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isthisfriday · 6 months ago

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ao3

The first promise Hermione ever makes to Draco is an innocuous one.

He’s been annoying her all morning: drumming his fingers against his desk; fussing at the tea trolley about being out of cauldron cakes; tapping his quill against parchment in a way that is both highly irritating and also bad for the quill, by the way. They’ve only been working at the Ministry together for three months, still both considered fresh new employees, not yet worthy of any serious projects.

It’s—Well, Hermione’s bored too. If she’s honest.

“Malfoy, I swear, if you just stop making noise for ten minutes, I’ll take you up to the cafe and get you a bloody cauldron cake.”

He shuts up after that, so quiet it’s almost eerie. Hermione finishes reading the report she’s working on (23 mistakes! She’s not sure how any of these so-called ‘managers’ got hired in the first place, truth be told) and puts down her quill.

She tries to forget about Malfoy’s presence, as she always does.

It’s very hard when he’s suddenly looming over her.

“Can I help you, Malfoy?” she asks, not looking up at him. He’s very tall, she’s noticed lately.

“I believe I was promised a cauldron cake.”

Hermione huffs. She was rather hoping he’d forgotten.

“Fine. But we’ve got only got 15 minutes before the meeting with Transportation, so you’d better not dawdle.”

“I don’t dawdle, Granger.” He gives her a smirk.

She gives him a look that she hopes comes off as scathing, and not at all charmed.

They are, in fact, late to the meeting with Transportation.

“Granger, if you send this one owl for me, please…”

The please is tacked on as an afterthought, the sound of it from Malfoy’s mouth unfamiliar in the extreme.

“If I send this owl for you, Malfoy, everyone’s going to get in touch with me about this bloody… shindig.”

“Exactly, Granger.”

She frowns at him. Malfoy had been much less irritating lately, in general, and sometimes she found they actually got along.

“What do I get in return, then?” she asks reluctantly, halfway ready to just send the owl to stop his wheedling.

Malfoy smiles devilishly at her. “What would you like, Granger?”

There are quite a few inappropriate responses she can think of to that question, the way he’s been brushing his hand on her shoulder when he walks past her desk the past few weeks, the figure he cuts in his well-tailored robes. She blushes, and his smile seems to get wider.

“You’ll take Percy’s reports for the next… three weeks,” she says, scrambling for something politic.

“My pleasure.” Not enough of an ask, then.

“…and you can answer every stupid request that gets sent to me for the next week.”

He gives her a confused look. “Do you get many of those?”

She laughs. “Are you serious? Malfoy, I get about five a day. Don’t you?”

“Not a one.” He swings his feet up to the desk, looking at her amused. “You’re not scary enough, Granger. That’s why. I promise that after this week, you’ll never get another stupid request again.”

Hermione purses her lips in disbelief. That’s a big promise.

“I’ll hold you to it, Malfoy.”

---

“For fuck’s sake, Boot, if you come and bother Granger again I’m going to turn you into a Blast-Ended Skrewt and shove you down the lift shaft.”

Hermione smiles behind her cup of tea. Malfoy’s threats had become much more amusing throughout the week, escalating as the array of people who thought she knew everything about everything—which, to be fair, she often did—sent owls, were disappointed, sent more owls, and finally came to visit her when Malfoy’s hastily (and rudely) penned notes weren’t enough.

She’s grown to quite like him, actually.

“Cauldron cake, Malfoy?” she asks, pulling one out of the drawer that she’d brought down earlier from the cafe. The tea trolley on their floor always runs out by nine, and Malfoy was fastidiously on time, never a minute early.

He plucks it out of her hands and sits down heavily on his chair. It squeaks alarmingly.

“Bloody hell, Granger. What is wrong with these people? These—” He narrows his eyes. “These men.”

Hermione sighs. “You tell me, Malfoy. Ever since I started here they’ve sent owls.” She frowns. “I try to be helpful, I mean, it’s good that they’re asking about the Muggle world. But Terry’s dad’s a Muggle, so I’m not sure how he doesn’t know what a helicopter is.”

Malfoy looks at her suspiciously. “Are you—Do you seriously not know?”

“Know what?”

“Granger—” He gives her an odd look, disbelief clouding his handsome features. “They fancy you.”

Hermione snorts, running her quill under a particularly poorly worded statement. “You’re having a laugh, Malfoy.”

“I’m having a—” Malfoy’s eyebrows raised high in vexation. “I’m very much not laughing, actually. All these poor bloody wizards fancy you and you don’t even know it. Salazar, we’ll have to put a note on the door.”

“A note? Saying what? All those wizards trying to woo me, please form an orderly line?” She scoffs. “You’re off your trolley, Malfoy.”

“So you’d be interested, then? If one of them asked you out?” he presses.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Malfoy.” She stops writing. “I mean, I’d probably consider it. No one’s asked me out since Ron, not properly.”

He stares at her again, looking dumbfounded, his blond hair falling perfectly—as usual—and those bloody unfairly long eyelashes wide. He’s got nice lips. Not that she’s been looking.

“Go out with me.” He says it so quickly she almost misses it, her quill scratching to a stop and leaving a big blotch on the page.

“Shit.” She reaches for her wand, wanting to get rid of the mark before it settles through the page. Her brain processes the ink faster than his question, the words only beginning to penetrate once her wand is in her hand.

“Good grief, Granger, it’s not that serious. If you want to say no, just say no, you don’t need to hex me.”

“Hex—Go out—What?” She blinks at him, the page clean once again. Did he seriously just ask—

“Go out with me. Tonight, even.”

Hermione gapes at him rather unattractively for several seconds before shutting her mouth with a click. _“_Malfoy, if this is some kind of joke…”

“It’s not a joke. And even if it was, those tossers will stop owling you if they think you’re dating me, and I did promise, so…” He looks remarkably earnest, all of a sudden, as though he really hopes she might go out with him. Hermione feels something strange happen in her stomach, like she’s swallowed too much butterbeer all at once.

“I—Alright, then.” He grins, this wide, self-satisfied smile that makes Hermione feel—Well. She feels a bit giddy, actually. Lightheaded. She can’t help but smile back, a nervous little thing that feels out of place on her face.

Maybe someone’s poisoned their cauldron cakes.

---

“Hermione! Long time, no see!” calls out Cormac McLaggen from across the Quidditch stand.

Shit. Fuck. Hermione looks around desperately for someone to talk to that might save her from this interaction, but Draco, Ginny and Harry are all playing in the interdepartmental match, and Ron’s off canoodling with Lavender in some dark corner.

She sighs. “Hi, Cormac. How are you?” The players are gathering on the field below, Draco’s blond head talking animatedly to Ginny, presumably in their usual snark. He glances up in her direction, quick, and then looks back. She can’t see from here, but if she had to guess, she’d say he was glowering at Cormac.

They’ve been dating for two months, now. It’s going quite well, she thinks. The thought of it makes cheeks hurt from the want of a smile. They haven’t told anyone officially, yet, and certainly Cormac McLaggen is not going to be the first to know.

He sits down next to her, too close for comfort. She scowls down at his leg.

“You look lovely, Hermione, really nice.” He turns down to the pitch. “Supporting anyone in particular today? Last I heard you’d broken up with Weasley.” Hermione rolls her eyes to the sky.

True to Malfoy’s word, the influx of stupid questions, inquiries, and bother from the wizards of the Ministry had stopped rather abruptly after that week. There were several… rumours (truths, in fact, but that was their business and no one else’s,) circulating about her and Draco that stopped most of them, and the others were quickly dealt with by an Incineration Charm.

She let Draco burn them. He seemed to enjoy it.

“I—I’m here with Ginny, and Harry, and Draco. Why are you here?”

“I’ve just joined the League Headquarters. Would have played, of course, but they said it wouldn’t be fair for the other departments. You know, having a former professional on the team.” Godric, he was such a twat.

Below, they release the balls, the Snitch hovering up into the sky, the players all kicking off to scattered applause. Draco starts circling immediately, eyes scanning. He looks at her every few seconds, and each time he does it sends a shiver down her spine.

“Ginny’s a professional, and they let her play."

“Right. Well, next match, then.”

“Right,” she says doubtfully. Hermione lets the awkwardness linger for a minute, hopeful that it might spur Cormac to piss off. She’s never particularly liked Quidditch, but it’s certainly more enjoyable when you have someone to watch. Draco looks good in his Quidditch robes, truth be told.

He stayed over for the first time last night, and well—She’d rather like a repeat performance.

Cormac clears his throat, and Hermione feels her face twitch in irritation. Suddenly Draco is hovering several feet away, back to them like he’s looking for the Snitch, definitely within earshot.

“Listen, Hermione. If you’re not seeing anyone—”

“I am,” she says abruptly. “Seeing someone.” Draco’s broom tilts up in the air, floating. She can practically see his grin through his perfect hair. She can’t help but smile.

“Oh? Who is it?”

Hermione bites her lip. She should tell her friends first, surely.

But she’s also certain Cormac will absolutely go away right now if she tells him.

“Draco, actually.”

The look on Cormac’s face is so, so worth it.

---

Her left leg is tangled in Draco’s sheets (green, predictably, which she’s teased him about several times already and has no intention of stopping) and his arm is slung across her waist, warm and comforting. She can feel sleep dragging at the corners of her mind.

“Hermione,” he murmurs, low enough that it wouldn’t have woken her.

“Mm?” she replies, eyes still closed.

“Promise me something?” he asks quietly. She tilts her head up so she can look at him through one eye, his hair all mussed and out-of-place, mouth pink.

“You’ll tell me, won’t you? When you get sick of me?” Hermione lets out a huff of air and moves closer to him, leaning her head on his shoulder.

“Draco.” She opens her eyes fully now, brushing her eyelash against his cheek, a butterfly kiss. “I won’t get sick of you.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

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