Out of Time

Chapter 30

There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;

- The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot

Lilac.

It surrounds him and he can't stop several deep inhalations. With his eyes closed, it's almost like he's right back at Hogwarts.

There's more than lilac, though. There's... patent leather. There's a tinge of parchment, but that's not quite it. It's more like the crackle of a new book, of flexing the spine for the first time and smelling the pages. Sometimes he thinks he might get a whiff of the Prefect Bath, of the unique oils and balms the water might use, but it's peripheral to the others.

The unique combination of this prevents Draco from delving too deeply into which specific component is affecting his nether regions. He can intelligently narrow it down between the scent of Hermione's shampoo or the scent of the brand new heeled pumps he bought for her (four distinct pairs of them, if anyone was counting). Thanks to Pansy's limitless knowledge of fashion and fashion-adjacent detail, he knows all the 'patent' description adds is the shine to the leather. Otherwise, it's regular leather with all the glorious and expensive smells associated with it.

He wants to drape Hermione in every expensive thing he can think of. New, fine, rich, rare. She's all of those things.

Rare, rich, and fine all describe the Eliot book, too, but he won't just send it to her via owl. At this point, he'll wait until he sees her again. It'll be a fitting extrapolation of his glee.

He's continued reading the Christie novel, 'N or M?' a little at a time. The main detectives are a pair called Tuppence and Tommy. In this book the two are middle-aged, but they've known one another since childhood. Draco has a distinct sense there are more books than this one, but the plot doesn't seem dependent on his having read the prior stories. He's gotten quite far into it at this point and can't deny he likes it. He wouldn't have persisted otherwise but it was still a nice realisation that he enjoys it.

Tuppence beats Tommy to the right locale in their detective work, among other speedy achievements. Draco can't help but wonder if Christie made a habit of writing intelligent and independent female leads at a time when (at least in the wizarding world, not that loads of things have changed since) women were considered secondary to their partners. He suspects she had, and it's not an idle guess that it's a large part of what drew Hermione to them - even as a child. Perhaps it wasn't just the mystery of the detective work. Maybe she didn't even know what it was that attracted her to it, and Draco would desperately love to debate the point with her in person.

He closes his eyes and takes another deep inhale of lilac, of leather, and of new books. Or perhaps used books. Books.

The amortentia he's brewing wafts deliciously about the room and Draco thinks he'll just leave it in the cauldron. There's no reason to vanish it. In principle. He let Snape bottle a few vials, since amortentia does take a not-insignificant amount of time and effort to brew. But even if its presence here is superfluous, it creates a delightfully delirious ambiance for Draco in the potions lab.

Might as well leave it.

And maybe he bottled one or two for himself, just so he can uncork the vials and smell Hermione. So what?

Maybe it was more than two. But all that means is that he doesn't have to smell his own samples while this cauldron-full is still atop Snape's secondary laboratory table.

Snape hasn't complained about this intrusion of space, which is... curious. It's not like there's an abundance of space here to be occupied with unnecessary projects. It makes Draco wonder what Snape smells. Whatever it is, he doesn't mind its presence here. Why doesn't he always keep a cauldron of amortentia here? It would be a staple if Draco had his own home lab. Someone (*cough*) could convince him to have one in every major room.