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"Having fun there?" Draco calls from below, cupping around his mouth just to reach Granger—who's standing on top of a table, just barely tip toeing to hang a streamer of hearts in the small, cupboard-like tea room. Yes, it really does give him a glorious view of her bum.
All things happen at once—Granger sort of tumbles backward in shock, she drops the fluffy pink tissue paper, and she bubbles up a choked noise sounding like a dying animal from the back of her throat.
She snaps her neck so fast to stare at him with those eyes—the ones that can either seethe with hatred (for him, you see) and auspiciously gleam with niceties (for everyone else)—that he's genuinely surprised she doesn't break her neck in the process.
"Malfoy," she grits out between clenched teeth, spitting out his name as though she's tasted something terribly bitter. Her features are pursed into an expression of placid indifference that leave her face resembling three flat lines.
"Good day for you, I assume?" he says with his I'm-trying-to-be-polite-but-really-I-like-torturing-you nod. He gestures to the overzealous attempt at holiday cheer vomited up all over the room in a blob of red, pink, and white. Draco nearly cringes at the mere sight.
Her expression barely sizzles to a cooled, reserved one as she sighs heatedly and continues, "Dreadfully so until I caught a sniff of your putrid cologne as I walked into the office this morning."
He places his hand right over his heart, rightfully so, as he gushes with enthusiasm, "Awe, aren't you just a little something to help me conjure up my Patronus?"
Her jaw tics. And it seems like she's fina-fucking-lly had enough because she lets out a little indignant stomp of her kitten heel and says, "Get lost, Malfoy."
"I am getting lost—" he starts with a soft, dulcet sigh, "—in your eyes."
"I wish," she starts with a scoff, levitating the streamer back up to fix the crumpled up shapes.
"Oh?" he prompts, perching his chin above his fist as he watches her pluck out her wand and just use a sticking charm to have the hearts now hover and bless everyone on Level 2 with the glorious gift of being disgustingly in love. A slow warmth unfurls in his chest at the sight of her mending the torn hearts and—
And leave it to Granger to try to decorate the Ministry's bland—and perfectly capable of being professionally—beige and cream walls with a gaudy show. There were those santa on a sleigh origami things she conjured and made flap around the office. And how could he even forget those talking jack-o-lanterns that she put enough effort into that made her smell like pumpkin sludge for three weeks following. And now—these hearts.
Draco might be sick at the sight of this ostentatious attempt of celebrating Valentine's Day.
She sweetly smiles at him from above, adjusting those glasses of hers lest it fell off from the sheer angle that she was looking down on him at. "Better yet, how about you drown in them."
—
"Drunk already?" he asks, slipping into the stool beside her. "I'd imagine after watching half-past-sloshed Weasley perform that little soliloquy paired with that little Irish jig in the middle of the dance floor, most people resort to drowning in a cocktail or bleaching their eyes. I see you've chosen the former."
Granger looks up from her tumbler and gives a half-hearted smile at him before positioning herself back to face downward. She offers, "It's ginger ale."
"Ah," he hums slightly, casting his gaze to roam her body. She's wearing a long-sleeve sapphire lace dress, her hair up in a tight bushy ponytail away from her face.
"I hate Valentine's Day," she suddenly sort of yells at him.
He jumps because he's absolutely scared of her tone. "You—you were hanging up hearts in the Ministry yesterday, Granger."
"I know." She faces him fully and he sees her big brown eyes widen in angst. "Because that's what people expect of me. Hermione Granger, the decorator. It rhymes and everything." He stifles a laugh, and her returning glare seeps of loathing. "Don't you ever just want to do something completely unexpected? Like, start a milk business or wander the streets of Germany?"
Draco leans in to scan over her face. "Are you sure you're not drunk?"
She cranes her neck to hold her head in her hands. "Sober as a judge."
"Milk business, Granger?" He makes a clucking sound from his mouth, letting out a low whistle. "That's. . . adventurous."
"I just want to do something for me," she whinges in her prissy tone, chewing on the end of her stirring stick.
"Then just do it and stop complaining about it already." His eyes roll to the back of his head as he clunks an ice cube from his drink into his mouth. She snaps her neck up and leers at him. He shifts in his seat uncomfortably.
"You know what. You're right."
"Sorry, could you repeat that? I want it completely in my memory for Pensieve purposes."
"You're right. And I am going to do it."
He swirls on the ice and pats her on the back. "That's the spirit, Granger."
Granger pops the red stirring rod out of her mouth and leans in toward him conspiringly, as if she's a gossiping school girl about to tell him a raunchy secret, "You're right, and we should have sex."
He chokes on the ice cube he's been rolling around his mouth. And then she quickly snaps back to an adequate distance and offers him her napkin, to which he ignores and just slips out his own monogrammed handkerchief to wipe over his chin.
Draco hasn't been flabbergasted by a woman in a while—girls when he was a randy teen, yes, but woman as a self-serving confident man, no. And then Granger gets him all hot and bothered and stuttering like a fifteen-year-old who barely knows the difference between his right hand and a good shag. She just walks—no, saunters—into his life for the second time with a penchant for organising weird fancy sock-themed shindigs between the Wizengamot and the Auror department and re-shelving every book in Potter and his shared office to be in alphabetical order, with a damned colour code to go with it, and he's sort of bothered by it.
Now—now, she's propositioning him to have sex. With her. While she's completely sober and sort of grimacing tightly at him—like she's just finally realised the consequences of her actions.
"With—with me?" he stumbles out in a deep, gruff tenor on the verge of cracking.
"I mean, yeah." Granger pauses and sips slowly on her drink, drawing out the sticky tension between them. "Logically, we should've done this a while ago."
He's shaken to the core—no, like, actually shaken because his hands are quivering as he takes a hold of his slippery glass and downs another whiskey. He watches her eyes drop down to the amber-coloured liquid slipping down his lips.
Draco clarifies once again, more for his sake than hers, "We should have?"
Her head is now bobbing vigorously up and down. "We have this natural rapport that I'd imagine makes for a good roll between the sheets."
His cheeks blaze up as he rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. Quickly scoping, he assures himself that no one else is listening to this witch spew out the most absurd thoughts that he's surely never ever brazenly thought about after one of their arguments when her cheeks were flushed fuchsia pink and the sweat on his palms were so much more than just a—
"So, what do you say?" she pulls him back with a quirky smile.
There's something lurking behind those copper eyes of hers other than genuine intentions but—but he's mildly okay with it. And then he catches a glimpse of her itching at the heel of her palm—one of those things he's picked up from years of watching her—and he just knows she's just as nervous as him. The anxiety is palpable at this point, but so is the heat radiating off of them. Let's just say the back of his neck isn't a luscious scarlet just from the alcohol.
Draco smooths down the collar of his shirt and tugs slightly at the lapels. "I say may destiny lead the way."
Her returning full-blown smile is victorious. And her hand goes out to lace their fingers together, leaving him completely and utterly astonished at the guts of this girl—
"Wait, now?"
"Yes, now."
—
Roughly three minutes after he lays in her lavender-smelling and barely-tinted pink sheets while starting at the little crack in her ceiling, his body drenched in a slight sheen of sweat and his previously moussed hair just limp on his sticky forehead, Draco comes to a conclusion that's been simmering in his mind for a while—
They really should've done this a while ago.
He voices this; she concurs—right before she snores.
There's a lot of things Draco learns from experience in life rather than bookish knowledge. He's one of those 'burn your hands and learn' sort of people. Hates authority, hates orders, and more often than not, hates anything that isn't decided rightfully by him—though a good coercing has had the habit of convincing him pretty well.
And one thing he can add to his learnt not taught bucket is being drowned in Hermione Granger. How she talks like velvet, her hot breath right up against his ear. And how she tastes like ambrosia, her soft scent seeping into him completely. And how she feels like satin, her smooth skin right beneath his calloused fingertips.
She's got a sense of humour—he learns from the way he accidentally shoved her really hard into her headboard and she bursts out into a dying-choking-sort-of laugh. And she's gorgeous—not that he's thought about it more than once, no way, no. And she's kind of nice, he guesses—if you ignore her little vengeful streak that has him more scared for his bollocks than himself. It's endearing that he gets to observe her at such a fine, microscopic level—and that she lets him. Now that he's seen the world and more just from Granger, Draco really has nothing he needs to quench that's worth ten-fold of this shiny new experience.
So, really, he has no honest reason why he sneaks out of her flat—shoes in hand and coat slipped between his fingers—before she wakes up in the morning.
—
For Granger's next sock soiree for the office, he gets an hand-written, messily-scrawled invite. It seems as though she contemplated even sending it in the first place, ending with a scratched out 'Malfoy' to insert a 'Draco' instead.
First names have always been a sign of respect for Draco. He guesses after respecting the hell out of each other, a good three times might he add, they could technically be on a first name basis.
Leave it to Granger to loop her alphabets in a script version that either makes Draco want to gouge his eyes out with a letter opener or nicely save it in a box full of memories. After staring at the script on his desk with a blank stare for about four minutes, he's just about to crumple it up and throw it with a pile of rubbish when—
His precious partner Potter saunters—once again, not walks—in, makes the connection between the letter in his hand and his ready fist, and immediately scowls.
"No," he simply says, his voice a steady wave of everything Draco despises—authority. Potter reeks of it.
"What the hell do you mean 'no'?"
"I mean no, you're not throwing it away. You're going."
"I don't want to go to a sock party Potter. It'll ruin my reputation of—"
Potter swiftly cuts in, "What reputation? Mate, you were a wannabe Death Eater at one point in your life. Can't get much lower than that."
He fixes a hard glower at his Auror partner. "I don't have any socks worthy of showing."
"Easily fixed with a quick pop to a shopping centre. I'll take your after—"
"Yes I know, though, I honestly can't compete with Granger's last Merlin socks that had a moving beard and everything." Draco places his hands on the desk and leans forward to whisper, "You think she actually charms those things or do they come with the talking sassy Merlin? Do you reckon she can charm my pair of glasses to compliment myself whenever—"
"Malfoy."
Draco makes a show of rummaging through the pockets of his trousers. He pats them practically dry. "I don't have any money to splurge on socks."
Potter narrows his eyes. "You have four separate villas. One for each season of the year. You bought separate housing for each season because you said your skin couldn't handle extremities in weather."
"Do you know how many bottles of sunscreen I go through, Potter?"
"That's beside the point—what I'm saying is I think you can purchase a pair of socks for yourself. I know for a fact you freed your elves,"—to which Potter takes a second to smirk all-knowingly at Draco, "—with pairs of socks as well."
"Look, I've told you repeatedly not to let Weasley come in and infect this place with his germs." Draco frowns and looks around their musty office. "It seems as though I've gone and caught poverty."
"For Cripes' sake, Malfoy!"
It's safe to say Potter seems slightly agitated. Slightly.
"I have tea scheduled with my mother."
"Your mother's in Prague." Potter takes a slow, careful scope of Draco's features—and the man in question feels like he's burning up from the inside out. "If you try to make excuses, at least make them believable. This is honestly pathetic." He pinches his nose, pushing up his glasses ever-so-slightly. "Look—this is the last thing I want to tell you, lest your ego grows so big that I can barely fit in our cubicle anymore with all the taken up space. But I have it on good authority that she wants you to come."
"Good authority?"
"The best."
"Bullshit."
"Fine. Care to make a little wager?"
The blond narrows his eyes despicably. "Not with you, no."
"Scared, Malfoy?" Potter looks so damn proud that Draco wants to wipe it off his face with the bottom of his shoe. A little bit excessive, he admits, but regardless, necessary.
That's it. Draco growls. "You wish."
—
He's at the sock shindig.
And he feels bloody stupid.
Draco's adorning socks with tiny green worms on them, who are currently slithering their way across his shins. He would've rather had them be snakes, but Potter not-so-kindly informed him that beggars who can't splurge on socks can't be picky choosers. And so, he's scowling. A lot. Into some cranberry-pineapple sangria punch that really should have alcohol in it, but Granger's always been a stickler for following rules—and rules are, no alcohol in office premises.
Potter—with the strawberry socks—is busy flirting with the female Weasley—with the chocolate socks—to whom he's been married to for seven years, yet feels the need to giggle over the salmon and sprout sandwiches like some brand new couple. It's kind of disgusting.
And Granger hasn't looked over in his direction once since he's walked in. Wager that she secretly loves you, his arse. She's too busy smiling at Susan Bones—dinosaur socks—and sipping on her drink. Draco scoffs to himself and shakes his head—because why does he even try—before leaving his goblet of punch on a nearby tall table and preparing to leave the office unnoticed. He's right about to round the corner to meet the lift with thankful eyes when—
"You're leaving," Granger states curtly. "Again."
She's wearing socks with flapping books on them that match the colour of her cream suede skirt. Her calves look phenomenal in them. He blanches, and the smile she gives him sends him soaring.
"I mean, did I pick up on something wrong?" she starts accusing, walking up to him slowly, lecherously. "I thought you liked me. You're the only one who shows up to my office every single day on some excuse,"—to which he his natural response is wanting to curl into a hole and die in embarrassment because she's right, a little bit, "—and you flirt with me, all the time."
"What can I say? I'm naturally congenial."
"Every time you talk to someone beside me, I'm genuinely worried that you might strain a muscle from how hard you're scowling."
He smirks slightly; it's natural. "So, you worry about me, Granger?"
"I hate you." She visibly cringes before saying, "God, I sound like my sixteen-year-old self again. You're making me act this way. So tell me—honestly, did I pick up on something wrong? Because I swear back when I was that age, I read about eighty books on the nature of guys. None of them included this." She gestures with two fingers between them.
"Eighty?" he teases.
"What can I say? I'm naturally voracious."
He doesn't reply, so she starts again—
"You like me." His jaw tics. "And you want me." Another tic. She smirks and—and it fits her. "And I hoped that maybe if I took something I wanted that night that maybe—just maybe—you'd want it, too."
Draco licks his lips twice. And all he can formulate into a proper answer when his mind is spinning that much is, "I didn't want to leave."
He hopes that's enough. It seems as though it is because Granger lets out a small smile, and her eyes flicker down to his socks. "I see Harry gave you my matching pair. I was wondering where those went."
"Bespectacled git," he mutters under his breath, making the connection in his little 'aha!' moment.
"You should probably do something for yourself now. I can help you. I kind of owe you at this point. A favour, you might call it." She shrugs sheepishly. Not-so-innocent Granger looks as though she's about to ravish him.
"Hermione Granger, the favour arranger?" he offers with a slick smile.
She holds a hand over her heart and flutters her eyelashes a couple of times. "It even rhymes and everything."
He feigns exasperation by sighing loudly before offering his arm. "You know what—fine. Fancy a stroll?" She starts to walk toward him and he holds up a hand before saying firmly, "Not in the sun though, my skin hates those type of extremities."