that.” And then he pauses, mouth puckering for a second, like he’s not sure he should say what he says next. “But I think I’ll have to drive.”
And maybe she should be offended, maybe she should have a witty riposte, but his thumb is rubbing a slow circle against her knuckle, and he’s staring at her in a way that makes her chest warm with carbonation. Oh, I’ll let him have it she thinks. He does, after all, have the most beautiful mouth she’s ever seen.
“I’m glad you’re a good flosser,” she finally says. His mouth furrows; the circle being etched into her knuckle stalls. “Gum disease and cavities are both communicable, you know?
He’s still laughing when he leans in.