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“No, you don’t get what I’m trying to say—the elves are kids,” Weasley slurs, unsteady in speech and balance.
Draco takes a slow sip, the cinnamon-flavoured pisswater the Ministry’s afforded warming his throat as he attempts to look past the bleary-eyed idiot blocking his view. He’d just had her in sight—eyes following the line of her scarlet sweater dress, lingering on her exposed thighs, every part of her soft. He imagined letting his hands run up those legs, feeling the warmth of her skin as he pushed the indecent fabric concealing her from view. His imagination had been vivid, a man on the brink of a great discovery within the depths of his mind. Naturally, Weasley chose that moment to lumber over, clap a heavy hand on his shoulder, blocking his view to launch into—
“What?” Draco’s eyes flick back, irritation flaring as Weasley edges further into his line of sight.
“The Santa Claus,” he says with a shudder.
Draco raises a brow, drawing his glass to his lips. His mouth has gone dry. “He isn’t some deity, Weaslebee; you don’t have to add ‘the.’”
“No, you sagging scrote. Not Santy Claus. The Santa Clause.”
“Not a bloody clue what you’re on about,” Draco spits, standing straighter in a futile attempt to peer around the redhead’s broad, tipsy form. He’s had eight years too many of this, given that since joining the Aurors, he found himself stuck as Weasley’s partner. Disastrously, it’s made them—for Merlin’s sake—rather good mates.
Through his red-cheeked, sloppy grin, Weasley is clearly three sheets to the wind. He claps a hand on Draco’s shoulder again, effectively pinning him in place.
“Look, Malfoy. Kids.” Weasley’s face is uncomfortably close, his eyes earnest and whiskey-glazed.
“Oh, for the love of—” he hisses as Weasley’s hand slides from his shoulder to caress his chin. His thumb catches Draco’s bottom lip which makes his vision explode in red as he continues, “Get off of—”
“Child labour,” Weasley says, too loud for a Ministry Christmas gala, pulling back to sweep his slightly spittled hand over the crowd.
Draco uses the glorious moment of his impaired attention being levelled elsewhere to take a lofty step away, setting his drink on the bar and smoothing a hand over his Oxford. He cranes his neck slightly, looking for the scarlet skirt.
“It’s disgusting,” Weasley continues, oblivious to the glances thrown his direction from the other party-goers and employees. “And we’re supposed to watch it with our children. How am I meant to explain to Hugo that Santa’s got a seven-year-old making nutcrackers?” He lets out a huff. “Tell me, how am I supposed to have that conversation?”
Draco snorts, eyes still scanning the room. “Tell him Santa has low overhead costs?”
He is having horrible luck attempting to locate her. Perhaps she has disappeared around some corner.
“Very funny. Laugh it up at old Papa Weasley’s expense. Smite me for not wanting a future where my children go work for some merry old fuck in a Siberian warehouse, painstakingly wood-working Scandinavian rocking horses.”
“Scandi—where is your wife?” Draco laments, slapping Weasley’s wandering hand as it ghosts over his cheekbones. The freckled fingers draw back immediately as if scorned, and Draco lets his eyes fall back to Weasley, who looks on the verge of tears.
“Do you know how many variants of rocking horses there are? Do you know?”
Draco blinks. “What are you—”
Weasel sighs, interrupting. “And Danish rocking chairs. So much rocking. So much hygge.”
“Alright, let’s go tell Pansy it’s time to get you home–”
“No, now wait, I’m not finished.” Weasley’s voice drops, his expression turning serious as he leans in, pointing a finger at Draco’s chest. “It’s Christmas.” He hiccups slightly before continuing. “You’re supposed to tell the truth at Christmas.”
“What on earth are you on about?” Draco says, eyes darting again for a glimpse of her. Weasley’s presence has effectively dashed his chances of casually catching her eye, but it’s clear the man is too far gone to pick up on it.
Weasley, seemingly oblivious to Draco’s frustration, carries on. “You’re hopeless.”
“And you’re drunk.”
“Truth, Malfoy,” Weasley insists, nudging him with that finger. “‘Tis the season—fa-la-la-la-la-la-la—chestnuts cracking on a sled and all that. Tell her, stubborn git.”
“Tell who—what are you even—?”
“You know.” Weasley’s wretched finger waggles sensuously as he points vaguely in the direction where she stands across the room, half-turned so Draco’s eyes catch on her profile, laughing at whatever Susan Bones discusses. Draco wonders how Weasley managed to locate her so easily in this state, but supposes the long years of friendship between the two attuned them in ways he didn’t care to ruminate on. Draco draws in a breath as she pushes her hair behind one ear, exposing her dimpled cheek for his pervasive consumption. Then comes Weasley’s drunken monologue to wrench him from his leer. “You. And her. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.” He sports the unsteady smirk of the heavily inebriated. “Just…tell her, mate.”
Draco sighs, glancing away from where Weasley still points, feeling the prickling warmth of embarrassment spot his cheeks. “I think you’ve had enough hygge for the evening.”
“Happy Christmas, Draco,” whispers Weasley, leaning in as his smirk stretches wider before the glaze locks firm over his eyes. And for all their familiarity, Draco still only has a second to move back before Weasley bends over and hurls all over his dragonhide leather shoes.
Fast forward eleven minutes and two hastily-cast Scourgifys later, Draco watches a teetering and pregnant Pansy usher her stupid, green-faced husband into the Floo. Before they disappear with the flames, Weasley’s eyes catch a glint of cognisance and he mouths, ‘Tell the truth.’ Pansy throws the powder and says the name of their dwelling by the time Draco’s mouth closes with an angry huff.
He will be sending them a bill for his shoes.
Smug on that thought, Draco turns on his heel and pushes through the door to head back inside, only as he does, he collides with a man clad in a red velvet suit and a ridiculous white beard. His eyes are twinkling, almost unnervingly sharp behind wire-rimmed glasses.
“Steady!” the man chuckles, placing a mittened hand on Draco’s shoulder with surprising firmness. “Almost ran me over, young man!”
Draco blinks. “I—apologies,” he mutters, ready to step around the man, but the stranger doesn’t let go.
“Careful, son,” the old man says with a knowing wink. “It’s Christmas, after all.” He taps a finger to his nose, leaning in as if he’s about to divulge a great secret. “‘Tis the season for honesty, don’t you know?”
Draco frowns, feeling that same prickle of discomfort from earlier. So he sneers and says, “I don’t know what you think you—”
The man laughs, a deep, booming sound from his gut. Santy Claus, Draco’s inner voice corrects in a tone that sounds horrifically like Ron Weasley. “It never hurts to say what’s on your mind. Especially to those who matter.”
And with a jolly wink, he pats Draco on the shoulder before sauntering off, a faint scent of peppermint and cinnamon twirling in the air in his merry wake.
Draco stares after him, feeling as if he’s just been hit by a Confundus Charm. First Ron, now Santa Claus? He shakes his head, muttering to himself as he steps out into the hall, glancing back over his shoulder only to see the red-suited man catch his eye one last time, nodding with encouragement.
He can’t shake the feeling there’s some ridiculous cosmic conspiracy to push him into doing something impulsive. This is what he gets for staring after her for so long—and obviously, Weasley would fucking notice. Granger and Potter both had let out some off-handed remarks about their beloved ginger’s perceptiveness, and Draco had even seen it in action enough times to know it was true. But this? Draco had thought he’d done a good job at concealing this.
And naturally then, as Draco is scrutinising his every action under the magnifying lens acquired by three glasses of cinnamon-flavoured whiskey, the bane of his existence comes waltzing around the corner—red-flushed and fitting neatly where she connects in the crook of his collar and jaw.
She makes a little oof! as Draco’s hands come out to settle at her waist.
“Oh! Draco, you scared the piss out of me.”
“Granger,” he says, and then his knuckles tighten due to nerves, but said knuckles are connected to his fingers which, again, are planted firmly on her waist, resulting in him pinching her in a way that is far too familiar, and entirely inappropriate.
Hermione lets out a surprised laugh, and Draco feels his entire body run hot, a rush of heat that’s not just from the nerves but from the vivid scarlet of her sweater dress—too bright, too distracting beneath his fingertips—making his thoughts about what he’d do to her in said dress ignite in a violent red.
He immediately steps back, releasing her with a muttered, “Sorry, I—”
She smirks, eyes glinting. “Someone’s been doing a bit of drinking, huh?”
Gleaning for an easy way out, Draco nods, jaw going taut as he looks off at the wall.
Draco has been working at the Ministry of Magic for about eight years, three months, six days, and an hour and forty-four minutes. He supposes he’s had feelings for Hermione Granger for about eight years, three months, six days and one hour.
It couldn’t be helped—this was evidenced by the long line of suitors that sent her cards and floral arrangements, or raced to hold open the elevator for her when she finally did leave her Head Deputy office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. She’d become something quite radiant in the years after the war, and through, he supposes, his friendship with the red-haired one, he’d had the opportunity to see her continue to transform as she worked her way up through the Ministry.
Radiant didn’t quite cover it. No, it was something far more dangerous. She was breathtaking, the curve of her jaw lethal, the flutter of her lashes like a punch clean through his abdomen. Some angel of his ruining, forced to work down the hall from her for the better part of a decade, tormenting him in his complete inability to progress their relationship from tentative friends by proxy to…more than that.
Yes, she might well kill him.
For instance, if he looks at her now, and she matches his stare—as she sometimes did—he knows he won’t be able to breathe at all. It’d never been like this for him, but maybe he’d gone soft somewhere between the war and this dark hall, alone with her, now. Maybe those tentative grins, a short touch of her hand to his shoulder, a little tilt of her smile in his direction—maybe they’d melted something inside him, and swiftly—made him more amenable, more susceptible to the subtle sort of sweetness she’d dusted on his life like a fresh snow.
“Are you sticking around?” she asks, tilting her head at him.
It’s quiet in the hall, save for the muffled chatter and lull of Christmas music spinning softly through the closed doors behind her. His heart is thumping rather erratically as well, but he swallows down his nerves and tries to grin at her.
“Feeling like a bit of a Scrooge after being Weasley’s target practice for expelling his guts.”
Hermione laughs, and his heart pathetically soars. “I do hope he’s alright.”
“Oh, you know he’s invincible, Granger,” Draco says, rolling his eyes. “Death fears him.”
Her cheeks are still pink—like if he pressed the pad of his thumb just there, she’d be warm—sporting the healthy glow he’s grown too familiar with, brown, freckled skin never been kissed by winter. Leaning forward conspiratorially, Draco catches the hint of peppermint on her tongue as she says, “I hardly saw you around tonight.”
“Were you keeping an eye out?”
Her eyes crinkle at the corners as she looks off. “Well, you’re much more fun than Susan and company. These parties aren’t quite so boring with you passing judgement on the sensible shoe choices of our colleagues.”
“A grotesque amount of faux-leather loafers at that party. One wrong scuff on the parquet, and the whole building might erupt in flames.”
Almost, always, he finds himself on the brink of saying what he feels.
She tilts her head at him, scrunching her nose as she laughs again. Draco smiles back, not like he can help himself and tries to remember the basic functions of drawing in air to his lungs.
“You’re leaving then?” asks Hermione, and Draco answers with a quick nod. No air for words. “I’ll head out too. Checked a coat?”
Another nod, and she smiles again—well really, she never stopped. And that’s how he finds himself brushing Hermione’s curls over her shoulder to help her into her trench coat right outside of the check.
She’s talking about the last time they’d all gone to the pub, laughing as she recounts the terrible shots Theo had convinced them to try.
Draco eyed the green liquid topped with whipped cream and cherry syrup with a wary heart. ‘Christmas Spirit?’
‘It’s the speciality! Don’t make me drink alone,’ Theo whined, setting a glass in front of Granger before he moved to his next target.
Draco glanced up then, finding her already looking at him, mouth twitching up on one corner. ‘Go boldly.’
‘Is this a Granger-ism, or from one of your Muggle sitcoms?’ Draco managed to say across the table. The chatter of their friends continued—a group merged with time, or the joining of Pansy and Ron, or perhaps shared scars from a childhood where choice was stripped—but to Draco, it was just the two of them.
‘I do think you’d like Star Trek. We’ll add it to the curriculum.’
‘Another?’ Draco asked, a senseless hope manifesting as a half-smile.
‘Do you not enjoy my education of one reformed child Death Eater?’
Hermione laughs, recalling how the green chartreuse, Jägermeister, and a splash of sour cranberry juice had made all of their faces pinch, Blaise even uncharacteristically gagging as he beelined for the bathroom.
“You have a rather peculiar affinity for cruelty,” Draco muses, his voice low, as her laughter fades into the background. She brushes past him with a light nudge of her shoulder. He turns with the touch, eager for more of her grins in his direction. “Honestly, I never thought I’d find myself acquainted with your more...sinister inclinations.”
“You should count yourself fortunate,” she replies, turning to face him with a raised brow, voice tinged with amusement.
“I suppose I should,” he responds without hesitation, his words slipping out before his brain can catch up. It’s only when his pulse quickens that he realises what he’s said. “I didn’t mean...I—”
“Do you fancy a walk?” Hermione cuts him off.
“It’s freezing outside.”
“How blessed I am to own this scarf then,” she says, throwing one side over her shoulder.
“You’re impossible. That’ll never keep you warm.”
“Look at you,” Hermione muses, and he knows she’s on the brink of another laugh. “Fussing.”
Now it’s his turn to snort, the sound pushing up out of his throat with weak abandon. She doesn’t know how right she is. Though, in general, his fussing is much more of a continuous internal droll, including but not limited to assuring her comfort like it’s his job. Fussing in the form of making sure she always has the least draughty chair at the Ministry’s café in the atrium, or lingering by the door as she rushes back into her office because she’s forgotten her keys—again. Keeping an eye on her glass so it never runs dry, checking that her robe isn’t snagged in the floo, and, in an absurd and committed bid, fastidiously checking the weather ahead of her cases. Then he has ample argument to bring his concerns up to her, ensuring she packs a set of gloves or appropriately lathes her skin in sun cream.
Once, in a fit of particularly singular paranoia, he spent an entire Thursday researching the best chairs for ergonomic alignment, after she’d complained about a crick in her neck in passing. And then, he’d followed up by spending the better half of Thursday evening through early Friday morning before she made it in, breaking into her office to deconstruct and place individual cushioning charms on said desk chair.
But Merlin forbid she ever noticed; he'd never hear the end of it.
He huffs, finally shrugging on his own scarf with an air of resignation. "Fussing keeps you from turning into an ice sculpture, Granger."
Then he mutters a warming charm, making a big show of first casting it on himself in self-preservation before his wand flits over her. He watches her smile grow wider.
He goes with her because, of course, he does. She takes the lead, emerging first in the chilled December air, and Draco refrains from rolling his eyes as he realises that the snow falling in London tonight uncharacteristically sticks, leaving the ground covered in a sea of soft white beneath their feet.
She turns to look at him, grinning as fresh flakes fall from the sky.
“I’ve always loved to look at the lights,” she says, glancing out at the shops lining the street—glittering flickers in hues of red and green, caricatures of a jolly, fat man plastered in windows and on roofs.
Yes, I know, he thinks.
He does, as he’s stored a hopeless amount of information on the witch taking small steps next to him. He adjusts his stride, as he often did when she afforded him the chance to walk with her, slowing himself to match her pace. He knows how she takes her tea, where her favourite honey is sourced. He knows she likes garish holiday decor—even going with Weasley and crew to help hang her lights around her front door. He knows that she keeps all the ornaments that her parents used to hang on her childhood Christmas tree, and knows that her favourite is a palm-sized replica of a molar—one she displays front and centre, just under the star so it catches the light as that’s what her father did, and traditions were hard to kill.
“You’re shivering,” he says instead of this confession to knowing her intimately. He pockets his own hands to keep from tugging her scarf more securely around her neck, or worse, slipping his hand into hers to ensure she doesn’t slide on a dark patch of ice.
“I don’t mind the cold,” she tuts, still looking away from him and waving a hand flippantly. “When does snow ever stick in London?”
“Never,” he mutters back.
Rarely, if ever. Though, of course it would tonight, when she decides to walk home in hazardous conditions. He cranes his neck to the sky, frowning at the universe, suddenly aware of the dangers of some impending storm he hadn’t prepared for.
“I better make sure you get home safely. Wouldn’t want you falling and hitting your head,” he continues with a decisive nod.
“Careful, Draco. Someone might think you care.”
“Well, if you injure yourself, that leaves Potter alone to head the department. We’d be up in flames in hours without your expertise.”
He knows that she likes this, the flattery of her intellect and necessity. It really isn't just for her sake. She keeps the whole operation afloat, and Draco suspects she hardly needs his co-signature of her importance, but she laughs all the same.
“Ah yes,” she says with a grin. “I’m sure you’re absolutely shaken at the thought of taking a direct order from Harry.”
“Am I so obvious?”
Yes, he thinks. He is so obvious.
Obvious to Weasley, and if Theo’s little smirks and Pansy’s knowing glances were evidence, obvious to anyone with two working eyes. Even obvious to the hired Saint fucking Nick. At least Hermione wasn’t so perceptive. Small mercy, that.
She doesn’t respond, but that’s easier for him, allowing him to focus on steadying his pulse. It also gives him the freedom to watch her, attention locked on her reddening cheeks and the tip of her nose, pink from the cold. Small snowflakes catch in her curls, sitting on the coils as the wind whips around them, and she just looks so fucking pretty. It’s that simple; Granger is someone he doesn’t deserve, some reminder of all the ways he’ll never be man enough, never be able to apologise enough. It drives him insane, and he feels it, feels the way his face grows warmer at the thought of her.
“Are you going to Ron and Pansy’s for Christmas dinner?”
“I am,” he murmurs with a nod.
He did every year, and she did the same. He’d spent many Christmases on their couch, the best seat for watching Hermione under the influence of three glasses of mulled wine, singing Auld Lang Syne offkey with a grin wide enough to split her cheeks. To him, it was the best sound. It was what defined the holiday, watching her in her element, watching these moments that were so categorically Granger.
In recent years, in the quiet moments when Blaise and Theo drunkenly murmured in the kitchen, after the Potters said their goodbyes with their tots in tow, and Pansy and Ron disappeared up the stairs to tuck their twins into bed, Draco and Hermione were left sitting together on that couch, warm and giddied. Those thick silences—lit only by the twinkle of Pansy’s ornate tree, the upturn of Hermione’s pink-tinted lips, the little flick of her tongue at the corner of her mouth to catch the last trace of syrupy wine, the low thrum as she caught her breath—that is Christmas to Draco.
That’s exactly where he was supposed to be.
“Bringing anyone around this year?” asks Hermione, turning to look at him.
“Afraid not.”
Hermione makes a happy hum, and his lips tug up—letting himself imagine she looks forward to it in the same way he does. Many faces had come and gone over the years, blokes tucking Hermione under their arm as they clapped Draco on the shoulder, introducing themselves in a string of syllables he didn’t commit to memory. And Christmases looked different in those years, but he would endure.
Quite pathetic. But…honest of him. Yes, it was the truth to admit that he would make proximity to Hermione enough. As snow lands on his cheek, a quick kiss of cold melting with the heated realisation, his subconscious—still, for whatever reason, sounding like a drunken Weasley—lets a glint of pride escape. Look at Draco, honest for Christmas.
This year there would be no others. Draco always made sure to wrap up his attempts at dalliances long before the holiday season, and Hermione—she hadn’t brought anyone around for some time. They could resume their Christmas tradition, and Draco would swallow that urge to lean forward in their shared silence on the couch, and he would be happy all the same.
“I thought you were seeing…oh, I’m awful. I don’t remember her name.”
“Mathilde?” he guesses, furrowing his brows.
“Yes! She was quite lovely.”
Draco shrugs, humming noncommittally as he focuses on the crunch of snow beneath his feet.
“You do so love a brunette. I think I might be able to design your ideal woman,” she continues quietly.
He laughs. “I’m sure you could.”
Draco looks up then, catching her looking at him with something curious in her eyes.
“Yes, you tend to favour a woman with dark hair. Longer, normally. They’ve almost always got dimples. Pretty in a cruel way.”
“Cruel?” he asks, squinting as he looks at her.
She bites her lip, shaking her head as she suddenly looks across the street. “You know, just the sort of beauty that’s unfair. Unattainable, even.”
“Didn’t think you’d taken any notice, Granger.”
“Well, you know. We’re friends, aren’t we? Of course I—I care about you. And your well-being. So, naturally, I’d notice you’d go for women that are a bit…supermodel-adjacent.”
He grimaces, looking away. “They’re fine, sure.”
“And is this how you charm them? Keep them guessing they’re never quite enough?”
“I don’t mean it in a foul way, just that—” Draco frowns, and withdraws a hand from his pocket to rack it through his hair, frosted with the tiny flakes of snow that still dust them as they walk. “They’re not…” You, his mind supplies. He swallows. “Memorable. They’re not memorable.”
They aren’t. Look at that; more truth almost jumping from his lips.
“Oh, here I was feeling awful—you, Draco Malfoy, are worse,” Hermione says with a lilting giggle, swatting his chest with her cold hand.
Draco’s hand falls, and perhaps spurned by the chill of her body or the heat of the cinnamon still burning his throat, he catches her fingers against his jacket, some subconscious urge to warm her up. He laughs in time with her, running a thumb over the back of her hand before he looks up. Lights twinkle around them, and he can see them reflecting in the dark of her irises as their eyes connect, and then it’s all brutally real. He’s here, holding her palm and—Merlin’s sake—he’s come closer, pulling her in the process, with only inches separating them. As if their minds are connected, realisations shucking through at the same time, he watches the breath catch in her chest.
A beat passes. Silent, treacled with peppermint and cinnamon, and some urge aching just behind the cold of his cowardly lips. He licks them, suddenly all too aware and self-conscious that he’s got her this close and they might be cracked from exposure.
“What is it then?” Hermione whispers, her eyes flickering down to watch his tongue before she meets his eye again. He doesn’t miss the way she fails to wrench her hand from his grasp.
He’s stuck, stupid, watching the blues and greens cast fractured beams along her freckled cheeks. She raises a brow at his silence and he manages to force out one pitiful, “What?”
“What are you looking for? That you aren’t finding in the harem of women you keep.”
“Harem,” he repeats, a shaky laugh plucked from his throat. The moment dissipates, and Draco releases her.
“Evading the real question, are we?”
“I don’t know,” he lies, knowing exactly what he’s searching for; he’s looking right at her. He turns then, putting his back to her as he inspects the plain stone of a storefront with an inquisitive eye.
“You ought to tell the truth at Christmas, you know?”
Draco turns back then, red flaming his cheeks. The sentiment is different from her lips, making something churn in his chest, propelling him forward. He wants to tell her, suddenly feels like he might be able to in the chilled December night. Each second, a little bit braver.
“You want the truth, Granger?” he asks, watching her eyes flicker with amusement. “The truth is that I—”
Only as he takes the step, the floor goes out beneath him, foot catching on a particularly slick patch of cobblestone and he slides, the world going backwards until his spine connects with the snow.
“Oh!” Hermione says, taking a step just to have her boot catch on the same ice and make her tumble forward, landing on top of him and expelling all remaining air from his chest with a sharp grunt.
Draco’s eyes pinch shut as her weight settles on top of him. He’s done a lot of imagining about having Hermione perched on his hips but never like this. His eyes open around the same time his lungs decide to accept oxygen, and he sucks in a wheezing rasp.
“Are you alright?” he grunts.
He is met with her muffled laughter, face pressed into his chest. Her warm breath heats him straight through his shirt, felt against his sternum and her body shifts against him, making his heart pump a stuttered staccato.
Merciful mandrakes, he needs to sit up.
Draco continues, “I’ll have to assume you’ve hit your head and gone loony if you don’t give me an answer.”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she laughs, raising her head to catch his eye. Her cheeks are pinker than before. “Relax with the fussing.”
“I fuss less than you think,” he lies, though the pulse in his heart gives him away. There are a thousand ways he looks out for her, half of them farcical.
And the truth is, like this—on his back, inconsiderate of the hygienic perils of laying on a London street, with heaven and her stars as her backdrop, a fresh coat of dusted snow settled on her curls—he’s never been closer to admitting all of those things to her, to surrendering the truth he’s kept locked in his ribcage, or to falling over the precipice, screaming all the way down about all that she means to him.
“Right,” she snorts, pushing off his chest, but not before brushing the hair from his vision—giving him an even better view of her on top. Draco pinches his eyes shut, because that—that might just kill him. He feels her weight lift away, and when he opens, she’s standing over him, hand extended.
He slides his palm against hers, but lifts his own weight and stands back on two feet, less sure with the earth right-side-up.
Draco’s gaze shifts, running over her until his eyes catch on her bloodied knee.
“Christ, Granger,” he says, putting an arm on her shoulder before he cups her face, moving her this way and that to inspect her in the light. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine, really.”
“Ensuring you make it home without injury has proven to be an impossible task.”
“Yes, well, I believe I only fell because I was aiming to help you.”
“No sense of self-preservation,” he grumbles, thumb running over her red cheek. She’s freezing. He’s awful at this.
“Sure, let’s call it that,” she responds softly, letting her cheek rest against his palm.
Draco ignores her comment, face flaming and lets his hand slide down her arm. She shivers again, and he squeezes her gently.
“I think we ought to apparate the rest of the way. You’re in no state.”
Hermione rolls her eyes. “And you are—”
“Fussing, yes, right. I’ll cease if you let me get you to your doorstep with no additional bruises and cuts.”
“Fine,” she murmurs, taking his hand.
Before he can protest, they’re twisting and spinning, spat out at the top of her steps. A wreath hangs on her red front door, rich with the scent of fresh pine and dusted with tiny specks of snow. A crimson velvet bow sits at the top, its ends fluttering slightly in the evening breeze. Soft fairy lights, blues and greens, hidden among the greenery, cast a warm, inviting glow onto whoever visits her home. His brain feels scrambled from the sudden Apparition, but when his vision returns, she’s still in front of him—half her face illuminated in this soft light—holding his hand.
“No regard for the Statue of Secrecy,” he whispers on no air. He tries to laugh, but it sounds like a choke. “Perhaps you did damage that brilliant brain.”
Hermione tilts her head, and quietly says, “It’s just us out here, Draco.”
He turns, glancing out at the snowy street, finding Hermione, as usual, is correct. There are no others in sight. When he glances back at her, she’s staring.
The world around them is hushed under the blanket of fresh snow, the quiet twinkle of lights flashing rainbows against the white littering the street. Her gaze holds his, steady and open, a faint, daring smile curving her mouth.
“It’s just us,” she repeats, softly, just for him and her, a secret shared and spinning under the muted winter sky. Her fingers are still entwined with his, a point of warmth in the chill.
“Yes,” he murmurs, aware of the way his heartbeat echoes louder than it should, as though it, too, wishes to chorus this December night. “Just us.”
Her cheeks are still pink from the cold, or maybe from something else, and for a second, he wants nothing more than to lean in, to finally close the distance and say all the things he’s held back. But he just stands there, hand clasped in hers, feeling that pull, the unmistakable ache of wanting more. The unyielding allure of truth, of knowing her, of their hands clasped in the cold.
The unsaid words twist inside of him, sitting heavy in his chest as he looks at her. Breathtaking, that’s what she was. So when he can’t fill his lungs to expel honesty, he just bends forward—lightly tugged by the cool turn of her lips as she looks up at him. His lips, cold from the frosted air, press against her skin and he lingers there, eyes closed, chastely kissing her cheek and hoping it’s enough.
He pulls back, the blue and green Christmas lights flickering in time with some merry song filtered through the walls of any number of houses lining her street—notes lost as his heart thuds in his eardrums.
Her eyes open, crinkling lightly at the corners as she exhales, a shaky laugh and a grin. She releases his hand and it aches, a somatic response to the yearning that twirls in his gut. Always wanting more.
“Almost,” she whispers.
She takes a step forward, running her hands up the front of his open jacket until she’s tugging on his lapel. She’s stronger than he thought, or, more likely, he’s just this weak for her. Either way, he’s crashing forward, collision imminent but slowed in the heavy pulse of adrenaline, thick and molten through his veins.
She rises onto the balls of her feet, and it's just milliseconds, stretching like lightyears ahead of him. It’s the faint linger of peppermint, the blue and green hue of Christmas lights against fresh snow, garish childhood ornaments and shared grief. It is her lips as they spread in a grin, the pink of her mouth as she opens wide, belting an off-key rendition of Auld Lang Syne. It’s honey from Ikaria, and quiet moments sharing a laugh. It is dark halls, and the twinkle of her eyes when the umber catches a beam, reflecting back the gold that paints her insides.
It is eight years, three months, six days, one hour and, he supposes, about fifty-three minutes.
Her lips press to his, and the world goes silent—even his heart stills for a stuttered beat. Hermione captures his bottom lip, curls her arms past his lapel and around his neck, pulling him closer and he goes, because, of course he does—this is exactly where he is supposed to be. His hand curls around the back of her neck, palm spreading the expanse of her cold skin and fingers threading through the curls hanging loose. He kisses her back, and it’s more—more than he deserves, more than he anticipated or hoped for, more than enough—it’s everything.
She pulls back first, lips beestung, cheeks flaming a brilliant hue like a shining candy apple.
“You’ll tell me the truth now, Draco?”
“Always,” he murmurs, hopeless and trying to draw air back into his lungs.
She lets her hand fall into his, and it fits just right. Their fingers intertwine, bound together, and he goes, of course he goes, when she tugs him inside.