Much Ado at Nott's

Night 1

Hermione lay in bed, recalling her skirmish with Draco with mixed feelings. She had been disappointed when he didn't come back from his bedroom, but assumed he was exhausted from his journey.

Emotions settled and dispersed inside her. As the moonlight fell gently through the window, she fell into remembrance of what had happened a year ago in this very bed.

She'd always enjoyed the dueling with Malfoy, but with his schedule and hers, had never thought more of it. She was focused on her research work, which involved Floo calls and correspondence with other Healers and researchers around the globe. The demands of her work satisfied her and captivated her, as she suspected they did for Malfoy too.

In a rare moment of civility, they'd even joked about their shared lack of hobbies. She'd presented him with one of her miserable, misshapen mugs from Muggle pottery class as a prank gift, and in return, he'd given her a bottle of firewhiskey, an allusion to the nights out at bars and restaurants — the only times they ever saw each other. But they'd done that when other people weren't looking.

And then more had happened when others weren't looking. The same house party a year ago. She'd come for a week, he'd only come for the last three days due to his schedule. They'd railed and matched wits late into the night, maintaining a careful distance as one by one, everyone else went to bed.

She'd found herself painfully aware of him as she had not been before. Hair (shorter then), eyes. How he laughed — frank, confident, in long peals. That small, delicious sliver of his waist, visible as he bent to pet Theo's white cat, Astraea. Her mouth watered and she didn't look at anything else until he stood up.

Then, as he held the parlor door open for her to leave, he tipsily grazed his fingers along her lower back and she'd turned and pulled his soft mouth down to hers. Oh my god, he'd breathed as her lips touched his, and then it was all over.

They'd stumbled to his room and fallen into bed, Silencing it all, kissing each other everywhere on their bodies. The witty banter flew away like leaves on the wind to reveal desperate sounds of longing and pleasure. They shocked themselves by having rough, gasping, passionate sex that felt like it had been saved up for years. It lasted all night as they came, dozed off, and woke to ravish each other again and again.

She crept back to her room around 5AM, and the next day they studiously avoided alcohol and each other. They dueled as usual, a comfortable routine of slap-slap, but were never alone together, and by nightfall both felt confident that last night had been a drunken gaffe.

Out in the garden, they made the mistake of taking a little stroll to prove how impervious they were to each other. Draco made a second mistake of sniffing the lilias lacrimosa, a plant that thrived on tears of happiness, and when he looked up Hermione was incandescent in the moonlight, her hair flowing over her shoulders. The fragrance of lilies and the moonbeams and her unexpected beauty tricked him into his third mistake, kissing her again, and that was that.

The sober kiss was even deeper, more wanton, more wanting than before. They broke apart giggling, then desecrated Theo's garden, her sundress pushed up to her breasts and his trousers tossed onto a rosebush. She arched, shuddered and came under his mouth, again under his body. Then they ran back to her bedroom and rolled around on her bed and off it a few times. When their eyes met it was through a haze of pure lust and desperate, yearning confusion. He went back to his room at 6AM.

The final night, reasoning that it was their last night, she came to his room without prompting. And then a problem arose. When he folded her in his arms she almost cried at how right it felt. How like home he felt. How the tension in her body melted away as he held her, as he scratched her scalp and kissed her shoulders and back.

Their jokes were different — not competitive now, but shy, funny confessions about their need for each other. She admitted sheepishly how much she loved squeezing and groping his arse, and he countered with his desperate need to feel her nipples in his mouth at all times. She obliged. And he obliged.

As the sun rose they lay in his bed skin to skin, feet and toes brushing each other's in a way that felt almost more intimate than sex. Then her heart misgave her and she thought about how he would be back to his dangerous work tomorrow. Work she could not keep him from, any more than she would agree to be kept from hers. She said it was a good thing they were taking advantage of their final night together.

He was silent, his grey eyes locked on hers with a look she couldn't read. She kissed him with what she thought was a rowdy invitation, throwing her thigh over him. Instead, he rolled on top of her and made slow love to her. So gently, with such tender attention, taking such time with each kiss and caress, that she was unsure who had replaced him in her bed.

They slept until 9AM. When she woke up, he was still asleep, curled in an S with his palms under his cheek. With the greatest difficulty she turned away and went back to her room. She began writing him a note, then threw it in the bin. And then, before he woke up and complicated everything with those beautiful eyes and more of those kisses, she stepped into the Floo and went back to her busy life.

It was not easy. Every day she doubted whether she had made the right decision. He had never owled or tried to talk to her about it. But that wasn't quite true — in a way, they always talked about it. Ever since that night, there had been a sharper edge as they faced off. The jokes were sometimes meaner, below the belt. Behind them other swords clanged, other spells sparked: why, oh why did we let go?

On top of that, his missions grew longer; he was immersed in his work, and so was she. Her heart ached, but she simply didn't how much to trust what had happened between them in the dark.