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The inappropriate use of my heart.
I have a big heart. Or so I am told. I am Hermione Granger: the big brain, a lioness with claws. I am courageous as well as clever.
And yet. And yet, I sit here under my mountain of paperwork that no one else has the attention span for, wearing my favourite navy dress and entirely insensible heels because I thought I would receive a promotion today.
I even used Lavender’s new hair potion so my curls are silky, looking good for my picture in the Daily Prophet, but it’s all for naught.
Thanks to bureaucracy and nepotism, they chose Cormac McLaggen instead of me. I indulge in a fantasy of pushing him in some depthless void to make myself feel better, and so I don't hear the knock at my office door.
Malfoy enters my office with his usual flair, black robes billowing behind him in a mimicry of Snape. My lip twitches at the thought, but I hide it before he might see.
“And what are you smiling at, Granger?”
No such luck.
“Oh, you know, entertaining my latest fantasy of your dreadful demise.”
He smiles, and I am once again victim to the lurch in my chest.
Malfoy. I call him a curiosity of mine, though he never holds to my normal process of deduction. There is plenty of observation, to be sure, but results? Inconclusive. He’s blond, but not your typical blond. He’s tall, but not as looming as Ron. He’s strange, and maybe that’s what draws me to him.
When he meets my red-rimmed eyes, his expression softens. He walks over and puts down the containers he’s holding. From the faint smell of cinnamon, I know he’s bought me one of my favourite pastries.
“Do I really deserve to eat something sweet when I didn’t even get the promotion?” I sniffle, wiping at my eyes. My mascara is probably smeared, but I can’t find it in me to care.
“I think you deserve them either way,” he says, coming to kneel before my chair. I look down at him as he places his hands on either side of me, his mouth pursed in a contemplative frown.
“You know that logically, you deserve the promotion over that rich twat,” he says, leaning closer and tipping my chin up with one hand.
I can't help but smile, feeling his fingers move with my mouth. “Aren’t you a rich twat as well?”
He smirks, standing and unclasping his robe. “That I am, but I have something special going for me.”
“Oh? And what’s that?” I ask, already missing the closeness of his body, the scent of his pine-wood cologne.
“I’m on the side of the witch who is going to rip McLaggen’s arse a new one the moment he tries to command her to do anything.”
I smack him, but feel some of the tightness in my chest loosen. “Be sure that you’re not in my direct vicinity.”
He whistles lowly, smiling, before he seems to realise what I’m wearing. His gaze sears my bare skin as he slowly appraises me from head to toe, and I have to resist the urge to cover myself. My thighs press together as I cross them in exasperation.
“Did you send Robards our report?” I ask, willing myself not to stare at the way he removes his cloak. It’s a sensual thing, as if he’s peeling away his vulnerability in front of me. He’s left with a crisp, white-button up, which he folds up to his sleeve garter. I clear my throat when the bare skin of his forearms comes into view.
A beat of silence. “I did not.”
“Malfoy!” I stand, my curls spilling out of their haphazard bun. “He’ll have both of our hides now.”
He sighs, though the smile never leaves his face. It broadens, his mouth's corner lifting in a teasing, laughing arc.
“I left it with Weas—”
“Oh my god, don’t even finish that thought.” I arrange my skirt neatly, then take his arm, practically dragging him out of the office. “We need to get it back before Ron dumps sugary donuts onto it or something.”
“Oh, come now, Granger—you of little faith.”
I give him a stern look of reprimand, but he only smirks at me. He raises a hand to smooth the furrow between my brows, and my breath hitches at his touch. He does this often enough that it shouldn’t affect me, and yet.
And yet.
“If it makes you feel better, I didn’t actually give Weasley our report. Be serious Granger, do you take me for a fool?”
I stop, feeling vexed, and suck in a sharp breath. I cross my arms and glare at him. “Then why did you…?”
He smirks, and with some of his hair falling over his face, I find him indecently attractive. “Behind you.”
I turn. It’s a supply closet. Confused, I turn to look at him again, and then feel my cheeks redden.
“Don’t you dare—”
Before I can finish my sentence, Malfoy reaches behind me and opens the door, then pushes me inside, trapping me with his body so I can’t flee.
I turn on the lone bulb with a huff whilst Malfoy takes out his wand and casts a notice-me-not charm on the door, along with a silencing charm that bars anyone outside from hearing us.
“You’re despicable, Draco.”
“Despicable, disgraced, depraved,” he adds on, and takes me into his arms. I already know I’ve lost the battle when he trails kisses across my jaw and descends to my throat.
“I don’t have time,” I whine, annoyed that blood is rushing to all sorts of unhelpful places.
“Seeing as I am your adviser, and know your schedule intimately,” he says in a husky whisper that makes the hair on my arms stand up, “I’d say you have a bit of time, Hermione.”
“Speaking of—I really think I should go to that conference in Belfast.”
“It’s a waste of your time,” he says, and for a moment I’m lost to the sensation of his hand trailing up my thigh. “It’s going to be full of a bunch of tossers who don’t know which way to point their wands, and yes, love, I do mean both wands.”
“Ohhh,” I breathe, and whilst I definitely like the destination of his fingers, I still can’t shake my anxiety. “I just feel like I could be doing more.”
Malfoy sighs into my neck. He lifts his face, and I feel the colour rising to my cheeks at the way his eyes are darkened with desire.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, moving both hands to my upper arms, soothing the tension there.
“Nothing’s wrong I— “ at his dubious look, I deflate “—I just feel as if I haven’t done enough,” I admit.
He snorts. I size him up defensively. “What?” I grit out, unreasonably hurt that he’s laughing at my pain.
“I’m not laughing at you, if the way you’ve screwed up your face is any indication of what you’re thinking.” He shakes his head at my surprise. “I’ve worked with you for two years now, Hermione, and if you think you’re not doing enough, then the rest of us are goners.”
I smile. “That’s sweet of you.”
“No. It’s not a good thing that you feel you need to be at everyone’s beck and call all the time.”
I freeze, unsure of what to say.
“What about you?“
My voice feels hoarse when I say, “What about me?”
“Who takes care of you?”
I feel flush all over, as if my nerves are zapping me. This conversation feels dangerous; vulnerable. “This isn’t about… me.”
“It is to me.”
My heart pounds uncomfortably in my chest at his words, and at how they make me feel. The thing about always caring for others is that you’re seldom used to feeling cared for yourself. I’m not sure what to do with this, if I’m even capable of feeling it.
“You don’t need to be useful to be loved, least of all not to me,” he says fiercely, his grey eyes alight with single-minded determination.
“Draco.” I feel like I should pull away when he tangles his fingers in my curls and pulls me closer.
I should—
I should—
I fist my hands into his shirt and close the distance between us.
He kisses me. It aches, because in this year long-tryst between us, he’s never kissed me like this. It aches, because I’ve wanted it for so long.
I despise my heart; the way it flutters when Malfoy is near.
He rucks my skirt up past my waist whilst I move to unbuckle his belt with trembling fingers. Never once do we stop kissing. He lifts me up and wraps my legs around his hips, laving his tongue across my jaw as my head falls back against the wall in delirium.
He reads the books I give to him. He even argues the finer points to me. I’m so used to the glassy-eyed stares people give me when I speak about a topic I enjoy that I’ve given up talking about them altogether. But he listens, and though that should never be an exception for the people in your life, I am grateful for his constant steadiness.
He kisses the furrow between my brows whenever I’m stressed, as if he can banish the groove through wish and mouth. He lets me play with his fingers so I don’t bite my own, and I find myself wanting to know more about quidditch when he talks about it. I am ravenous for the gleam in his eyes when he talks about something he loves.
He fills me with a tortured groan, and I muffle a gasp into his shoulder as he fucks me against the wall.
Malfoy may be many things: stubborn (like me), loyal (we’ve both felt the sting of loving others more than they deserve), and though he eats far too many sweets (you won’t always have those pearly-white teeth, I say in dad’s no-nonsense voice), I find I cannot stop the smile that spreads across my face; the lurch in my heart whenever he regards me.
He’s inappropriate too. He pulls me into supply closets for an afternoon shag, and despite my (many) protestations, I breathe him in like dragon-fire.
And, most importantly, he’s appropriate with my heart.