Malfoy had built his life around discipline. Not the kind that made headlines or left scars, but the quieter kind. The kind that lived in routines so sharp they could cut. Every morning began the same. Every task completed to precision. Emotions were contained, thoughts sorted into categories, impulses tucked neatly into boxes he never opened. There was order in control. There was safety in restraint. And he had mastered both so completely that he barely noticed the weight of it anymore.
Until her.
Granger hadn't just disrupted his peace. She had stormed in with her ridiculous hair, her endless mouth, her presence that filled every space without asking permission. She hadn't knocked politely or crept in with subtlety. She had smashed through the walls he'd spent decades building and looked proud of the mess. She didn't just get under his skin. She took up residence there, rearranged the furniture, and lit the whole place on fire.
She haunted him.
From the moment his eyes opened to the second they closed again, she was there. Sometimes as a whisper. Sometimes as a shout. Her voice echoed in the silence. Her laughter followed him down hallways. She lived in the corners of his thoughts, curling around them like smoke he couldn't clear.
Even in sleep, she refused to leave him alone.
She showed up in his dreams, all softness and sharpness in equal measure, like temptation had taken human form and decided to ruin him for sport. He'd wake tangled in sheets, jaw clenched, heart pounding, his skin hot and slick with sweat. And then came the shame. The helpless frustration. The bone-deep ache of knowing it wasn't going away.
He was over it. Or at least, he kept telling himself he was.
But it didn't matter where he was or what he tried to do to distract himself. She still showed up. Not in person—though sometimes she did, and those moments were worse—but in his mind. Always in his mind. He could be sitting at his desk, pretending to read through some tedious report from the Ministry, and suddenly her voice would slide in. Or her face would flash across his memory, lips curled into that infuriating smirk. Or he'd remember the way she walked through the Manor like it belonged to her.
Like he did.
And Merlin help him, that image had latched onto his brain like a parasite.
He groaned, shoved the papers off his desk in a fit of rage that surprised even him, and watched them scatter across the floor. It felt good for all of three seconds before the emptiness settled in again. His office, once his sanctuary, now felt like a trap. The air was thick, stale, oppressive. His pulse roared in his ears.
He pushed back from the desk so fast the chair screeched across the floor. It was either pace or punch a wall. He chose pacing. Not that it helped. He'd tried everything. Deep breathing, meditation, cold showers, brutal workouts. Nothing made a dent in the obsession eating through his composure.
She had infected everything.
He walked the halls of the Manor, restless and tightly wound, his footsteps echoing in the silence. The place felt smaller now. Like it couldn't contain him and her at the same time. Like the walls themselves knew her name and repeated it under their breath just to drive him mad.
Granger was chaos in human form. Nothing about her made sense. She was confident to the point of arrogance, clever in ways that made his head hurt, and far too comfortable in her own skin. She knew exactly what she was doing to him. She could see it. And worse—she enjoyed it.
She'd strut past him like a challenge. Look him in the eye with that spark that dared him to say something. Move like a woman who knew every inch of her body could undo a man if she so chose.
And she had chosen.
That morning had been the final blow. She hadn't even said a word when she entered the room. Just walked in—bare, glowing, untouchable. She didn't cover herself. She didn't blush. She didn't hesitate. She looked at him with cool defiance, calm and deliberate, and gave him the exact opposite of shame. She gave him power disguised as vulnerability. It nearly broke him on the spot.
He hadn't done a thing. He froze. Like a bloody coward.
And it wasn't the nudity that had undone him. It was the control. The intention. The way she made being exposed feel like a weapon. It hadn't been seduction. It had been war.
"Bloody hell," he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair with enough force to throw his perfect grooming into chaos. The strands stuck up wrong, but he didn't care. He wanted to feel off-kilter. He was off-kilter. He had been since the day she moved in.
He couldn't keep doing this. Living like this. Wanting her like this.
But he already was.
There was no turning it off. He was orbiting her now. Pulled in by gravity he couldn't resist. Every day that passed without resolution only tightened the pull, only made the eventual collapse feel more inevitable.
They were supposed to be civil. That was the agreement. Tolerate each other. Share space. Pretend it wasn't strange that they were married in name and nothing else. He was supposed to ignore her. Be above it.
Instead, he was drowning.
He wanted her. Needed her. Hated her for it.
Worse, he knew she knew. He could almost hear her laughing about it somewhere in the house. Not loud. Not cruel. Just amused. That soft, smug amusement she wore like perfume. It clung to everything.
He clenched his jaw. His hands. His heart.
He hated this.
Hated the power she had over him. Hated the way she walked into a room and made the temperature change. Hated that one smile could set him on fire.
But even more than the hatred was the hunger. And it scared him.
Because he wasn't sure where it would end.
He wasn't sure what would be left of him if he finally let go.
And he wasn't sure if she'd be there to catch him—or if she'd just smile, turn on her heel, and let him burn.
It wasn't just that Granger was insufferable, although she was that in a way most people could never hope to master. She did it with such confidence, such effortless nerve, like she had been born to argue and decided early on that Draco Malfoy was her favorite target. It wasn't only about how she could twist his words without blinking, or how she always had some clever retort waiting like a knife tucked beneath her sleeve. It wasn't even about how she never let him have the last word. That would have been easier to hate.
This went deeper. It had moved past irritation a long time ago. What he felt now was a kind of ache that settled low in his chest and refused to leave, a pull that turned every glance into something unbearable. He wanted her. Not in passing, not in theory. He wanted her with a desperation that made him feel like he was losing parts of himself just trying to keep it hidden. His hands trembled when she got too close. His breath faltered when she looked at him like she knew something he didn't.
And he hated it.
Because wanting her meant giving something up. It meant losing. And he wasn't the kind of man who lost. Not to anyone. Not even to her.
He had tried to ignore it. Merlin knew he had tried. He'd shoved it down, buried it under schedules and cold logic, locked it away behind every defence he'd ever learned. It didn't help. Every time she walked into a room, his body betrayed him. His pulse surged like he was under threat. Every time she smiled like she had already won, something behind his ribs curled tight, and every inch of discipline he'd ever had started to fray.
Even her silence got to him. Sometimes that was worse. When she didn't say anything at all. When she just walked past him with that maddening calm, that knowing posture, that way she moved like she had never doubted her own presence in any room.
She made him feel like the ground beneath him could shift at any moment.
She wasn't just a nuisance. She was a storm dressed in wild curls and a voice that made everything louder. She filled the space around him even when she wasn't there. He started looking for her without realising it. Noticed when she wasn't in the corridor or the library or the blasted garden she had all but claimed. He'd listen for the sound of her footsteps, the cadence of her voice, the scrape of a chair or the thud of a book being set down. He craved it. Craved her attention like some addict in withdrawal.
And every time she turned that attention on him, it ruined his day.
"This is bloody ridiculous," he muttered, standing stiff in front of the tall window that overlooked the garden. It didn't even look like his anymore. It belonged to her now. Even the roses seemed to lean toward where she had last stood. His reflection in the glass looked pale, tired, and angry in a way that didn't feel clean. He looked like a man falling apart.
He pressed his palm flat to the window. It was cool beneath his skin, and for a moment, he imagined he could bleed the heat out of his body and into the glass. The problem was not the heat. The problem was her. Always her.
How had this happened? How had he let it get this far?
He was Draco Malfoy. He was raised to be composed. Taught to keep control over himself even when the world fell apart around him. But Granger didn't follow the rules. She never had. She looked at him like she saw straight through all of it. As if none of it scared her. As if he wasn't the least bit intimidating.
And that was the worst part. She made him feel seen. Not the curated version of himself, not the polished public figure, but the parts he kept hidden. The sharp edges. The mess. The loneliness. And when she laughed at him, it never felt cruel. It felt real. Like she knew he could take it.
He should have shut it down from the start. He should have reminded them both that this was nothing more than a Ministry decree with a fancy signature. That none of it meant anything. That she wasn't his. That he wasn't hers.
But that wasn't the truth, and he knew it.
The thought of sending her away, of removing her from this house and from his days like she was just some name on parchment, made his stomach twist. He didn't want her to leave. He didn't want her gone. He didn't want the house without her voice in it. Without her footsteps, her books scattered across the parlour, her tea left half-drunk on the table. He didn't want the silence back.
"Damn her," he whispered, resting his forehead against the glass. The words caught in his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut, but that didn't help either. She was there too, behind his eyelids, smiling in that way that made him feel unsteady. His blood pulsed with frustration. With hunger. With something heavier.
He didn't want peace anymore. He didn't want distance. He didn't want to fix it by pretending it wasn't broken.
He wanted her.
With no pretense. No conditions. No logic. He wanted her in the way that made a man stop thinking altogether. He wanted her laughter in his chest and her fire in his hands. He wanted her mouth, her stubbornness, her brilliance, her bite. He wanted to argue with her and pin her to the wall and kiss her until he couldn't remember what he had been angry about in the first place.
And that terrified him.
Because if he gave in, he wouldn't come back from it. Not in one piece.
It meant giving her power over the parts of himself he didn't even like to name. It meant hoping she wouldn't take that power and burn the whole thing down. It meant trusting her with everything.
And the part of him that still clung to control, that part was screaming.
But the rest of him was already walking toward her.
He pushed off the glass and turned away from the window, moving with something heavier than impulse. He didn't know what would happen. Whether they'd argue again or fall into something worse. He didn't care. He just knew he had to see her. Now.
She had rooted herself in the very cracks of his soul, and no amount of denial or distraction was going to change that.
She was there.
And he was already hers.
· ─ ·ʚɞ· ─ · ·
He apparated straight into the foyer, still clutching the roses like they were a shield, ready to patch things up before whatever this was turned into another night of closed doors and separate silences. He had rehearsed a dozen apologies, softened a dozen sentences in his head, trying to imagine what would make her smile again. But the moment his feet landed on the marble, he knew he was too late.
The house didn't just feel quiet. It felt hollow.
Not the peaceful kind of quiet, the kind that fills a room after laughter. This was the sort that settled in like fog. Heavy. Pressed down on his chest. Made the light fixtures feel colder than they should have. Made each breath feel earned.
The kitchen light was on. That same amber hue she always said made the house feel less like a mausoleum and more like a home. But there was no warmth in it tonight. Not with her sitting there. Not with the set of her shoulders.
She sat at the island, spine drawn tight as a bowstring, completely still apart from the rhythmic snap of chocolate breaking between her fingers. She wasn't reading. She wasn't making notes or pretending to be distracted. She wasn't even looking at him.
She was eating chocolate like it had personally wronged her.
And not just any chocolate. The bitter kind. The one she kept in the cupboard above the fridge. The one she only touched when she was seconds from losing her patience and had run out of people to yell at.
He stopped short.
The flowers crinkled in his grip, the sound impossibly loud against the static in the room. He adjusted his hold, trying to swallow the panic inching up his throat. This was familiar ground, but it was dangerous. She was dangerous like this.
Still, he had to try.
"Good evening, princess," he said, keeping his voice low, sweet, a little smug. The same way he always said it when he wanted to annoy her into smiling.
But she didn't even blink.
Nothing. Not a look, not a flinch, not even that exhausted sigh she sometimes gave when she was too annoyed to respond properly. Just the snap of chocolate. Another square. Another silent warning.
She didn't move.
And when she did speak, her voice came out like ice.
"Do. Not. Talk. To. Me."
Each word was deliberate. Measured. Like a knife pressing through skin, slow enough to hurt more.
He froze.
The grip on the flowers faltered. His heart gave a panicked thud in his chest as every half-formed apology in his head went blank. He tried to remember what he might've said. What he could've done. Was it the comment about the garden? No. She laughed at that. Or had she laughed just to lull him into thinking he wasn't already on thin ice?
"What have I done?" he asked carefully. He took a step forward, quiet and cautious, like she might explode if he got too close.
Still, she didn't look at him.
Another piece of chocolate. More snapping. No grace left in her movements, just purpose and tension.
She answered without hesitation.
"Existing."
He felt it hit. Right in the centre of his chest.
Just one word, but it cracked something wide open.
His mouth parted slightly. He stared at her like she wasn't his wife anymore, like someone had replaced her with a version that no longer remembered how to care.
His hands—those same hands that had once held her in bed, traced every line of her spine with quiet awe—were now trembling. The roses hung low, sagging at the stems, as if even they had taken the hint.
With a slow, defeated breath, he placed the flowers on the counter. No grand offering. No gesture. Just a quiet thud. It sounded final.
"Granger, come on," he said, his voice cracking around the edges. "Please."
She still wouldn't look at him.
And that terrified him more than anything she could have shouted.
"Just tell me what I did. I'll fix it. I'll apologise. I'll start over. Just—please." He stepped closer again, every muscle tight with nerves. "Talk to me."
And then, finally, she did.
She lifted her eyes for only a second, but it was enough. What he saw there stopped him cold. Not just fury, but hurt. Something wounded. Something brittle and private.
Then she stood.
No ceremony. No warning. Just up, clean, quick. She stepped off the stool, walked right past him like he wasn't even there, like he was a piece of furniture in a room she no longer cared to redecorate.
"Just let me be," she said.
And that was it.
That was the moment he knew he was standing on the edge of something dangerous.
He couldn't let her leave. Not now. Not with all that pain still sitting between them. It would break something. It would make the silence permanent.
"Wait," he called after her. His voice had changed. It wasn't smooth or clever anymore. It was raw. Messy.
His body moved before he could think. One hand reached out like it could stop time. The other curled into a fist at his side.
"Please, Hermione."
She didn't turn.
She was halfway through the kitchen, headed for the living room. Her pace was fast but calm, like she wasn't angry anymore, just tired. Tired enough to give up.
And he wasn't ready for that.
"Look, princess," he said, voice dipping into that low, familiar register he only used when he was speaking to her without an audience. It still held the sharpness of frustration, all the pent-up tension he hadn't known what to do with all evening, but now there was something softer under it. Pleading, maybe. Not that he'd admit it out loud. "I brought flowers for our… fucked-up anniversary."
He grimaced slightly as the words came out, aware they weren't charming or clever or anything close to romantic. But it was the truth. And if there was one thing their marriage had always demanded, it was truth delivered without ceremony. They weren't hearts and candlelight. They were sarcasm and longing and arguments that bled into things far messier. Still, he had remembered. He had tried. That had to mean something.
"Tell me what you want, love," he said, the edge falling away for a moment. "And I'll give it to you. Anything. Just tell me what the hell to do."
She stopped.
Not dramatically. Just for a breath. Her fingers curled around the doorframe leading out of the kitchen, steadying herself, maybe. For one flicker of a second, something shifted in the air between them. He thought—no, he hoped—she might turn around, say something, throw a sarcastic insult at him, anything that meant they were still fighting the same fight. Anything that meant he could still reach her.
But then she sighed. Quiet. Not angry. Just tired.
She shook her head and didn't look back.
"I want you to leave me alone."
It didn't hit like a blow. It sank in slowly. Like something sharp sliding in between his ribs and staying there.
His breath caught. He watched her silhouette disappear into the hallway, swallowed by shadow, her movements calm and deliberate, like someone stepping away from the wreckage of something that had already burned down.
That was it?
That's what she wanted? For him to disappear too?
No.
He stood there a second longer, stunned into silence, but not frozen. He wasn't letting it end like that. Not with the air between them still crackling with all the things they hadn't said. Not when he could see it in her shoulders, that weight she carried when she was hurting and didn't know what to do with it. He knew her well enough by now to recognise it. When she shut people out, it wasn't because she wanted to be alone. It was because she didn't know how to ask them to stay.
Especially not him.
Because staying meant something. To both of them. Whether either one was ready to say it aloud or not.
He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the roots. The silence in the house was crawling under his skin. He pushed off the counter and followed her, slower now, but no less determined. His bare feet made barely a sound against the wood floors, but every step felt loud in his chest.
"Princess," he called again, quieter this time. It wasn't a joke now. The word had frayed around the edges, worn thin from all the times he had used it to hide how much he actually cared.
He found her in their bedroom.
She was already by the bed, pulling the covers back with a kind of sharp efficiency that looked far too aggressive for such a soft task. Her back stayed to him. Her body language made it clear he should back off. That didn't stop him.
"Please," he said, stepping inside the room. His voice cracked slightly as he tried again. "I don't know what I've done. I know I'm awful. I know I am. But I can't fix something if you won't even tell me what it is. I—"
She turned.
Quick. No hesitation.
She didn't just turn—she stormed. Straight past him. Her footsteps were fast and angry, each one slapping against the floor with the kind of fury that didn't need words.
But she gave him words anyway.
And they nearly knocked him over.
"I HAVE MY PERIOD. LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!"
She shouted it on her way into the bathroom, the words echoing behind her like a hex, and the en-suite door slammed shut before he could even react.
He stood there.
Staring at the space she'd just vacated.
Mouth open.
And absolutely nothing came out.
His hands were still halfway raised like he might catch an explanation out of the air, but all that greeted him was silence. He blinked. Then again. His brain hadn't even caught up.
Her period?
That's what this had all been about?
Not a crime. Not a betrayal. Not something he'd said or failed to say. Just—
He felt like he'd been walloped with a bookshelf.
And honestly, he had no idea whether to laugh or flee the scene entirely.
He had stared down armed Aurors. He had walked into battle wearing robes soaked in blood and pride. He had endured the kind of shame that didn't wash off with time.
But this?
This was something else entirely.
A furious Hermione Granger on her period?
He whispered the only words that made any sense at all.
"Merlin help me."
Because no amount of roses or apologies or carefully chosen words was going to help him now.
He blinked slowly, once, then again, as if each movement might help process what had just happened. Her words echoed in his skull with the quiet precision of a well-cast curse. There was no blood or fire, no screaming hexes hurled across the room, but he still felt winded. His chest rose with a sharp breath, one he hadn't realised he'd been holding until it clawed its way out of him.
And then he moved.
It wasn't graceful. It wasn't calculated. He turned on his heel and ran like something had been set loose in the hallway behind him. His bare feet smacked against the marble with a rhythm far too loud for the late hour, and the sleeves of his shirt flailed wildly with each panicked stride. The cufflinks were gone. His pride followed soon after.
There was no plan. No clever excuse to preserve his dignity. No smooth line to deliver with a curl of his mouth. He didn't even have a full sentence in his head. All he knew was that he needed reinforcements, and he needed them now.
He burst into the kitchen like a man who had seen the face of Death and decided to make tea about it.
"El—uh—Nelli!" he called out, his voice cracking slightly at the end. It was higher than usual, touched with something between desperation and the early stages of emotional collapse. When the house-elf popped into the room with a quiet snap, he felt the kind of relief usually reserved for soldiers spotting a medic.
"Yes, Master Draco?" Nelli asked, sweet as ever, her large eyes wide and curious as she looked up at him. Her hands were folded neatly over her apron, her expression calm and completely unbothered by the sight of him standing there like a man who had just outrun the apocalypse.
He looked a bit mad. Even he could tell. His hair was sticking up on one side where he'd dragged his fingers through it too many times. His shirt was wrinkled, and he had the distinct air of someone considering hiding under the sink.
"I—fuck," he muttered, mostly to himself, dragging a hand down his face before trying again. "Hermione—Mrs Malfoy—is, um. Bleeding."
Nelli blinked once.
He winced immediately. "I mean, not bleeding bleeding. She's on her—her moon time, her cycle, you know, the—the thing. Her period. Merlin's teeth, this is mortifying. She's furious and I don't know what to do."
There. It was out. Humiliating and messy and louder than he would've liked, but at least he'd said it.
And Nelli, the glorious little creature, didn't laugh. She didn't flinch. She didn't even look surprised.
"Oh, that," she said brightly, nodding like he'd just asked her the time. "Nelli understands. Nelli will help."
He stared at her, completely gobsmacked.
"She's had it before?" he asked, as if Hermione was the only witch in Britain with a uterus. "You know what to do?"
Nelli's smile grew just a touch smug, and honestly, he respected it. "Of course, Master. Mrs Malfoy likes her ginger-honey tea when her tummy hurts. Sometimes peppermint. I will bring both. She likes the purple socks with the tiny stars. And she always wants more blankets. Four, usually. Five if it is raining."
Draco stared at her like she was giving him the coordinates to a vault of priceless secrets.
"Chocolate," she added thoughtfully, as if it was the holy grail. "Dark, rich, and two squares at a time. Not one. Not three. Two. And something sweet afterward, like fudge. It helps when she is cross. And Master should not argue with her tonight. Best to speak softly. Avoid metaphors. No teasing."
He nodded, eyes wide, taking mental notes as if his life depended on it.
Which it might.
"Right. Brilliant. I'll get the chocolate," he said, already moving before he finished the sentence. "You do the tea and socks and blanket situation. Go. Please."
As Nelli disappeared with another gentle pop, he turned and flung open the pantry doors, scanning the shelves like a man on a treasure hunt. Jars of spices blurred past his vision. Boxes of pasta were shoved aside. Then, finally, his hand closed around the tin she kept tucked behind the imported tinned peaches.
He pulled out two thick bars of dark chocolate and one neatly wrapped bundle of fudge tied in a pink ribbon. He clutched them like they were sacred relics and let out a long, shaky breath.
It helped, just a little.
He stood there a moment longer, letting the quiet settle over him. His pulse had slowed. The panic was still lingering, but it no longer felt like it was going to strangle him. In the stillness of the pantry, he allowed himself a single thought.
He had survived worse.
He had stood in the courtrooms of the Wizengamot, had faced interrogations with blood on his cuffs and regret in his mouth. He had lied to his father, protected secrets he wasn't proud of, and walked through the aftermath of a war that nearly broke him.
But this?
This was what terrified him.
Hermione. Her silence. Her fury. Her pain.
And the fact that he hadn't known how to help her until a house-elf had told him.
He looked down at the chocolate in his hands.
This was the battlefield now.
Tea. Blankets. Fudge. Thirty-one roses still sitting quietly on the counter, petals just starting to open.
And her. Upstairs. Needing him to get it right, even if she'd never say it.
If he made it through the night without getting hexed or weeping into a pillow, he was going to consider it a resounding success.
About an hour later, after far too much pacing and second-guessing, Draco found himself hovering outside her bedroom door, holding his breath like a schoolboy about to sit for exams. His heart was beating too loudly for how quiet the house had gone, and his stomach was doing that awful, twisting thing that usually only happened before a duel or just after saying something he couldn't take back.
The roses were still on the kitchen counter. He'd meant to bring them, but they had somehow lost their charm after everything else. They had felt important earlier—romantic, thoughtful, a gesture with meaning—but now they just looked like flowers. What he carried in his hands felt more important. More useful. Actual care instead of the idea of it.
On the tray balanced carefully in his grip was a steaming cup of ginger-honey tea, the scent curling upward in soft waves like it was trying to make peace on his behalf. Next to it sat a pile of dark chocolate and little squares of honey fudge, all arranged neatly beside a folded blanket that might have cost more than some people's entire wardrobes. In his pocket, he had a small glass vial of pain-relief potion, the exact kind she preferred, confirmed three times with Nelli.
He tapped his knuckles lightly on the door. No theatrics this time. Just a soft knock and a silent prayer that she wouldn't throw something at him.
A pause followed. Then came her voice, muffled and hoarse, with a sharp edge that didn't bother softening itself. "Go away."
He closed his eyes for a moment and rested his forehead against the door, exhaling through his nose. This was already going better than expected.
"I'm not leaving," he said, keeping his voice quiet and steady. "I brought things. Good things."
No reply. Just silence. That tense, uncomfortable kind that built up behind locked doors and bad moods. He tested the handle anyway. To his surprise, it wasn't locked. That felt like an invitation, or at least not a rejection, so he took it.
The room was dim. The light from the lamp on the nightstand was soft and low, casting sleepy gold shadows along the walls. The air smelled like lavender and old pages. The quiet settled thick around everything, wrapping the space in the kind of stillness that only came with pain and exhaustion.
Hermione was curled under a mountain of blankets, a single shape in the centre of a bed too big for one person. Her hair looked wild, not in the usual way that made him pause and admire it, but chaotic and tired. Her skin was pale. Her expression was pinched and drawn, her mouth tight as if she'd run out of ways to hide how awful she felt.
She turned her head just enough to see him. "What are you doing?"
The question came out scratchy and weak. Suspicious, too.
He moved carefully, like he was trying not to wake something dangerous. "I brought tea," he said, voice gentler than usual. "And chocolate. And your blanket. The soft one. Nelli said you'd want it."
He set the tray down on the bedside table. No loud sounds. No sudden movements. Just quiet gestures.
Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out the potion, holding it between them. "And this. For the cramps. Nelli said it's the one you like."
Hermione stared at him like he was a strange painting she couldn't quite make sense of. Her eyes flicked from the tea to the fudge to the blanket to the potion. Then finally to his face. The sharpness in her expression softened, only slightly, but it was enough to make his chest loosen just a little.
"You did all that?" Her voice was still quiet, but it had lost the bite from earlier. There was something closer to disbelief now.
He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes dropping to the edge of the bed. "I didn't know what else to do," he said quietly. "You scared the hell out of me earlier. And I didn't want to just sit around useless while you hated me."
That got a twitch of her mouth. Not quite a smile, but a movement.
She reached for the tea first. Her fingers brushed his when she picked it up, and the contact was brief, but it made something shift in him. Some strange, sharp little ache that he didn't have a name for yet.
"Thank you," she said, so softly he barely caught it.
He sat on the edge of the bed, giving her space but not walking away. She took a careful sip, then another. He watched the lines in her forehead smooth slightly, the way her shoulders relaxed just a touch.
"Please take the potion too," he said. His voice was low. Not just quiet, but warm. "You'll feel better. I promise."
She mumbled something he couldn't quite hear and shifted deeper into the blankets, her hand poking out lazily. "Can't reach it."
Of course she couldn't.
He smiled a little, tired and fond, then leaned closer and brushed a few curls off her forehead. "Alright, sweetheart. Here." He uncorked the vial, tipped it to her lips, and held it steady while she drank.
She made a face at the taste, wrinkled her nose, and sank straight back into the pillows like her entire body had given up the fight.
Draco sat back slowly, the mattress shifting under his weight. He didn't sigh for show. It was just a quiet breath, one of those small, steady exhales that sneak out when you finally stop bracing for the next impact. His eyes stayed fixed on her, watching carefully for some sign that the worst had passed. And then, almost shyly, he saw it.
Her brow smoothed. The tension in her mouth eased. Her shoulders dropped just the slightest bit as she breathed in, softer than before, like her body had finally been granted permission to stop fighting.
He smiled. Not because it was expected. Just because he couldn't help it.
"Good girl," he murmured, barely above a whisper. His thumb grazed the edge of her hairline for a heartbeat before he pulled back, uncertain if staying too close would undo the quiet they'd managed to reach.
Hermione made a quiet noise in her throat. Her eyes cracked open just enough to shoot him a flat, unimpressed look. "You don't have to be nice to me, Malfoy," she muttered, the irritation in her voice softened by exhaustion. "I'm not in the mood for your charm."
That got a laugh out of him, low and warm and unexpectedly fond. He shifted on the bed beside her, elbow propped, the sharp gleam in his eyes dulled by something gentler.
"I'm not charming you," he said, completely deadpan. "I'm trying to stay alive through the night without getting hexed in my sleep."
She didn't answer right away. Just gave him a look. But her mouth twitched. Barely. The corner lifted the smallest bit as she pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders.
Draco stayed where he was, sitting beside her on the bed with a tray of tea and chocolate and a single whispered compliment hanging in the air like a ribbon. Somewhere in the quiet, something shifted in his chest. He'd spent a lifetime chasing control. Now, sitting here with her, all he wanted was this. Something small. Something earned.
He let his body relax into the bed, his legs folding a little more comfortably beneath him as he rested on one elbow beside her. The rustle of the blankets filled the silence for a moment, the quiet kind that didn't feel awkward anymore.
"What else helps?" he asked. His voice dropped lower. Not in volume, just in weight. It sounded less like a question and more like a genuine offer. Like he was ready to be told what to do next, even if it made no sense to him.
Hermione hesitated. The question hung between them for longer than it should have. She looked away first, chewing lightly on her bottom lip before answering. Her voice came out hesitant, barely there.
"I have movies," she said. "Somewhere."
He blinked at her.
She gestured vaguely toward the cluttered corner of the room, where a tangled mess of cords and books half-buried a small, awkward-looking black machine. The DVD player sat there quietly, unassuming and forgotten.
"Movies?" he repeated, clearly confused. He said the word slowly, like it might be dangerous.
She smiled faintly, but it was the tired kind. Not amused, not really. Just… resigned. "They're Muggle things. Little discs with moving pictures. You put one in the player, and it tells you a story. No magic. Just... watching. It's something people do when they feel like crap."
He frowned like she was speaking a different language. Which, to be fair, she might as well have been.
"So they're like plays?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Sort of. But on a screen. They don't need actors every time. It's all recorded. You just sit there and let it happen."
He looked over at the black box again, eyes narrowed slightly.
"Alright. Which one do you like?" His voice was cautious but open. He was trying. She saw that.
But she shook her head, frustration already building at the edges. "It doesn't matter. The player's not working. The batteries are dead." Her voice dipped a little lower. "So I can't watch anything."
Draco turned his head slowly. He looked at her like she'd just told him the world had ended. "Batteries," he repeated, slowly, dragging the word out like it was some new kind of dark magic.
He looked over at the DVD player again, then back at her. Her face said this was the end of that idea. That this small comfort she had tried to reach for was already out of reach. And that did not sit right with him.
It wasn't even about the machine. Not really. It was the way her voice sounded when she said she couldn't. That small, defeated note was louder than anything else.
"That's alright," he said, maybe a bit too fast. "I can fix it. I can figure it out."
Hermione blinked at him. She looked like she wasn't sure whether to laugh or argue.
"You don't have to do that," she said. Her voice was gentle now. Not because she didn't want it, but because she was trying to give him an out. "It's fine. Really."
But Draco had never been good at taking the easy exit. His back straightened slightly. His jaw set in that very particular way it always did when he decided something was going to happen, whether the universe liked it or not.
"No," he said, pointing vaguely at the shelf. "I'll go to that Muggle shop. The one with… all the things. What's it called? The market."
The word sat awkwardly in his mouth, but he didn't seem to care. He was already halfway to his feet.
"I'll get you batteries," he said, nodding to himself more than to her. "For the disc player. Whatever kind it needs. I'll figure it out."
She looked at him with an expression caught between disbelief and a strange, reluctant kind of affection.
"You don't even know what size they are," she said softly.
He ignored her, already reaching for his wand, already brushing crumbs off his trousers like he was preparing for a full mission briefing.
"Just wait here," he called back over his shoulder, his tone brisk, determined, a little too serious for what this was. "I'll be back in no time."
And then, without warning, he vanished. A loud crack echoed through the room, the kind that left behind a gust of air and the smell of magic still clinging faintly to the sheets.
Hermione blinked at the space where he'd stood.
Then, slowly, her mouth curled into a smile she couldn't suppress if she tried. "Merlin help the cashier," she whispered to no one, and reached for another square of chocolate as she waited for the inevitable disaster—and his triumphant return.
Draco's arrival in London was a disaster before he even finished apparating.
The second his boots touched the wet pavement, a freezing gust of wind smacked him straight in the face. His coat, of course, was still at home. His plan, if it could even be called that, had fallen apart somewhere between "batteries" and "what the fuck is a DVD player." And now he stood in the middle of some Muggle high street looking like a slightly confused luxury brand ambassador who'd taken a wrong turn on the runway.
He glared at the nearest streetlamp as if it were mocking him.
Fantastic.
Pulling his shoulders back, he took a long, steady breath through his nose. "I am Draco Malfoy," he muttered under his breath. "I have lived through war, disgrace, and the sight of Hermione Granger completely naked and furious at the same time. I am not going to be defeated by a battery."
A glowing sign caught his eye across the street. It blared the word "Supermarket" in offensively large neon letters. He squinted at it like it had personally insulted him, then squared his shoulders.
That had to be it. Supermarket. Batteries were... items. Muggles bought items. This was where Muggles gathered to do their shopping and whatever else they did in these cursed places.
He walked in with all the confidence of someone pretending they hadn't just stepped into absolute chaos.
The moment the sliding doors whooshed open, the sound hit him like a hex. Some kind of synthetic music blared from invisible speakers overhead, chirpy and horrifying, something about butts or bread—he couldn't quite tell. Trolleys clattered across the tile like stampeding furniture. Children screamed in one direction, a man was coughing aggressively in another, and someone with blue hair appeared to be yelling into a small glowing rectangle.
He froze just past the threshold, blinking under the headache-inducing lights.
This place was deranged.
For a brief moment, he considered turning around and going home. Hermione would understand. Eventually. Possibly after three hours of passive-aggressive silence. Maybe four.
But he didn't leave. He took one cautious step forward. Then another.
Rows of unfamiliar things stretched out in every direction. Plastic packages, cartoon mascots, jars with smiling faces and labels that looked more like advertisements than ingredients. He passed something called "Lunchables" and a towering wall of crisps, then turned down another aisle only to be confronted with what appeared to be an entire section devoted to "air fresheners" in smells that absolutely did not occur in nature.
"Why does this one say Ocean Breeze?" he muttered to himself, picking up a bright blue bottle. "The ocean smells like seaweed and fish guts, not lavender-infused arsehole."
By the time he stumbled into the electronics aisle, he was convinced the entire shop was some kind of psychological test designed to break him.
Then he saw it.
The batteries.
Success. At last. He almost smiled.
Until he stepped closer.
There were dozens of them. Possibly hundreds. Each pack bore a different combination of numbers and letters—AA, AAA, C, D, 9V, CR-whatever-the-fuck—and all of them looked exactly the same. Tiny metallic rectangles. Some round. Some long. All of them smug.
He picked up a pack labeled "CR2032" and held it up like it might begin speaking in tongues. "What are you for?" he asked it quietly. "A magical artifact? A door key to the Department of Mysteries?"
No answer.
He grabbed another one. And another. Now he had four or five in his hands, none of which seemed more or less right than the others. Why didn't any of them say For DVD Players? Why didn't Muggles have a chart for this? Why was everything in this world made deliberately to humiliate him?
A low voice in his head whispered that Hermione had probably known exactly which one to get. She always knew things like that. She would have walked straight in, found the right aisle in thirty seconds, and been back home under a blanket before he'd even figured out where the entrance was.
"Right," he muttered, staring down at the pile of batteries in his hands like they were mocking him. "Brilliant. This is fine. I'll just bring them all back and let her sort it out."
At that moment, a woman turned into the aisle and stopped.
She looked about sixty, her grey hair pulled back into a neat bun. She wore a beige coat and sensible shoes, and she carried a basket filled with tins of soup and digestive biscuits. The kind of woman who probably played bridge on Sundays and judged people silently in queues.
She took one look at Draco—tall, pale, clearly rich, clearly lost, and holding half the battery section like he was about to cry—and smiled in that deeply maternal way that only people over a certain age could pull off.
"First time in Tesco, love?" she asked kindly.
Draco blinked. He could feel his pride dying in real time. "Is it that obvious?"
"Oh, don't worry," she said, stepping closer. "Everyone looks like that the first time. You just keep breathing. You'll find what you're after eventually."
She patted his arm as she passed, leaving behind a faint scent of roses and peppermint.
And somehow, that was worse than any insult.
Swallowing his pride like it was dipped in vinegar, Draco sighed through his nose and reached out to tap the shoulder of the nearest likely candidate—a woman who looked Muggle enough to understand their cursed little machines, but not so unapproachable that she'd scream if touched by someone wearing boots worth more than her monthly rent.
"Excuse me," he said, his tone the kind that usually got people to apologise for breathing too loudly in his presence. "Terribly sorry to bother you, but I'm in search of batteries. For a DVD player, apparently."
The woman turned with a slow smile that should have come with a warning. Her eyes lit up like she'd just won the lottery, or at the very least spotted someone worth undressing with her entire face. Which she proceeded to do. Thoroughly.
"Oh, don't worry, love. You can bother me anytime," she purred, with the kind of wink that probably worked better in smoky pubs and poor lighting. She reached for a pack of AA batteries, holding them out like a gift from the gods. Her fingers brushed his. Not by accident.
Draco stared at her like she'd just licked him.
He took the pack with two fingers, the way one might pick up a used handkerchief. "Thank you," he said, voice clipped and polite enough to draw blood. "That's very helpful. And I must say, your perfume is... incredibly persistent. It's doing battle with the overhead speakers and winning."
Her smile twitched but held. "You've got that look about you," she said. "All posh and lost. You don't come here often, do you? Need help finding anything else, gorgeous?"
He gave her a look so dry it could sand wood. "Flattered," he said, clearly not. "But I've already met my daily quota for unsolicited flirtation and cosmetic misfires."
Her brow lifted. "Excuse me?"
"No, no," he said with mock gentleness, "I'm sure it's very... artistic. The foundation-to-neckline contrast alone is bold. Brave, even."
She blinked, stunned into silence.
"My wife, incidentally," he added, slipping the batteries into his basket with surgical precision, "is stunning, lethal, and currently bleeding like a battle casualty. So unless you're also equipped with ibuprofen and a PhD in keeping your hands to yourself, I'd recommend standing down."
The woman's jaw worked for a second, but nothing came out.
Draco gave her a razor-thin smile. "Truly. Thank you for your help. I'm sure someone out there appreciates your tenacity. Possibly a man with damaged eyesight and no sense of smell. Best of luck locating him."
He turned with a grace that belonged in a ballroom, not a poorly lit aisle between children's vitamins and discount shampoo, and strode toward the register like it might explode behind him.
As he dropped the pack on the conveyor belt, he muttered, "She flirted like she was auditioning for a low-budget dating show. I've fought Dementors with better pickup lines."
The cashier raised an eyebrow. Draco ignored it. He handed over the notes with the expression of a man forced to fund his own humiliation.
Bag in hand, mouth tight, he headed for the exit and whispered, "She had the audacity to touch me. With fingernails painted like melted crayons."
And then, with a crack loud enough to startle a nearby toddler, Draco vanished back into the night—batteries secured, dignity in shreds, and absolutely no patience left for Muggles or their mating rituals.
Hermione had better be waiting with a blanket and a knighthood. Because this? This was war.
· ─ ·ʚɞ· ─ · ·
By the time he finally apparated back to the manor, the familiar crunch of gravel under his boots did something strange to his chest. It settled him. Not entirely, but enough to remind him that magic still worked here, that reality had texture again, and that at least one place in the world still made a scrap of sense. His hair was a mess. His boots were damp. His pride had been dragged through the mud, flirted with by someone who smelled like fruit-scented regret, and somehow survived the ordeal. And yet, there he stood, a plastic blister-pack clutched triumphantly in his hand like a knight returning from battle.
He paused at the front door. For once, he didn't fling it open or call out something smug across the halls. Instead, he moved quietly. His fingers curled around the knob. He pushed it open with a sort of careful reverence, like the moment might break if he wasn't gentle enough.
Upstairs, her door was cracked open. Light spilled out in a faint golden line across the floor, warm and quiet. His footsteps softened as he neared, his usual arrogance tucked away in the pocket of his coat, replaced by something smaller. Something real. He tapped once on the doorframe. No theatrics. Just a small knock, like a question.
Inside, the room was nearly unchanged. She was still tucked under a pile of blankets, her cheeks flushed and her hair a halo of frizzed curls against the pillow. Her eyes opened, slow and heavy, then blinked as they landed on the sight of him—damp, ruffled, and holding out the prize like a magician revealing the final trick.
"You actually did it?" she asked, one brow rising, her voice dry and curious, the tiniest thread of admiration curling at the edges.
Draco held the batteries aloft and gave a half-bow. "Of course I did," he said with a crooked smile that barely concealed how proud of himself he really was. "I told you I'd fix it. And I did. Even though your contraption runs on something that might as well be powered by chaos and blackmail."
He crouched beside the shelf where the DVD player sulked in its cluttered nest of cords. The thing stared back at him with its blinking red light, unimpressed by his journey.
Hermione didn't sit up yet. She sipped from her mug with a little smirk. "You don't know how it works, do you?"
He didn't answer right away. Instead, he picked up the remote, looked it over, and promptly began pressing buttons at random. Volume. Eject. Source. At one point the television went blue. Then black. Then back to blinking red. His jaw twitched.
"I can figure it out," he muttered, flipping the remote upside down as though the batteries might load themselves out of sympathy.
She said nothing. Just watched him from the bed, her grin growing wider the longer he fumbled.
Eventually he discovered the battery compartment, pried it open with a muttered curse, and shoved the AA pair into place with something dangerously close to vengeance. The screen lit up. The device hummed. And the menu appeared, perfectly functional.
He stood like a man who had just rebuilt civilization with his bare hands.
"There. Fixed," he declared, brushing imaginary dust from his trousers. "Turns out I'm brilliant."
Hermione looked at him over the rim of her mug, eyes sparkling. "Well done, Malfoy. You're practically a Muggle now."
He looked appalled. "Absolutely not," he said, handing her the remote as though it might still infect him. "I didn't survive the perfume aisle just to be accused of assimilation. Let it be known I did this for you and only you."
She was still smiling when he turned to go, but before he could reach the door, he paused. His back straightened. His hands went rigid at his sides. And then, slowly, he turned.
"I need to confess something," he said, and the tone alone made Hermione bury her face in the blankets.
"Merlin, what now?" she groaned.
He began pacing at the foot of the bed like a man preparing to defend himself before the Wizengamot.
"There was a woman," he began, his voice grave. "She was horrifying. Unholy. She flirted with me. While I was holding batteries."
Hermione cracked one eye open. "Oh no. Not batteries."
"Do not mock me," he snapped. "She looked at me like I was some tragic hero in a Muggle aftershave commercial. I was cornered."
"Did you flirt back?" Hermione asked, suspicious but amused.
Draco looked personally offended. "Never. I was stoic. I was cold. I told her, very politely, that my wife was far more attractive and far less scented like petrol and desperation."
Hermione started laughing. "You didn't."
"I did," he insisted. "I may have also made a comment about her lip liner attempting a jailbreak."
Her laughter doubled. She rolled onto her side to look at him fully now, eyes shining. "You're absolutely ridiculous."
He paused, looking strangely vulnerable for a moment. "You know I'd never… not even for a second. Right?"
"I know," she said, softer now.
"I would rather be hexed," he added.
"I believe you."
Draco exhaled. The tension drained from his shoulders as he climbed onto the bed beside her, careful not to knock the remote. He leaned back against the headboard, watching as she navigated through the DVD menu like she'd done it a thousand times before.
"What now?" he asked. "What cinematic masterpiece shall we enjoy after our emotional pilgrimage to Tesco?"
She smirked. "Something comforting."
The movie started, full of too much singing and not enough logic for his taste, but Draco stayed put. Shoulders barely brushing. Her hand resting on her stomach. His fingers twitching, almost touching hers but not quite. The screen glowed.
And in the hush of the room, with music playing softly and no emergencies left to fix, Draco Malfoy let himself breathe. Not out of relief. Not out of duty. But because for once, he was exactly where he wanted to be.
As the film unfolded across the screen, filled with absurd music and an even more absurd plot, Draco found himself less irritated than he'd expected. He still didn't understand why anyone would choose to sing their feelings instead of just saying them. The plot made very little sense, and he was fairly certain the laws of physics had been ignored entirely by the third scene. But he didn't mind. Because beside him, Hermione had started to settle. Her head dipped gently toward him, shoulders softening under the weight of the blankets. At some point, her hand brushed against his. She didn't pull away.
Neither did he.
He still didn't understand the appeal of Muggle films. He had no interest in the characters, no emotional investment in their chaotic storylines, no patience for the singing. But the way her forehead smoothed out, the way her lips lifted when something ridiculous happened, the way she forgot to be tense for a while—that made sense to him. That was something he could care about.
And as the light from the screen danced across her face and the quiet whir of the batteries hummed from the remote, Draco felt something unexpected settle in his chest. It was a strange kind of certainty, like a weight he hadn't realized he'd been carrying had shifted. It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't loud. It was just there.
He had done something right.
And for once, that was enough.
Draco sat at the edge of the bed, spine too straight, like he didn't quite know how to sit in a room where everything was soft. His arms rested awkwardly over his thighs as he stared at the screen with an expression halfway between confusion and reluctant focus. Some small, loud, impossibly blue creature was now wreaking havoc on a tropical island, its enormous ears flapping around as it shouted about something called Ohana.
He didn't know what Ohana was, but the swelling music and emotional close-ups suggested it was deeply meaningful. Probably some sacred Muggle nonsense about connection. Family, maybe. Or friendship. Or both. It was hard to tell with the crying.
Still, the blue creature amused him more than he wanted to admit. Its twitchy movements and strange guttural screeches reminded him vaguely of a French bulldog hopped up on sugar. Draco had always liked Frenchies. Something about their permanently offended expressions and the way they waddled around like disapproving noblemen turned into house pets. This animated alien had that same charm. Small. Angry. Confused. Loud.
But that wasn't what he kept watching.
He turned his head slightly, just enough to glance across the bed, and found himself smiling before he could stop it. Hermione had managed to wrap herself in nearly every blanket on the bed. The cocoon she had built looked professionally constructed. Only the smallest bit of her nose and the wild halo of curls sticking out from the top gave away her position. Her face was barely visible. Her breathing was soft and steady. Somewhere beneath that blanket fortress, she was asleep.
He hadn't even noticed her drifting off.
Her mouth had gone slack in a way that should've been unattractive but somehow wasn't. She was snoring now, just a little, the quiet kind that curled at the edges of a moment without ruining it. The tension that had been coiled in her shoulders earlier was gone. And for the first time all day, his own chest began to ease.
Draco let out a slow breath. It was the kind of exhale that felt earned.
He leaned back carefully, easing into the headboard like the world might fall apart if he moved too quickly. His arms folded across his chest. One ankle slid over the other. His eyes flicked between the ridiculous cartoon playing out in front of him and the faint rise and fall of the blankets beside him. There was nothing extraordinary about this moment. Nothing cinematic or dramatic. But it felt real. Like something he might hold onto later, long after the batteries were dead and the remote was lost between the sofa cushions.
She was asleep. She was warm. She hadn't hexed him in hours. And she had let herself drift off here, in his bed, wrapped in his blankets, with him beside her.
It shouldn't have meant something.
But it did.
He let himself feel proud, quietly and without ceremony. It wasn't the kind of pride that came from triumph or victory or proving someone wrong. It was gentler than that. It came from knowing he had done something right, even if it was small and ordinary, even if it had meant walking into a Muggle shop and pretending to understand a world that wasn't built for him.
He looked at her again and felt his smile shift, soften. Her cheeks had color again, the faintest trace of pink that made her look alive in a way she hadn't that morning. Her curls were an absolute disaster, spilling across the pillow in every direction, frizzed and tangled, an unruly halo that looked like it had survived a storm. He thought she looked perfect.
He knew, somewhere in the rational part of his mind, that he must have looked ridiculous. Sitting there in the dark, watching a children's movie about a blue alien and a little girl, his eyes fixed far too long on the woman sleeping beside him. He knew what it would look like to anyone else. A man who had lost all dignity, completely at the mercy of someone else's quiet. And yet, he didn't care. Not at all. Because there was something about seeing her like this—unguarded, peaceful, stripped of the fire she carried into every argument—that undid him. It made his chest ache in a way that wasn't painful, but close enough to it that he could tell the difference didn't matter.
He glanced back at the screen just as the small blue creature curled beside the girl, muttering about Ohana, about not leaving anyone behind. He didn't understand the story, not really, but that line hit him harder than it should have. It settled in his chest, heavy and certain. He didn't know what the film was meant to teach, but sitting here beside Hermione Granger, he thought maybe it had done its job.
If someone had told him years ago that this would be his life—this quiet room, this ridiculous movie, this woman asleep beside him—he would have laughed himself breathless. He would have mocked the idea. He would have sneered at it, dismissed it as sentimental rubbish. And yet here he was, sitting in a bed that smelled faintly of her shampoo and tea, watching her chest rise and fall beneath a mountain of blankets while a cartoon alien spoke of family. Somehow, impossibly, it felt right.
His thoughts drifted slowly, like smoke curling through a half-open window. They wandered without purpose, moving through the quiet and into places he didn't usually let himself go. The light from the screen flickered across her face, washing her in soft color, and he watched her the way someone watches something fragile. Her lashes rested against her skin. Her mouth was slightly parted. A curl of hair brushed the side of her neck. The alien's voice became nothing more than a low hum in the background, the sound fading into the rhythm of her breathing.
He hadn't meant to think about the past, but his mind went there anyway. To the younger versions of them. To words that still echoed sometimes when the house was too quiet. Ugly. Plain. Mudblood. He had said all of them. He had thrown those words like knives, sharp and reckless, desperate to wound before she could ever see how much power she had over him. He'd wanted to hate her because hating her was easier than admitting he saw her. Because it wasn't her blood that had frightened him—it was her brilliance. Her certainty. The way she refused to be small.
He remembered the moment he'd first realized she might be extraordinary, though he'd buried it under all the bluster and cruelty that boyhood pride could muster. It hadn't been during a grand duel or a life-threatening battle. It had been during an exam. She'd been hunched over her parchment, sleeves pushed to her elbows, hair escaping from her braid as she wrote furiously, her quill moving faster than should've been humanly possible. Her brow was furrowed, her lip caught between her teeth, her whole body burning with focus. He'd been staring without meaning to. She'd looked up suddenly, met his eyes, and rolled hers like he was a distraction she didn't have time for. He had hated how warm his face felt after that.
Then came third year. The courtyard. The punch.
He could still hear the sound of it, the quick, solid crack that cut through his laughter and silenced everything around him. His pride had splintered that day, right along with his jaw. She had looked furious and righteous and beautiful, all at once. He had hated her for it. He had hated how much it thrilled him to be seen, truly seen, even for a moment, even in anger.
And now, sitting here years later, with the faintest trace of that ache still lingering somewhere beneath his skin, he could admit the truth that his younger self never could.
That moment had been the start of everything.
He smiled faintly at the memory, small and private. He didn't know what would come next, or what tomorrow would demand from them, but right now, watching her sleep in the glow of a children's movie about family and belonging, he knew this much:
He wasn't going anywhere.
She wasn't just clever. She was electric. There was a brilliance to her that couldn't be dulled, the kind of sharp, unforgiving clarity that cut through everything. He had watched her dismantle arguments with a tilt of her head and a single, well-aimed question. She could reduce entire debates to ash without ever shouting. Back then, he'd resented it, the way she never let him win, the way her mind moved faster than his ever could. But now, now it was all he wanted. That fire. That challenge. The refusal to ever let anything be easy. She was a force, and he had never wanted anything more than to be caught in it.
He looked at her again, the tiny smile pulling at her mouth even in sleep, and something in his chest twisted. She looked young like this. Softer. The worry lines had faded, the tension gone from her jaw. For a moment, he could see the girl she had once been. The one who had stood in the Great Hall and spoken truth like it cost her nothing. He had hated her for that, once. Hated her for being braver than he was. For making him look at himself and see what was missing. That hate had burned away slowly, over years and miles and wounds. What remained in its place was something he couldn't name. Something that frightened him.
She had always been right. She had always been beautiful. And he had always been wrong.
He gave a low laugh under his breath, more air than sound, and sank deeper into the pillows. His arm brushed against hers beneath the blanket. The ridiculousness of it all hit him at once. That he, Draco Malfoy, who once wouldn't touch her desk without casting a cleansing charm, was now her husband. Married to the one person he had spent years scorning. Married to the woman who had undone him without ever meaning to. It was tragic, ironic, perfect.
No one else could have done it. No one else could have reached him like this. She hadn't tried to save him. She hadn't softened herself for him. She had walked into his world exactly as she was and forced him to see her. Really see her. And now he couldn't unsee it.
Maybe that was the point. Maybe she had never been meant to be easy. Maybe she was always meant to set things on fire, to blaze so brightly that everything around her had to shift. Maybe she was meant to burn away everything that had come before, so something new could take its place. He didn't know. All he knew was this: sitting next to her while she slept, he felt something break open in his chest, something old and cold and buried. And what rose in its place felt terrifyingly permanent.
He didn't deserve her. Not in any of the ways that mattered. Not when the masks came off and the names disappeared and only the truth was left. He was made of sharp corners and shadows. He had been raised in rooms where love was a transaction and tenderness was weakness. She had grown into something else. Something bright and relentless and kind. She could walk into a room and change its gravity without saying a word. She was everything he had once feared. And now she was the only thing he wanted.
He didn't deserve her. But that didn't stop him from needing her.
He wanted her with every part of himself that still remembered how to feel. He wanted her with the desperation of a man who had spent too long in the dark. She had given him laughter again. She had made him believe in something softer. And she scared him, because she made him hope. Hope was more dangerous than hate. Hope meant risking something. Hope meant building toward a future. And still, he wanted it.
The television flickered quietly across the room, casting gold and blue shadows over the walls. The film went on without him. He wasn't watching anymore. His gaze stayed on her, as if looking away might undo the moment. As if blinking might break it.
He thought back to how it started, how this strange, impossible thing had unfolded between them. How they had gone from trading insults in the corridors to this quiet, threadbare intimacy. He didn't know when the shift had happened. Maybe it was slow, creeping in like fog. Maybe it had always been there, waiting for them to stop fighting it. He didn't know. All he knew was that this thing between them had never been simple.
He wondered if this was love. He didn't think it was. Or maybe he just wasn't sure. He had no past to measure it against. Love had always been something other people had, something distant and wrapped in softness he didn't understand. He had never been taught how to feel it. He had never seen it done right. So how could he possibly know?
But there was something here. Something that stayed with him even when she wasn't in the room. Something that settled in his chest every time she spoke his name in that voice that only she had. Something that silenced the rest of the world when she touched him. It was real. He just didn't know what to call it yet.
She made him feel things he had spent his entire life trying to avoid. She made him raw. She made him honest. She made him want. He had built himself out of walls and armor, and she had walked in like none of it mattered. She had disarmed him with patience, with wit, with terrifying consistency. And now he wanted to be better, not because he owed her that, but because when she looked at him, he saw a version of himself he wanted to become.
A quiet sound broke the stillness. She shifted beneath the blankets, sighing softly, brow creasing for just a moment before her expression smoothed out again. Her body curled toward him slightly. He stayed perfectly still, barely breathing, afraid to disturb her. There was something about that tiny, unconscious movement that did him in completely.
He loved her like this. Not in grand declarations or desperate confessions, but in the quiet things. The unspoken things. He loved her peace. He loved her softness. He loved the way she had let her guard down just enough to fall asleep beside him, without fear, without armor.
She had no idea how much that meant. And he would never be able to tell her. Not properly. Not yet.
So he watched her. And he stayed still. And he let himself feel it.
Whatever it was.
Without thinking, he bent forward and pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head. Just a whisper of contact, nothing more than a breath across her curls. Her hair smelled like lavender, with something green underneath it, something clean and herbal, and the scent went straight to his chest. It settled there in a way that almost hurt. "Sleep well, love," he said quietly, the words slipping out before he could think better of them. His voice barely registered above the low murmur of the film still flickering in the background.
He pulled the blankets higher, careful not to wake her. His hands moved slowly, tucking the edges under her chin, smoothing the fabric over her shoulders like it was something sacred. He made sure she was warm. He made sure she was comfortable. He made sure she was safe. That last one surprised him more than the rest. It wasn't something he'd ever really known how to give anyone. Not until now.
He shifted back to his side of the bed, inch by inch, not wanting to lose the quiet. Even as he settled against the pillows again, he kept looking at her. He couldn't help it. There was something magnetic about her stillness, about the way sleep softened all her sharp edges and left behind only truth.
He didn't know when the shift had happened. Didn't know when she'd stopped being someone to outwit and started being someone to protect. Someone to want. Someone to keep. But it had happened, slowly and quietly, the way twilight fades into night without anyone noticing the exact moment the sun disappears.
Now he was here, a man who had once believed gentleness wasn't something he was built for, watching over a woman who had never asked him to change, and yet somehow had changed everything.
The blue alien on the screen said something again, soft and familiar now, about Ohana. About choosing family. About not leaving anyone behind. Draco let out a quiet breath, a small laugh caught somewhere between disbelief and something he didn't have a name for. He didn't understand why that line landed so hard. He didn't understand what it meant yet. But for once, not knowing didn't feel like weakness.
For once, it felt like peace.
He let his eyes drift over her one last time before they slipped shut. And as the television played on and the room settled into stillness, Draco let the thought take root without fighting it.
Maybe this life, however strange and twisted and completely off-script, wasn't a punishment.
Maybe this was the beginning of something better.
Maybe it was exactly what he needed.