Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s a sweltering Amalfi afternoon. The sand burns underfoot and the sun hangs above Draco lounging shirtless on a striped chaise, his skin sun-warmed, his usual pallor chased off by the kind of relentless UV exposure that no British boy should ever endure. His platinum hair is cropped close to the scalp, a faint shadow of charm-induced bronze bleeding through it as if he’s trying on identities the way other people try on sunglasses.

Next to him, Blaise leans back with all the languor of someone born to decadence, tall drink sweating in one hand, the other draped over the back of a chair currently occupied by a sun-kissed witch named Allegra.

Draco smirks behind his glass of something citrusy and spiked, watching as Allegra’s friend, tall, freckled, and undeniably curious, angles her gaze toward him like she can’t quite place him.

"You're staring," he says mildly, eyes still half-lidded from the heat.

She blinks. "Only because you look like someone who should have a dark mark and a snarl, not a tan and delts."

Blaise chokes on his drink. "Delts, she says. Incredible."

Draco lifts an eyebrow, not offended, this is the point, after all.

"I did have a snarl," he offers dryly. "Gave it up when I stopped flinching every time someone mentioned Azkaban."

"You really do look different," Allegra says, looking between them.

Draco says, “You say that every year.”

"You too," she adds to Blaise. "Is this a post-war reinvention arc or a long con?"

Draco lifts his glass. "Darling, if it were a con, I wouldn’t be this bad at picking a hair colour. I’ve tried bronze, ash, cinnamon,"

"and that truly catastrophic mauve phase," Blaise adds helpfully.

"Mauve is fashion forward," Draco deadpans. "Just not on me. I looked like a cursed Fabergé egg."

Allegra’s friend giggles, and Draco’s smirk twitches into something gentler.

"I just… wanted to look like someone new," he says after a beat, tone still light, but with a flicker of honesty he doesn’t usually offer to strangers. "Someone who didn’t spend half of his youth in an ivory tower and the other half crawling out of a grave he helped dig."

The silence lingers a second too long, until Blaise breaks it.

"That, or he just wants to get laid without someone whispering 'death eater' between thrusts."

Draco flings a grape at him with deadly precision.

"Low blow."

"Please. You love the drama," Blaise retorts. "You wore white linen trousers to breakfast."

"It’s Italy. It’s cultural."

"It’s see-through, Draco."

Allegra fans herself dramatically. "We’re not complaining."

Her friend lifts her glass toward Draco, lips curling in a slow smile. "So what statement are you planning on making, Mr. Ex-Snarl?"

Draco leans back, stretches with a glint of something wicked and reborn dancing behind his pale eyes.

"Still deciding," he murmurs. "But I think it’ll involve black robes, better wine, and walking into the Ministry looking so improved they’ll have to apologize for ever putting me on probation."

Allegra adjusts her sunhat, pausing mid-sip of her spritz. She’s been watching something just over Draco’s shoulder, brows furrowing with amused confusion.

“Wait. Wait. Is that,” she tilts her chin like she’s pointing with it.

Draco turns lazily but sees nothing but sea and sand and the same parade of bronzed tourists pretending they’re locals.

“What?”

“That girl. The one conjuring a chair. The one in denim shorts and a book, Draco. A book.”

Blaise squints past the glare of the water. "Oh hell."

Draco finally finds the figure in question, frizzy hair pinned in a loose bun, sunglasses too big for her face, and a transfiguration textbook in her lap like it’s the latest trashy novel.

“Hermione bloody Granger,” Blaise cackles, clapping his hands once like he’s just won something.

Draco’s brows knit. “She’s alone?”

“Tragic,” Allegra murmurs, fake-pouting behind her glass.

Her friend adds, “Reading in denim. On holiday. That’s not a vibe, that’s a cry for help.”

“I’m not convinced she knows how to vibe,” Blaise mutters.

Draco watches her for another beat, trying not to smile more. “She probably thinks Amalfi is a Latin root.”

“Of course she came here to read,” Blaise says, then adds with a mock-dreamy sigh: “Inspiring. Brave. Very her.”

“She still won’t recognize you,” Allegra says, flipping a lock of hair over her shoulder and arching an eyebrow. “Not with those sunglasses.”

“She’ll recognize me,” Draco says, instantly smug.

“She won’t,” Blaise throws in. “I bet you 10 galleons she won’t. Especially if I’m standing next to you. She’ll assume you’re you, but you could pass for the brooding friend, and I’m the post-war glow-up she’s heard of in passing.”

"That’s idiotic," Draco says flatly. "You really think she’s forgotten a decade old face of relentless teasing, pointed insults, and character assassination?”

“I think she hasn’t seen you since you had a ratty middle part and all the emotional depth of a teaspoon.”

“Ouch,” Draco mutters. “I had angst. That’s different.”

Allegra leans forward, eyes twinkling. “So which of you did she fancy, then?”

Blaise grins. “She had a thing for Draco.”

Draco rolls his eyes. “She did not.”

“She did,” Blaise insists. “You were her moral crisis in sixth year.”

Allegra narrows her eyes. “She doesn’t look like she’d fall for this version of Draco. Too hot. Too emotionally unavailable. Definitely not into men who work out.”

Draco spreads his arms. “I’m right here.”

“She’s definitely going to see through it,” Allegra decides, sitting back smugly.

Draco’s mouth curls slowly. “Fine. Here’s for entertainment then. We walk past her. You and Blaise up front, me behind. She’ll clock Blaise. But she’ll assume I’m, well, me. And I’ll say I’m not,”

“Oh Merlin,” Blaise groans. “Here it comes.”

“say I’m my brother. Aster. Aster Malfoy. Transferred from…” Draco pauses, then snaps. “Obscura Academy. Northern Alps. Hidden. Hyper-elite. Half the curriculum’s classified.”

“That’s too elite, even for us,” Blaise hisses.

“That’s the point,” Draco says. “And if she calls bullshit on all of it, Allegra wins. You can gloat.”

Allegra folds her arms. “And if she doesn’t?”

“Then,” Draco says smoothly, standing and brushing imaginary sand from his shorts, “she’ll have to admit she was flustered. still a little into me.”

Blaise groans. “This is the stupidest plan you’ve ever had.”

“Yet,” Draco says, grinning as he tugs on a linen shirt and adjusts his sunglasses, “you’re already walking.”

Allegra loops her arm in Blaise’s. “Don’t worry, Aster. I’ll make sure you stay in character.”

Draco chuckles under his breath as they stroll toward the oblivious, book-buried Hermione.

He has no idea if this will work.

But he knows one thing:

If anyone’s going to spot the lie, it’s her. And if she doesn’t? Then the joke, for once, won’t be on him.

The three of them, Blaise, Allegra, and “Aster,” are walking the shoreline in well-practiced nonchalance, sea breeze tousling hair, their laughter lazy and easy as waves roll in. Allegra’s friend left them to run the ruse on their own.

Short damn denim shorts, the kind that looked aggressively uncomfortable, high-waisted and fraying at the hem, as if she'd transfigured them from actual suffering. But her legs, freckled and bare and just a little sun-kissed, were a shock to his system. She had that same graceless confidence she always had, shoulders straight and posture perfect, like she was daring the brightness to judge her.

Her top was barely there, a thin, pale lilac spaghetti-strap thing that clung where it needed to and fluttered just enough to seem like an afterthought. Her hair was a wild mess of curls, half pinned up, half falling down her neck, as if she’d tried to tame it and then given up halfway through. A pair of massive sunglasses covered half her face, but he could still see the tight set of her mouth, the way her lips pursed slightly as she read, the line between her brows drawn like she was fighting the world one paragraph at a time.

She looked so entirely out of place and yet… not. Not to him. Like she belonged everywhere now, even here, even in impractical shorts and that ridiculous top. Like maybe the war had made them all a little more feral in what they wore and didn’t wear.

Draco watches the breeze lift her curls and tries not to remember a single bloody thing. He fails.

Hermione spots them from the corner of her eye just as she flips a page in her book, Transfiguration Constructs in Magical Theory. She squints behind her sunglasses.

Then she blinks.

“Blaise?”

It escapes her louder than intended, surprise, disbelief. Her legs shift like she’s unsure whether to stand or sink into the sand and pretend it’s not happening. Draco is bordering on second hand embarrassment.

Blaise slows, furrows his brow, and tilts his head like someone being greeted by an overzealous fan.

“Sorry?” he says with deliberate confusion.

Hermione frowns slightly, tugging her sunglasses off. “Blaise Zabini?”

He takes a single step forward, offers a smile just this side of patronizing. “Grander? Was it? Hermione Grander?”

She levels him with a look. “Granger.”

“Right, right,” Blaise says, like it’s a minor clerical error and not the name of a war heroine. “Seventh year. Fiendfyre. Medals. My mistake.”

Allegra’s already pretending to inspect her nails like this is all a bit beneath her.

Draco beside them, taller, broader, sun-brushed, steps forward, extends a hand with the kind of relaxed charm that Draco Malfoy has never possessed in public memory.

“Nice to meet you,” he says smoothly. “I’m Aster. This is Allegra.”

Hermione narrows her eyes but shakes his hand. “No, you’re not.”

There’s a beat of quiet.

“You’re Draco Malfoy,” she says, grinning a little, amused by the obviousness of it. “Come on.”

Draco laughs lightly. “I get that a lot. It’s the hair.”

Hermione crosses her arms, smiling, challenging. “It’s the everything.”

He doesn’t bristle. Doesn’t curl his lip or shoot off a biting retort. Instead, “Aster” shrugs and launches into the practiced line easy.

“Technically half-brother. Lucius kept me abroad growing up, Obscura Academy, tucked up in the Alps. Not exactly listed on the Floo Network. Tutors, languages, wandless dueling. You know, aristocratic exile.” He smiles, faintly. “Didn’t even meet Draco until after the war. I’m the family’s quiet mistake.”

Hermione stares at him for a second longer than she should. He’s trying so hard not to smirk, not to sneer, not to flash even a flicker of recognition.

And he’s doing alarmingly well.

Hermione blinks, caught off guard by how convincingly neutral his face is. The absence of disdain is clearly jarring to her.

“You’re really committing to this, huh?”

Allegra smiles. “It’s very… immersive theatre.”

But Hermione’s still watching “Aster,” curiosity fighting with the tug of laughter on her lips.

“Obscura Academy, was it?” she says at last.

“Top of my class,” Draco, Aster, replies with faux modesty.

The wind off the coast tastes like salt and citrus, and Draco, Aster, today, finds himself oddly buoyed by the game. Her eyes are sharp, as always, but the barbs she’s known for throwing at him in classrooms and courtrooms now land with the soft brush of curiosity instead of fire. And he doesn’t mind.

She tilts her head, shading her eyes with one hand. “So, Aster, what does one study at Obscura? Dark Arts in soft lighting? Or is the emphasis on dramatic cape work and mysterious exits?”

He should roll his eyes. That’s what Draco Malfoy would do, sneer, maybe quote some bloodline purist drivel or swan off in a puff of contempt.

Instead, he smiles. “Actually, they banned capes after a levitation mishap. Too many tangled ankles during dueling assessments.”

Hermione snorts, snorts, like she didn’t mean to, and looks briefly embarrassed.

She presses further, eyes gleaming now. “And what’s your stance on Muggle integration, Aster? Can’t imagine a hidden alpine academy has much exposure to... broadband.”

Ah. There it is. The test.

He meets her gaze, his voice even. “I think it’s mad that we pretend we’re separate worlds. Magic’s just... one tool in a very large box. Ignoring the rest makes us stupid.”

He means it. It’s not polished or political or Draco-slick. It’s just what he thinks, here, beneath the sun, not in the shadows of Wiltshire or under the scrutiny of the Prophet.

Hermione stares at him like she’s recalibrating.

And maybe she is.

He wonders if it’s the sea air or the ridiculous sunglasses hiding half his face. Or maybe it’s that she wants to believe a man like this exists, someone who looks like him but doesn't wear his cruelty like a badge of honour.

Blaise is already walking backwards, calling out, “Aster, mate, if I starve to death I’m haunting you.”

“Seconded,” Allegra chimes in, looping her arm through Blaise’s. “And I will do it fashionably.”

Draco, Aster, glances back at them, then returns to her.

“It was lovely meeting you, Hermione,” he says sincerely, letting the name linger.

She smiles, that knowing little smile that says she still isn’t sold, but might enjoy the ride anyway. “You too, Aster.”

He hesitates. Just a second. Just long enough.

“We’re heading to lunch at that café by the cliff, Casa Bruna. You should join us.”

Blaise turns, scandalized. “Seriously? You’re inviting her?”

“She’s already uninvited herself,” Draco replies without looking at him.

Hermione waves a dismissive hand. “I’ve got transfiguration theory and too many rays for one day. But thanks.”

She says it like she might regret declining. Tomorrow. Or the next day.

He nods and backs away, eyes still on hers. “Well, if you see us again, don’t hesitate to say hi. I promise I am much friendlier than Draco Malfoy ever was.”

Her lips curve. “That wouldn’t take much.”

He grins and turns to follow his friends, sand under his feet and the strangeness of feeling unburdened humming under his skin.

He walks away not from a fight or a scandal or a verdict. He walks away as someone else. And no one, not even Hermione Granger, has stopped him.

Casa Bruna is half-open walls and sea breeze, all worn stone and clinking cutlery, but the three of them are loud enough to draw glances from the nearby tables. Blaise is practically doubled over, Allegra wiping tears from her mascaraed eyes, and Draco, no, Aster, is smirking into the mouth of his wineglass.

“I cannot believe she bought it,” Allegra says between giggles, flicking her hair back with theatrical disbelief.

“I’m not convinced she did,” Draco says, swirling the deep red in his glass. “She’s clever like that.”

Blaise sits up straighter, cocking a brow. “Is she now?”

Draco gives him a pointed look. “More clever than you, Blaise.”

Allegra snorts. “Low bar, darling.”

“Rude,” Blaise says, but he’s grinning too. He plucks a cherry tomato off Draco’s plate.

Draco leans back in his chair, letting the light hit his face, sunglasses pushed up just enough to still track the coastline, and maybe catch a glimpse of someone walking again across the beach with a book in hand. He hasn’t seen her, but the image is vivid in his mind: wild hair pinned up in a rush, those ridiculous short denim shorts, so clearly chosen for function not, and a strappy top that had absolutely no defense against the Italian sun.

“Gods, she looked good,” he mutters absently.

Blaise chokes on his wine. “You’ve got to be joking.”

Allegra raises a perfectly arched brow. “Please tell me we’re not about to lose you to a war heroine with heatstroke.”

Draco grins. “I’m just saying… maybe I owl her. Invite her out tonight. Club Astrais is still doing that live set.”

“No.” Blaise holds up a hand like he’s physically trying to stop the thought. “Full stop. You are not inviting Hermione Granger to a nightclub.”

Draco shrugs. “Why not? It was fun. Messing with her.”

“That’s messed up,” Allegra says, reaching for another olive, then pointing it at him. “That’s the definition of messed up.”

“No one cares,” Draco says flatly.

Blaise raises his glass. “Especially not Draco.”

Draco leans in, teeth flashing. “Aster, actually.”

They groan in unison.

He’s still half-smiling, but his gaze drifts again toward the beach, wondering, not if she believed him, but if she’ll play along.

-

The fan overhead clicks lazily. Draco lies shirtless in his room on the linen-covered bed, one arm flung over his eyes, the other draped carelessly across his stomach, wand just within reach. The salt air still clings to his skin, but it’s the ghost of Hermione Granger’s laugh that’s clung longer.

Of all the people to haunt his thoughts. Bloody Granger, in impractical denim shorts and an expression halfway between suspicion and surprise. It had been fun, too much fun, maybe. Playing “Aster” had felt like slipping into a cooler version of himself, one unburdened by his surname. But now that he’s alone, the amusement has curdled into something stickier.

The mirror on the bedside table flares to life.

“Oi, Ferret.”

Pansy’s voice is as clipped as ever, though she looks maddeningly polished, her dark hair swept into a sleek twist, Ministry pins gleam on her lapel.

Draco smirks and reaches lazily for the mirror, lifting it with two fingers. “To what do I owe this intrusion? Miss me that much?”

Pansy rolls her eyes. “I’d be flattered, but you’re not the one with the eight-inch botanical wand.”

“Ah yes,” Draco drawls, “Longbottom. The unexpected victor in life’s phallic lottery.”

Pansy’s mouth twitches, betraying amusement. “You’re incorrigible.”

“You’re bored,” he counters. “So, what will you dig up for dear old Granger?”

That stops her cold.

“How,”

“I know things,” he shrugs. “Mostly that she asked Longbottom, who asked you, to look into a certain someone’s school records. Probably trying to prove that your favorite summer fuck toy is, in fact, me.”

Pansy narrows her eyes. “Draco, what the hell is this Aster nonsense?”

He sits up now, eyes gleaming. “My ticket to doing absolutely nothing under a name no one hates. If you play along, I’ll finally give you that first edition of Magical Erotica Through the Ages you begged for last year.”

Pansy arches a brow. “Please. I’ve outgrown immature things like that.”

Draco grins. “Ah. You mean Longbottom’s shown you.”

“Shut up.” She brushes it off, professional once more. “I didn’t call to discuss my sex life. I’m working on a fundraiser for the Bridging Boundaries Initiative,”

“Catchy.”

“And I need donors with clout. People with gold and guilt.”

“You just described half my ancestry.”

She eyes him warily. “If I do this, will you donate?”

Draco lounges back again, smoothly to continue, “Only if I can do it as Aster.”

Pansy groans. “Draco, he doesn’t exist.”

“Not yet,” he shrugs. “But maybe he pops up on the grid now. Mysterious new heir. Rumored to be the bastard child of a Malfoy and someone scandalous. Or better, just someone bored.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I’m changing,” he says, and it surprises them both how quiet that lands.

Pansy frowns. “Into what, exactly?”

Draco doesn’t answer immediately. He rolls the mirror between his fingers, catching his own reflection, faintly sun-burned and startlingly not sneering.

“Someone who enjoys watching Granger try to unmask me, apparently.”

Pansy laughs. “So it is about her.”

He ignores that. “Tell your Ministry friends that Aster would be delighted to donate. Make it a big one. Something people whisper about.”

“Fine,” she says, smirking. “But if this implodes, I want front row seats.”

He salutes her lazily. “I’ll even save you a chair next to the war heroine.”

The mirror darkens, and Draco leans back, smiling to himself.

Aster Malfoy. Why not?

-

The mirror catches the last of the light slanting in from the terrace, and Draco leans in, turning his head slightly as he watches his eyes shift, storm grey to warm hazel, then a startling pale green.

Too much. Back to hazel.

He mutters a soft charm to settle the color, then blinks. He’ll pass. Especially since when Granger saw him, he’d been in sunglasses. No, not Granger.

Hermione.

He corrects himself firmly, even in his own head. It’s too dangerous otherwise. Say Granger too often and he’ll slip into the old tone, the one laced with superiority and venom and war-dust. Only mean-spirited boys call their nemesis by their last name. And he, he’s “Aster” now.

Behind him, Blaise leans against the doorframe, arms folded, watching Draco fuss. “I can already hear my elves complaining. Sticky socks in the hamper again. Someone’s worked up.”

Draco ignores him at first, casting a minor ward over his collar to keep the fabric perfectly upright, before flicking a small burst of sparks at his outfit. Midnight black button-down, sleeves rolled once. Slim, charmed-trim slacks in deep charcoal. No robes tonight, this was a club, not a bloody Wizengamot hearing.

“Shove off,” Draco mutters. “I’m just,”

“Messing with her,” Blaise finishes for him, smug.

Draco doesn’t look away from the mirror. “Yes, that.”

“This is next-level, even for you,” Blaise drawls. “You’re not just winding her up for a laugh. You’re playing, what, exactly? A long con? A flirty ghost of Christmas Who-the-Fuck?”

Draco straightens, smoothing the collar again, and says coolly, “It won’t last the night. She’ll call me out. She’s already suspicious. Maybe it’s something we laugh about next year. You know, when we’re coworkers at the Ministry.”

Blaise snorts. “Yeah. Or when she’s naming your bastard child of a bastard child.”

That earns him a nonverbal flick of Draco’s wand, a sharp snap of red sparks at his feet. Blaise dodges, laughing.

“Vial,” Draco mutters. “It’s still Hermione we’re talking about.”

“Oh, Hermione, is it?” Blaise teases, and Draco doesn’t respond, only adjusts the cuff of his shirt one last time and grabs his sunglasses.

The club is a cavern of gold light and velvet shadows, pulsing with bass that rattles the bones. Aster leans against the bar, tumbler in hand, letting the chill of the glass anchor him. The liquor burns less than usual. He’s pacing himself. Waiting.

Waiting, like an idiot, for Hermione Granger.

He’s sent the owl hours ago, well, Blaise’s owl, a sleek-looking thing with the attention span of a garden gnome. Draco isn’t even sure it reached her. Maybe it dropped the note in a fruit basket. Maybe she read it, laughed, and tossed it into the sea.

Fine. It’s not a grave loss.

She knows. Or she thinks she knows. But that’s the fun, isn’t it? She’ll either come or she won’t. And if she doesn’t…

He’s still Aster tonight.

Bronze hair swept carelessly back. Hazel eyes. A slight golden burn on his collarbone from a charm gone wrong while tanning, or more likely from pretending he tans. And even at night, the Italian heat clings. No cooling charm works properly in this humidity. He’s long since unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it behind the booth, leaving him in just dark slacks and scuffed boots, skin slick with sweat and summer.

The skin where the Mark used to be? Bare. Smooth.

Not glamoured. Not hidden. Gone.

It’s what brought him here in the first place. A backdoor tip from a curse-breaker, well-compensated for his silence. A sort of graduation gift from Mrs. Zabini, slipped to him at the end of eighth year before she washed her hands of all things parental. She’d never been fond of the role, not even when Blaise was born.

Freedom. Real freedom.

An added bonus that Blaise is from here, with far too many places to stay and no shortage of wine. And with fathers in soul sucking cells, and with mothers only checking in when the guilt hits them, they’re godsdamned adults now. With generational vaults and no one to tell them no.

Fuck it all, this was their summer.

So he dances. With a willowy witch in green who doesn’t ask questions. With a curly-haired wizard who smiles like he’s dangerous. He lets himself laugh, head thrown back. He’s reckless but charming, every bit the illusion he’s built. No ghosts, no legacies, no war.

Just Aster.

In the corners of his thoughts, beneath the rhythm, past the drinks, behind every glance, he’s still watching the door.

Still waiting for the witch in denim shorts and a stubborn jaw who, against every law of logic and likelihood, might just show up.

Chapter Text

“You should come home,” Padma says firmly flickering in green and gold through the hearth. Her brow is already arched in that older-sister way she’s perfected since their Hogwarts days.

Hermione snorts, tugging her hair into a bun with an overused elastic. “I have no home.”

“Oh, don’t start with the drama,”

“No, no, not sad,” Hermione cuts in with a smirk. “Very sarcastic. Heavy on the cynicism. Add a thunderclap for effect.”

Padma crosses her arms. “You do have a home.”

“I thought I did. With Ron.”

Padma’s expression softens, just a hair. “He’s not the man we all thought he was.”

“I don’t blame him,” Hermione says with a shrug, flicking ash off her sleeve. “We were a war trauma-bond. Less ‘happily ever after,’ more ‘survived together, might as well snog.’”

“Stop making excuses for him,” Padma snaps. “A cheat is a cheat. Wants to be the savior of the wizarding world but acts like a barefoot buffoon. And gets caught doing it, no less.”

Hermione chuckles. “A barefoot bastard.”

“Exactly.”

Padma tilts her head. “So what now?”

“I think Italy’s nice this time of year.”

“Oh Merlin, is there a fellowship there? Some highly competitive educational initiative? Don’t tell me,”

“Maybe,” Hermione says innocently, inspecting her nails.

“No. Absolutely not. Hermione Jean Granger, if you run off to bury yourself in scrolls instead of sin,”

“Padma,”

“I will make it so your books to scream nonsense spells every time you open them. Loudly. I’m talking ‘Engorgio my arse’ on repeat.”

Hermione snorts. “You’re evil.”

“I’m a friend. Italy isn’t for academic enlightenment, it’s for debauchery. Dive in. Between someone’s legs, preferably. Rotate a few. Catalog them alphabetically if you must.”

“I’m not cataloging men.”

“You say that, but I know you have a color-coded binder.”

Hermione laughs. "Not anymore."

Padma leans closer, “Then start a new one.”

Padma shifts in the Floo, peering like she’s trying to see the full room beyond Hermione’s shoulders. “Alright, say I buy this sudden dolce vita escape fantasy. Where would you even stay, Miss 'I didn't plan a thing but packed three backup quills'?”

Hermione lifts a brow with faux innocence. “Another Hogwarts alum’s meeting me there. It’ll be fine.”

“Name?” Padma demands, suspicious.

“Michael Corner,” Hermione admits. “He’s doing some kind of historical architecture grant near Florence. Says there’s space at his sublet for a bit.”

Padma narrows her eyes. “The one who used to obsessively charm his eyebrows into different shapes depending on the lunar cycle?”

Hermione grins. “He’s mellowed out. Allegedly.”

“If you’re lying and you are resigning yourself to parchment dust and caffeine shakes,”

“I’m not!”

“then I swear, Hermione, I will Floo in personally and drag you to the nearest piazza until you are mind-bendingly fixated on someone’s appendages instead of ancient runes.”

Hermione bursts out laughing. “That’s oddly poetic.”

“It’s a gift,” Padma deadpans. “I’ll meet you when I’m done with my family’s homage tour to India. Temples, cousins, coconut water. And then we drink wine and hex Italian men who don’t call back.”

Hermione snorts. “Will Parvati join?”

Padma scoffs. “Daddy’s princess? She thinks sunbathing outside the Thames is ‘too rustic.’ No chance.”

Hermione cackles, shaking her head. “I’ll reserve a lounge chair in her honor.”

Padma points a mock-stern finger. “You better. And wear something sinfully short or I will enchant all your trousers to vanish at sundown.”

Hermione’s laugh echoes as she steps back. “Noted. Ending call before you get any more ideas for threats, Merlin.”

“Too late!”

The Floo snaps shut, leaving a faint trail of green sparks and Hermione with a grin she doesn’t even try to hide.

-

Michael’s flat is almost exactly what she expected, high ceilings, books stacked like architectural features, at least one exposed brick wall with enchanted ivy growing against it in slow-motion, and a balcony so narrow it feels more symbolic than functional. There’s a sagging, over-worn couch covered in a patchwork of dueling school colors and, because of course, two empty espresso cups on the window ledge like offerings to the gods of caffeine and aesthetic.

She dumps her bag by the door with a relieved sigh and kicks off her shoes, padding in. “Still brewing coffee like it’s a personality trait, Corner?”

Michael’s head pops out from the kitchenette. “Still judging like it’s a full-time job, Granger?”

They exchange the briefest smirks before he glances toward her bag. “So… have you heard? Did you get into Il Collegio Accademico per l’Arte Arcana e Storica yet?”

She flops onto the couch. “I submitted my application late, probably too late.”

Michael leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, clearly skeptical. “Then why come? If you weren’t sure you were even accepted?”

She lifts a brow. “You know why.”

He hesitates. “I know what happened with you and Weasley.”

Hermione groans, dragging a hand down her face. “Of course you do. It was all over the bloody papers.”

“I’m not judging.” He raises both hands. “Just confirming what everyone’s already whispering.”

She sits up a little straighter, voice cool. “I wasn’t fucking fleeing.”

Michael lifts a brow. “Okay.”

“I am enjoying the only break I’ll get before real adulthood,” she continues, voice rising slightly, “with no demons, no undead rulers, and definitely no one tying me down.”

Michael throws up his hands. “Alright, alright, I believe you.”

“Assuming I don’t get in, I want one of those ridiculous film summers that changes you,” she mutters. “A few sunlit months where I could drink too much wine, kiss someone wildly inappropriate, maybe even sleep with a hot wizard, muggle, vampire, whatever, I’m not picky.”

Michael snorts. “Wow. Big talk for someone who used to schedule breaks between essays.”

She grins wickedly. “Oh, and by the way?” She digs a parchment from her bag, tosses it toward him.

He catches it midair, unfolding. Reading. Designed for top-tier magical scholars, Oxford Magical Exchange, OMEX, focuses on the intersection of magic and empirical research, with an emphasis on rebuilding a more modern, ethically grounded magical society.

His eyes widen. “You got in.”

“Not last minute. Not impulsive.” Her tone is smug. “Planned. Submitted. Accepted.”

Michael whistles. “What route will you choose? Magiphysics? Runic Engineering?

She smirks. “I haven’t ruled out Ethics and Applied Policy Studies.”

He tosses the parchment back onto the table. “Fine. Just know I’m not sharing my espresso stash with a witch who’s here to one-up me.”

Hermione kicks her feet up. “Please. You’ll be begging for my notes by August when you get in.”

He rolls his eyes and heads for the kitchen again. “Godric save us both.”

-

It had to be Draco Malfoy. No matter the sunglasses, the bronzed skin, or the irritating swagger that now came with muscles he had no business possessing, she’d recognize that arrogant walk anywhere.

Hermione watched him retreat down the beach, loose sand shifting under bare feet, swim trunks slung indecently low on narrow hips. And gods, what transfiguration expert had he gone to in the last year? That couldn’t all be real. No, he was too tall now. Too sculpted. And since when did Draco Malfoy have shoulder definition? Or a back like that? She tried not to gape at how his hair, cut shorter than it had been at Hogwarts, but just long enough in the front to fall in his eyes when he moved, might sway in that annoying, delicious way if he were... doing something repetitively. On her. In her.

She blinked hard, nose wrinkling at her own wandering thoughts.

Because of course she’d heard the rumors. That he’d left Britain after the war, following Blaise to Durmstrang for “peace and privacy,” which probably translated to “drinking in silence and hiding from their father’s war trials.” And while Blaise’s name turned up here and there in the gossip pages, Draco had all but vanished. That alone would’ve been enough to spark whispers. But this Aster Malfoy nonsense?

She snorted quietly, returning to the book she hadn’t turned a page of in ten minutes. A brother? A second Malfoy? She would’ve heard something, anything. Malfoy Sr.’s indiscretions had never been made public, but then again, why would they be, when the family had enough Galleons to smother any whisper under layers of press payoffs and influence?

Aster bloody Malfoy.

Hermione laughed to herself, flipping the page just to pretend she was still reading, though she absorbed none of the words. The name played in a loop in her mind, tangled with the image of lean muscle and damp, tousled hair and the way his mouth had curved, mocking, amused, as if daring her to recognize him.

He was tanned, actually tanned, in a way that no Malfoy had ever been, and even from behind, she could tell he'd shed more than just the schoolboy sneer. He moved like someone who didn’t give a damn what people thought. He moved like trouble.

Her eyes drifted again as he turned the bend, muscles flexing in perfect rhythm with every step. A rhythm she was suddenly, irrationally, aware could repeat. Repetitive movements. On her. In her.

A loud bark jolted her as a dog dashed past, kicking up sand.

Hermione startled, blinking as if the sun had physically slapped her.

Right. The heat. Definitely the heat. She shook her head and returned to her book, this time actually reading the words. Or at least trying to. Because Aster Malfoy still echoed in her head, low and persistent as a bassline.

-

Pansy appears first, her hair in a high bun, quill stuck through it like a weapon. "Okay, Granger, don't melt your knickers," she says without preamble. "There is an Aster on the Obscura Academy graduation roster this year."

Hermione frowns, already bracing. "Aster what?"

Neville, lounging with a mug of tea in his hand, smirks and leans forward on his end of the Floo. “Yeah, Pans, we need details. Full name, blood type, Quidditch stats, social life,”

Pansy rolls her eyes with venom. “Aster Selwyn, alright? That’s the name. No middle initial. Graduated this spring. Top third of his class. Star Chaser. Made the continental championships.”

“Selwyn?” Hermione echoes, brows scrunching. “As in that Selwyn? One of the Sacred Twenty-Eight?”

“Bingo,” Pansy says, twirling her quill. “Old name. But he wouldn’t have gone ‘round spouting Malfoy if he wanted to play professional Quidditch. Can you imagine the press? ‘Death Eater’s son back with a broom and a grudge.’ He’d be fouled every match.”

Neville lets out a low whistle. “Smart, actually. Selwyn was probably his mother’s name, right?”

Pansy shrugs. “I’d bet my best heels. That whole family’s full of inbred secrets. And Lucius had enough coin to cover up a thousand bastard kids.”

Hermione gives them both a flat look, arms crossed. “We’re not seriously considering this. Aster Selwyn is just a name. I mean, he looked like Malfoy but,”

Neville cuts in, raising a finger. “My Gran used to talk about the Selwyns,” he says, more serious now. “Said they had a daughter who got ‘sent away’ after a scandal in the early 80s. Wouldn’t say what it was, just that it was ‘unfortunate’ and 'properly handled.’” He uses air quotes with his free hand. “That’s always archaic code for: secret pregnancy.”

Hermione’s skepticism falters.

Pansy lifts a brow, smug as sin. “Told you I had the good gossip.”

“Fine,” Hermione mutters. “But it doesn’t prove anything. So what if Aster has Malfoy’s jaw and that same bloody smirk,”

“And the shoulders,” Neville adds helpfully.

“And the broom skills,” Pansy piles on.

Hermione glares. “This could still be a coincidence.”

Neville sips his tea and grins. “Sure. If that helps you sleep at night.”

Pansy winks. “You’re already calling him by his first name. Admit it, Hermione. You’re intrigued.”

Hermione groans and flops backward out of the Floo frame. “I hate you both.”

Neville laughs. “We know.”

The green flicker of Floo dies as Pansy cuts the call with a dramatic eye roll and a warning to “try not to snog the truth out of him, Granger.”

Neville, still nursing his tea, lingers in the flames, gentler than Pansy but no less nosy. He peers through the embers. “So... how are you really?”

She tucks her hair behind one ear and levels him with a wry smile. “I’m fine, Nev.”

He nods slowly. “Sorry about Ron.”

She sighs, not out of sadness, but fatigue. “Now that you’ve gotten that off your chest, do you feel better?”

Neville hesitates. “A little?”

“Good. Because it doesn’t mean anything now. I’m over it. I promise.” She shifts in her seat and looks off toward the window. “Every year after this, Ronald Weasley will mean even less, exponentially.”

Neville doesn’t buy it completely, but he’s known her long enough to let it go. “Well, at least you’ve got this mystery to occupy you.”

“There’s no mystery,” she says flatly. “It’s Malfoy. Playing a ruddy trick. Probably still laughing about it over wine and cigars with Blaise. I’m going to call him on his bullshit,”

There’s a tap-tap on the glass.

Hermione turns to find a sleek white owl staring at her expectantly. She opens the window, and it swoops in, elegant as anything, and deposits a rolled parchment into her palm.

Neville perks up. “That from your mystery man?”

Hermione eyes him as she unfurls the note. Her lips twitch before she can stop it. “Hermione,” she begins, reading aloud, “Italy is no place for ghosts. Come out tonight, meet the sun with me, even if it's after dark. I’ll be the one pretending not to wait for you. – Aster.”

Neville leans closer through the Floo. “Well, well.”

“It’s charming,” Hermione admits, begrudgingly. “But vague. And the handwriting’s different. Still male, yes, but definitely not Malfoy’s scrawl. I’ve seen his exams, and his detention slips. They were practically written in pure contempt.”

Neville grins. “So maybe Blaise wrote it.”

“Or the cabana boy at his penthouse,” she mutters. “This doesn’t prove anything.”

“It proves you make quite the impression. And that Ronald Weasley,” he lifts his mug in mock toast, “is, in fact, a complete tosser.”

Hermione softens. “Thank you.”

“Love you, Mi,” he says, tender, simple, and the connection blinks out before she can say it back.

She sits there for a long beat, note still in hand, watching the flickering embers. And even though her flat smells like lavender and lemon polish instead of home-cooked anything, even though her things are still half in trunks and boxes, she feels something ease inside her chest.

-

Michael is draped over the sofa like a dying aristocrat, one hand over his eyes, the other clutching a glass of something medicinal and far too green. "I told you," he groans, "I can't. My administrator is coming by tomorrow to finalize my schedule and if she sees even one trace of glitterroot on my robes,"

"she’ll smite you where you stand, I know," Hermione says, not looking up from the remote she’s clicking through without interest. The television crackles between a silent black-and-white horror film, an aggressively passionate cooking show, and something that may or may not be a wizarding hair growth commercial. “It’s just so wretched.”

Michael peeks out from under his forearm. “That I’m being responsible?”

“That this is how I’m spending my night. In Italy. With three working channels and a houseplant that leans toward the wall like it’s given up on sunlight.”

“It’s not wretched,” he says. “It’s noble.”

Hermione hums. “You’re right. wretched is too kind.”

She doesn’t say it out loud, but it is tragic, because if she does go out, she’ll go to the club. And if she goes to the club, she’ll be looking for him. Aster. Draco. Or both. She still doesn’t know.

Michael props himself up with a suspiciously judgy glance. “You’re thinking about going, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“Hermione.”

“…Maybe.”

“You want to know if he’s Malfoy.”

She flips to the silent horror film. A woman screams in silence as a vampire looms behind her. “It’s not about wanting to know.”

Michael raises an eyebrow.

“It’s about… clarity,” she mutters.

He rolls his eyes. “Right. Emotional clarity. In a club. With strobe lights and synthetic pheromones in the air.”

Hermione crosses her arms. “It’s not that simple.”

And it’s not. It’s sad because part of her does want it to be him. Because the boy who called her names and laughed when her teeth were hexed was suddenly holding doors and sending owls like a man with manners and mystery. Because she saw something soft behind the glasses and the tan and the tight shirt that no charm could conjure.

And maybe it was all a joke.

But she remembered the war trials. He hadn’t pleaded. Hadn’t groveled. He was civil. Detached. Haunted. She’d received an owl asking her to testify on his behalf, and it read like it had been written with a wand at his throat, cold, clipped, devoid of anything human. Just facts. Just the smallest sliver of grace he hoped she’d give.

She, Harry, and Ron had spent weeks deciding who deserved their loyalty. Who they’d fight for. Who they’d let rot. They were children making battle-lines in black and white.

But they weren’t children now. They were adults. Adults with money and grief and nightmares they didn’t talk about. And if Aster was Malfoy, maybe this was her chance to see what he became. To test the man he’d turned into.

To make an adult decision.

Michael watches her a beat longer, then groans and flops back. “If you get glitterroot on the rug, I’m telling your administrator it was a potion experiment gone wrong and that you were very high.”

Hermione smirks faintly, rises from the couch, and heads for her bag.

She doesn’t know what she hopes to find at the club. But whatever it is, it will be hers. And she’s ready for the consequences.

It’s one of those restless decisions made in the half-hour after midnight, when the hum of a foreign city is louder than reason, and the heat still clings to the walls. Padma’s off somewhere basking in her family’s homage to India, and even if Hermione had asked, she wouldn’t have made it in time.

Besides, it’s not like she packed club clothes. She’s not even wearing heels, just strappy sandals and a black dress she’s hastily transfigured from a sunfaded relic in her suitcase. Passable, maybe, if the lights are low enough and the music loud enough.

She doesn’t think about the line until she’s staring at it.

It winds around the corner and trails down the cobbled lane, pulsing with witches and wizards wrapped in glittering fabrics and layered enchantments that shimmer and shift with every turn of a shoulder or toss of a head. The bass thuds through the stone under her feet, and for a full minute she just stands there, alone, out of place, already wondering if she should turn around and pretend this night never happened.

But then she remembers: he invited her.

Whoever he is. Aster. Draco. Both. Neither.

And someone like Blaise Zabini doesn’t stand in lines. Which means whoever he trusts to invite someone to this club won’t expect her to, either, if she’s actually on the list.

It’s a risk but she steps out of line, ignoring the grumbles and narrowed eyes behind her, and walks straight to the front. The bouncer is a wall of disinterest and sheer brawn, but it’s the witch beside him who gives real pause, tall, aloof, and on fire. Literally. Her hair flickers like a living flame, glowing red-orange with streaks of molten gold, a slow, hypnotic illusion that radiates heat and warning in equal measure.

Hermione squares her shoulders. No stammering. No over-explaining. Just say it like she belongs.

“Hermione Granger. I believe I’m on the list.”

Her voice is steady, crisp. Ministry-trained. Wizengamot-practiced. The same voice that once debated war movements and argued down war criminals with a single raised brow.

The flaming witch blinks once, unimpressed. Then she taps her clipboard with a wand, scans the glowing script, and gives the smallest nod. The bouncer doesn’t even twitch. He just moves.

Hermione nods back, like this is expected. Like she always gets in.

Inside, her pulse is drumming loud enough to rival the music.

But she walks in like she was meant to be there. Like she’s someone who doesn’t wait in lines.

And that taste of power? It’s sweet as sin.

The club is nothing like she expects pulsing with layered enchantments: shifting walls of light, floating panels of mirror and smoke, ceiling charms that mimic a starry sky one moment and an opalescent storm the next. The music thrums beneath her skin, alive with enchantment, each beat laced with a spell that makes her bones hum and her pulse trip.

Everything smells like citrus and sweat, lavender and something darker. The crowd is a kaleidoscope, elegant, chaotic, effortlessly magnetic. Couples drift between shadows and light, clothing enchanted to flicker, disappear, reshape with every beat of the music. Goblets float lazily past, self-refilling, trailing steam and glitter like siren songs.

It’s beautiful. It’s terrifying.

She’s never actually been inside a proper club.

Hogwarts had balls and Yule events and all those dimly lit Gryffindor common room after-hours with smuggled firewhisky and badly played Exploding Snap. But this, this is foreign in every sense of the word. Not just the language, but the atmosphere, the expectation that you know what you’re doing here. And she doesn’t.

She misses Padma. Fay. Even Ginny and Angelina, who would be out on the dance floor already, dragging Hermione with them, laughing until they couldn’t breathe. They’d know what to do. What to wear. What to say when an impossibly handsome wizard crooked a finger at you like you were next on his dance card.

But she’s alone. And she’s on the list.

So she shoulders her way to the bar, keeping her chin high despite the way eyes follow her, some curious, some appreciative, some speculative in a way that makes her skin tighten. Witches appraise her with sharp glances, measuring the hem of her dress and the way she holds herself. A few smile, coolly. A few sneer, as if she’s wandered into the wrong room of the castle.

She gets a drink anyway, something bright, something fizzy, something pink.

A tall, wizard with sun-streaked hair is nowhere in sight.

She’s just about to give up looking when a man slides in beside her, too handsome in the way that seems genetically Italian: sharp jaw, easy smirk, shirt open just enough to hint at trouble. He says something in rapid Italian, flirtation dripping off every syllable. She tries to smile, to respond with a polite Mi dispiace or non parlo molto bene, but she’s not sure he hears a word. His eyes are doing all the talking, anyway.

She laughs politely, lifting her drink, and a hand slaps over the top of her glass.

“Uh-uh. No.”

Hermione jerks, startled.

The voice belongs to a witch who’s clearly not there to make friends. Tall, fierce, with kohl-rimmed eyes and a wand tucked visibly into the gold sash at her hip. She glares at the Italian wizard and turns to the bartender.

“He’s with another. I saw him put something in her drink.”

Hermione freezes. Her fingers tighten on the stem of the glass, heart thudding like a trap just snapped shut.

The bartender curses under his breath in clipped Romanesco and banishes the drink with a flick.

Hermione stands there, stunned.

This is definitely not her scene.

She looks at the witch who saved her, lips parted to say something, anything, but the woman just shrugs, like it’s no big deal.

“Careful, stella,” she says. “You glow too much. Makes shadows notice.”

The witch returns before Hermione can even finish her breath. She’s carrying herself like a story, hip cocked, hair swept into a bun that keeps trying to escape. Her smile is real this time, lopsided and rakish.

“You okay?” she asks, switching to slow, clear English. “He won’t bother anyone else tonight.”

Hermione nods, still a little shaky. “Thanks to you.”

The witch shrugs like it was nothing, leaning a forearm against the bar. “You looked like you didn’t know the game. Thought I’d better step in before it became a lesson.”

“I really didn’t.” Hermione glances at the vanished drink. “I’ve never even been to a club before.”

“Well,” the woman grins, “you started strong. I’m Livia. Livia Belladonna. Fresh out of Auror training, hence,” she gestures at the wand gleaming in its clip on her hip, “the professional paranoia.”

Hermione laughs, tension slipping a little from her shoulders. “Hermione. Hermione Granger.”

Livia raises an eyebrow. “That Hermione Granger?”

Hermione winces. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Bene,” Livia hums, pleased. “Well, now you’re our VIP. Come, my friends will like you.”

She doesn’t wait for agreement, just loops her arm casually through Hermione’s and steers her into a small pocket of the club lit in shifting indigos and golds, where three witches and one wizard are half-lounging on a cushioned ledge under a charm that keeps their drinks perfectly chilled.

“This is Hermione,” Livia announces. “She’s with me. Play nice.”

Introductions fly. The curly-haired witch with plum lipstick and a rolling laugh is Chiara, a junior diplomat from the Italian Ministry, all gossip and no patience for bureaucracy. Emilio, all sharp cheekbones and easy grins, is Livia’s cousin and clearly more comfortable in a dance circle than in this small bubble of conversation. Then there’s Miles, a freckled, broad-shouldered wizard with a quiet voice and an accent Hermione recognizes instantly.

“Wait, you’re from Hampstead?” she says.

He nods, lifting his glass. “Born and raised. Just here on holiday.”

“I grew up near there.”

He tilts his head. “Didn’t go to Hogwarts, did you?”

“Did,” she says, and waits. No flicker of recognition. “Guess we missed each other.”

The group folds her in, buoyed by Livia’s magnetism. Drinks appear. A toast is made. The conversation loops from magical tattoos to Quidditch referees to the best spells to keep your shoes from sticking to the club floor. Hermione doesn’t even mind being the charity case, Livia makes everyone feel like they belong just by standing next to her.

Hermione’s just relaxing into it, finally, when she sees him.

Aster.

Far across the club, half-shadowed beneath a strip of enchanted smoke-light that makes the bronze of his hair look burnished. He’s leaning into someone’s ear, laughing maybe, though she can’t hear it, and it’s like being jolted. Her breath catches, the hum of her drink and the warmth of Livia’s new-friend energy snapping to a tight, cold point.

Livia follows her gaze.

“That him?”

Hermione nods slowly. “Maybe. I’m here to find out.”

Livia takes a long sip of her drink. “Ex-boyfriend?”

Hermione snorts. “Nemesis. Old, from school. Might be his half-brother. Might be him.”

Livia blinks. “Wait, you came to see if the man who used to bully you is moonlighting as a club rat in Florence?”

Hermione lifts a shoulder. “When you say it like that…”

“No, I like it. It's unhinged. It’s drama. I’m in.” Livia leans closer. “What happens if it is him?”

Hermione exhales slowly. “Then we’re having a very adult conversation. And maybe… closure.”

Livia eyes her sidelong. “Closure. With cheekbones like that?”

Hermione hides a laugh in her glass. “I’m being mature, Livia.”

Livia smirks. “Sure, stella. Just make sure you don’t let him drug your drink first.”

“Noted,” Hermione says, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks, and not just from the club.

Across the room, Aster, shirtless, throws his head back and laughs at something.

It’s Draco Malfoy’s face. The same sharp chin, the same slant of eyes, even the way his short hair falls forward when he laughs, though this one doesn’t slick it back. Doesn’t look like he’s trying to be anyone but himself. And there’s a faint shimmer on his forearm beneath the pulsing lights. Glamour, probably. She doesn’t need a spell to guess what’s beneath it.

“He’s dancing,” Livia observes. “With people. Multiple people.”

“Not just dancing,” Hermione murmurs, leaning forward slightly as Aster spins a witch with a grin that’s entirely too generous for Draco Malfoy. Then he’s pulled into the orbit of a wizard, dark, handsome, grinning wide, and he doesn’t flinch. No curl of lip. No mocking tilt of the chin. Just an easy pivot, a flash of teeth, like the whole world is on equal footing with him.

Hermione hums low. “Draco Malfoy doesn’t dance. Not like that. And not with anyone that might upset mummy.” Hermione doesn’t look away. “Unless he’s gone fully off the deep end to torch the family legacy.”

“That would be impressive rebellion.”

“Still not his style,” Hermione says. “He was refined cruelty. Controlled. This one,” her eyes track him as he dips his head in laughter at something someone says, brushing a strand of hair from a girl’s face with careful fingers, “he’s… kind.”

Livia cocks her head. “And that’s throwing you off?”

“It should,” Hermione mutters.

But then she sees it. Small. Almost nothing.

A spill. A dropped glass. Someone shoving past a too-thin wizard who stumbles on the slick floor. And Aster, this not-Draco creature, moves without thinking. Reaches out. Catches the wizard’s elbow. Keeps him upright. Doesn’t even make a show of it. Just nods and keeps moving, swallowed by lights and rhythm.

Hermione’s breath snags. Because that, that reflex, isn’t something Draco Malfoy ever had. The Draco she knew didn’t help unless there was status or advantage to be gained. Didn’t move for the sake of others unless a wand was pressed to his back.

Livia nudges her knee. “Well?”

“I don’t know,” Hermione whispers. “I’m seventy-five percent sure it’s not him.”

“And the other twenty-five?”

“Terrified that it is. Just… changed.”

Livia leans in, conspiratorial. “Only one way to find out.”

“I’m not dancing with him.”

“You don’t have to. Just get close.”

Hermione hesitates. Because this isn’t her scene. It isn’t her world, her kind of risk. But Livia’s right, this is what people do in clubs. They move close. They see.

She finishes her drink. Sets it down. And stands, heart loud against her ribs.

Livia grins having set something deliciously reckless in motion.

“Go get your answers, Granger.”

Chapter Text

It’s a sharp, dizzying thing, like stepping off a broom mid-flight and realizing the ground is a long way down. Hermione Granger, Gryffindor prefect, unflinching war heroine, militant debater of all things right and noble, is dancing. Not swaying at the bloody Order of Merlin gala, not the stiff shuffles at a Yule Ball, but dancing. Real dancing. There’s music in her bones and something like laughter on her mouth, her curls wild and alive under the club’s spell-lit haze. She’s not in a library. She’s not quoting a philosophical law. And she’s radiant.

The witch in his arms, beautiful, sharp-hipped and wearing barely enough silk to qualify as a dress, follows his gaze and tuts. “Va bene,” she sighs, exasperated, slipping away with a dramatic roll of her eyes.

Draco doesn’t stop her. He’s already retreating, backing toward the velvet-lined sanctum of the VIP mezzanine because it’s the only steady ground left in the room. A drink. He needs a drink.

Blaise appears beside him like a summoned specter, all effortless smugness and a glass already in hand. “Granger’s here,” he says, tone laced with amusement. “Saw her with Olivia Belladonna.”

Draco chokes on his first sip. “Livia?” he repeats, as if the name itself has fangs.

From behind them, a witch Draco vaguely recognizes as Allegra’s friend, Sofia or Sienna, something S-slick, leans in and confirms, “She came in with Olivia. I saw them at the bar.”

Draco turns to Blaise, whose expression has transformed from self-assured to cornered-animal-in-a-manticore-den.

“Livia, Blaise?” Draco says, blinking hard. “You brought me here knowing,”

“I didn’t know she’d be here,” Blaise mutters. “And I’m not involved with Livia. That ship sailed, burned, and sank in cursed waters.”

“You were in love with her.”

“Oversimplification. I was a tot and she was psychotic.”

“She’s not psychotic,” Draco says, half-heartedly, then lowers his voice, “she’s just… terrifying.”

“She once transfigured my bed into a basilisk because I said I needed space,” Blaise hisses. “That’s not terrifying, Draco, that’s clinical. If she finds out we’re playing some identity-swapping social experiment, she won’t hex us. She’ll eviscerate us. Probably literally. With something archaic and ceremonial.”

“And magical,” Draco mutters. “She’ll find a way to make it poetic.”

They both pause, glance toward the lower floor, where Hermione is laughing at something Livia says, and visibly shudder.

“I’m telling you,” Blaise says grimly. “This is no longer a bluff. The second she thinks you’ve got some scheme? You’ll wake up with your, well, let’s just say your wand won’t be the only thing in splinters.”

Draco downs the rest of his drink in one gulp. “Brilliant,” he mutters. “I’m watching the girl who turned my best friend into a serial commitment-phobe and might dance with the girl who made me rethink everything I thought I knew about, everything.”

“And you’re pretending to be someone else while doing it,” Blaise adds. “Cheers, Aster.”

Draco groans. “Fucking Aster.”

Blaise clinks their glasses anyway. “Well, Aster, try not to get caught. And for Merlin’s sake, don’t sleep with her.”

Draco approaches like he’s not holding the world’s most delicate charade in place with a single breath. The club sways around them and she’s watching him with the kind of sharp-eyed interest that makes his skin prickle.

“Dance with me?” he asks, hand extended like this is the most natural thing in the world, like he hasn’t imagined her saying no in eighteen different ways, and four languages.

Hermione arches a brow, mouth curling slightly, not quite a smile. “What’s your last name?”

He doesn’t blink because Pansy filled him in. “Selwyn.”

“Selwyn,” she repeats, flatly, eyes narrowing. “That’s… creative.”

“Would you like to see my papers?” he offers smoothly. “Compare dental records, maybe? I’ve got a wand registration if that helps.”

She snorts, folding her arms. “It’s just weird, is all. You look exactly like Malfoy.”

He tilts his head. “Malfoy? Not Draco?”

Her gaze shifts, a little flicker of something behind it. “It’s a long story.”

He knows it. Every bitter page. But here, now, that answer only makes her look more enigmatic. “This isn’t really the place for stories,” he says low, tugging her gently closer. “Especially long ones.”

“You’re right,” she murmurs, and steps in.

It’s not dancing so much as a gravity shift. She’s there, sudden and evocative and unguarded in a way he’s never seen, pressing close enough to feel the rhythm in her ribs. Improper, in the best way. Her arm brushes his chest, and for a second he forgets which of them is pretending.

But this, this is dangerous. With strangers, he has no past. No name. No shadows gnawing at him from behind. But he’s dancing with every reminder all at once, of war and youth, pride and grief. Every mistake. Every humiliation. And now she’s here, close enough to breathe in, to believe in, and he,

She brushes his forearm, casually. Deliberately.

She’s checking.

He feels it, the faint tingling edge of a disenchantment spell, the way her magic curls like a whisper beneath her fingertips, testing for glamours.

Clever girl.

He smirks, not visibly, not where she can see it, but deep inside, where Aster and Draco overlap like a bad joke.

Then, smoothly, he takes her arm and spins her. Her hair flares in the motion like fire, catching the light, and she laughs, careless, unguarded, and he forgets she’s here to unmask him.

It’s a game.

It’s a ruse.

And it’s already spiraling out of his control.

They move together like magnets that never quite meet, always drawn, never touching. Her hips don’t grind into his the way other girls have tonight, and he doesn’t press in like the rest of the pack. No, Hermione dances like she doesn’t need anyone’s body to feel powerful, and that is what makes it erotic. The music pulses, wild and euphoric, the kind of beat got detention at Hogwarts just for existing, and she moves to make up for years of restraint. Like rebellion has rhythm.

The air between them crackles, only ever brushing against each other by accident, or design. Aster plays it cool, but Draco is somewhere deep beneath, dizzy with the juxtaposition: Granger, out of her uniform and completely untethered, raving in a club.

Eventually she lets him guide her toward their VIP section, its enchantments charmed to muffle the noise but not the luxury. She slides onto the low couch beside Blaise, not on his lap like the other girls have, but leaned in, close enough to share breath and mischief.

“Don’t think I didn’t see you using your reflection to check your hair,” she teases Blaise, flicking one of his curls.

He grins, delighted by the sparring. “Darling, you’re just jealous mine bounces back.”

“It does,” she says seriously, then mock sighs. “Unfair, really. All that beauty wasted on someone with no substance.”

Draco nearly chokes on his drink. Blaise, affronted, raises a hand to his heart. “You wound me.”

“Only shallowly,” she shoots back, eyes glittering.

She doesn’t touch Aster much, but when she does, it’s casual, like a familiar. She nudges him with her knee, toys absently with a strand of his hair as she makes another comparison. “You really do look like him. It’s uncanny.”

He shrugs like it’s no big deal, but plays it up. “Poor bastard.”

“Not poor,” she corrects with mock-authority. “Privileged. But tragically underutilized in the empathy department.”

Blaise snorts, but she goes on, softer now. “Still. He was brilliant. In potions, especially. No one could match him for precision. Or nerve.”

Aster raises an eyebrow. “This is dangerously close to admiration.”

She smirks, but doesn’t deny it. She's unguarded now, nostalgic. “His mind was like a scalpel. Completely useless with morals, but god, he kept me on my toes in class.”

Draco watches her, caught between guilt and awe.

“He was cruel,” Hermione says, swirling the drink in her hand, not quite looking at either of them. “But his cruelty had logic. Not kindness, but... discipline. It’s terrifying, in retrospect, how much I thrived on trying to out-think him.”

Blaise hums, lounging beside them with one arm flung dramatically over the back of the sofa. “Sounds like foreplay.”

Hermione gives him a warning glance, but there’s no bite to it. “If you think hostile academic rivalry is foreplay, I truly worry for your dating history.”

Draco doesn’t interrupt. He’s still reeling. Because she isn’t dissecting him with words. She’s not dragging out old ghosts and lighting them on fire for catharsis. She’s remembering him like he was a fact of her adolescence, sharp-edged, yes, but formative.

“He once corrected a page of Slughorn’s notes right in front of him,” she says, finally glancing up, her lips twitching. “Arrogant as hell. But he was right. And Slughorn knew it.”

“What a bastard,” Draco murmurs, and Hermione actually laughs.

“You say that like it’s new information.”

He lifts his glass to her in mock salute. “A bastard with impeccable potion logic.”

She clinks her glass against his, still smiling. “You’re awfully forgiving of him. Most people don’t like being compared to Draco Malfoy.”

“Maybe I just like the sound of your voice when you say his name,” he replies lightly, but there’s something heavier in the pause that follows.

Her smile fades just a touch. “You don’t talk like him. You look like him, but...”

“But?” he prompts, though it’s agony.

“You listen,” she says quietly. “He didn’t. Not really. He heard, but he never listened.”

Draco swallows. It’s everything he’s ever wanted from her, this softness, this subtle forgiveness wrapped in candor. And he’s getting it under a lie.

Blaise, sensing the emotional shift, clears his throat. “You two want a moment or should I just start narrating this like a romance novel?”

Hermione laughs again, mercifully, shaking off the heaviness. “Only if you use phrases like ‘ravenous gaze’ and ‘swollen heart.’”

“Done,” Blaise says. “Though I was leaning more toward ‘tormented wizard with abs.’”

Draco slumps back, grateful for the reprieve, but still watching her. Because she’s choosing to remember a version of him that was worthy. And that choice, even if she doesn't know it, is burning through what little pretense he has left.

Livia appears out of the throng like the ghost of some Italian goddess with too much confidence and just enough eyeliner. She’s radiant, tousled dark hair, and a languid sway that turns heads in her wake. Hermione barely registers her until she drapes an arm around her shoulder.

“Still alive, mia cara?” Livia purrs in her thick, sultry accent. Her gaze flicks past Hermione and lands on Blaise, and Draco tenses, bracing for the kind of wrath only past lovers can truly summon.

But there’s no venom. Only a smirk, edged in admiration, or maybe alcohol.

“Blaise,” she says velvet-drenched and vaguely threatening. “You look tired. Or guilty. Should I be worried?”

Blaise lifts his glass like a shield. “Probably.”

She laughs. It’s low and dangerous and intoxicating.

Turning back to Hermione, Livia slides a hand down her arm. “Let me know if you need anything, sì? Especially if he,” she tilts her chin toward Blaise, “starts behaving like an arse.”

Then, she leans in toward Blaise, says something in Italian that makes his ears pink, and saunters away, hips swaying, wand glinting, grin smug.

Draco watches Blaise’s eyes track her the entire way.

“She’ll hex you if she catches you staring like that,” Draco says mildly.

“She’ll hex me if I don’t,” Blaise mutters. “I just… I can’t. Not tonight.”

Hermione arches a brow. “So you did have a thing?”

“A war,” Draco corrects, settling beside her as Blaise mutters a vague excuse and wanders toward the bar. “It was torrid. Loud. Brief. She cracked him open like a pomegranate and then walked away like she hadn’t spilled anything.”

Hermione hums, watching Blaise’s retreat. “He’s still bleeding.”

“Merlin, aren’t we all?” Draco murmurs.

The music has shifted to something low and bass-heavy, half the crowd already disapparating or weaving toward the exits. The plush VIP booth is quiet now, a pocket of stillness in the middle of the swirl.

Hermione leans in again, her laugh spirited against his throat. Her hand brushes his knee, barely a graze, but it crackles up his spine like spellfire. He can smell her now, the clean tang of sweat and citrus shampoo, something sharp and sweet that cuts through the haze of drink and distraction.

He brushes a curl from her face without thinking, tucks it behind her ear with a kind of reverence that surprises even him.

She blinks up at him, mouth parting, almost asking.

But he doesn’t move.

He wants to. Gods, he wants to.

But this is a game and she’s playing it with honesty and he isn’t. Not really.

So he lets the beat fill the space between them. Lets the moment simmer unresolved.

When the lights come up and the bartender yells last call in Italian, it’s a rude reminder: they’ve been sitting there, leaned in like that, for far too long.

Neither of them moves right away.

“Looks like we closed the place,” Hermione says with disbelief.

Draco exhales a quiet laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever done that without Blaise getting kicked out first.”

She smiles. And he doesn’t say it, but it makes him ache for a truth he can’t afford to tell.

The club is bright now, unnaturally so, the illusion of glamour stripped away by overhead lights that make everything feel more real, and more precarious.

Draco is just about to offer to escort Hermione home, wherever that is for her tonight, when a voice cuts in behind them.

“I’ll see her back,” Livia says, stepping between the last flickers of music and motion. “You look like one of those arrogant prats Blaise used to muck about with.”

Blaise chooses that exact moment to appear, tugging his jacket straight, eyes narrowing. “Still does. Questioning my judgment more by the hour.”

Livia lifts a brow. “Your judgment was always questionable.”

“You weren’t complaining when I,”

“Ragione in più per non parlarne mai più,” she says in clipped Italian, then flashes Hermione a wink. “Come, bella. I’ll apparate you if I must. You’re too sober to dodge drunk tourists.”

Hermione half-laughs, half-glows in that flushed, content way people do after a night that surprised them. She turns back to him and they move off slightly, the banter behind them fading into the fuzz of last-call cleanup and muffled Floo flares.

Draco looks down at her, hands shoved in his pockets like a boy again, not a wizard with a past so jagged it still cuts him. “I’ll owl you again,” he says, casual. But it lands like a question.

Their fingers brush in the small space between them. Hers catch his for a moment, just a moment, soft and sparking, the touch more promise than accident.

“Yeah,” she says. It’s breathy. Not unsure, just full of everything they’d built all night.

Then Blaise calls, from somewhere behind grumbling: “Let’s go, Aster. Before bitchcraft and daggers start flying.”

Draco smirks, but doesn’t take his eyes off her. “Goodnight, Hermione.”

She lifts her brows at the name.

The lie tastes strange in his mouth as he turns, but her smile chases after him, curling into the edges of his restraint. He doesn’t look back. He knows if he does, he won’t be able to keep pretending.

Draco tosses and turns in his room, the events of the night playing on a loop in his mind. He's too sober, too aware, the last hour of talking to Hermione without the numbing effect of alcohol leaving him with a clarity he didn't ask for. He can still feel the ghost of her touch, the brush of her knee against his, the scent of her, something soft, forgiving, and entirely too intoxicating.

His body betrays him, his cock hard and aching, his stomach twisting with his desire for Hermione Granger. Not Granger, the enemy, but Hermione, the woman who danced with wild abandon, who spoke to him as an equal, who smelled like a future he never considered. He's thankful he didn't kiss her when she leaned in; the consequences would be far worse than this torturous state.

He's hard, painfully so, and he knows what he needs to do. He starts to stroke himself, his hand moving, his mind initially drifting to Pansy Parkinson, her tits, her mouth, anything to take the edge off. But it's no use; his thoughts keep drifting back to Hermione, to the way she moved, the way she laughed, the way she made him feel alive.

He tries to mirror call Pansy, then Daphne, even Ramilda, but it's too late. Everyone with sense is asleep, and he's left to his own devices, his own torturous thoughts. He plugs on, trying to imagine the other women, but it's Hermione's face that keeps appearing, Hermione's body that his hands want to explore.

His pulse thrums in his ears, his hand moving over his cock in time with the beat of a familiar song, the one they danced to. He sees her in that black dress, the way it hugged her curves, the way the sweat gleamed off her collarbone. He remembers the way she sucked her lip in when she said something witty, the way her eyes sparkled at him.

He strokes faster, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his body tensing as he chases his release. Rope after rope of warmth hits his abdomen, his body shuddering with the force of his panting, his heart racing, his mind a whirl of Hermione's eyes, Hermione's smile, Hermione's everything.

He knows he's fucked himself in more ways than one. He's Draco Malfoy, not Aster, and he's just jerked off to thoughts of Hermione Granger. The swot he swore would never be fuckable is now etched into his mind, his body, his very soul. And he's not sure he'll ever be the same again.

-

Draco shuffles into the sunny, far-too-cheerful breakfast nook of their shared Italian flat, hair rumpled like he’s been in a bar brawl with a pillow. Blaise is already seated, eating something smugly.

“Morning, Aster,” Blaise says without looking up, sipping his espresso like he’s been rehearsing the timing.

Draco groans. “That’s over with.”

“Oh? Already?” Blaise arches a brow. “Was it the curl in her hair or the moral compass that did you in?”

“As far as Granger knows,” Draco says, grabbing toast with an air of exaggerated detachment, “Aster Selwyn was a fleeting night of Italian revelry. A minor detour. Nothing to write home about.”

That's when it arrives.

An owl tosses, tosses a crimson envelope which slams against the table with all the subtlety of an Acromantula in a tea shop. The owl flies off as if to escape as the howler bursts into flame and smoke mid-air before exploding open above Draco’s plate, screeching in Pansy’s unmistakable voice,

DRACO LUCIUS FUCKING MALFOY,

Longbottom was just at my door frothing like a flobberworm in heat because Hermione Granger, yes, HER, has owled ASTER SODDING SELWYN, twice, and guess what? The owls come back UNDAMAGED with letters UNDELIVERED because HE DOESN’T FUCKING EXIST!

Do you know what that looks like? To HIM? ABOUT ME?!

You complete, entitled, brooding fuckwaffle, if you don’t fix this, I swear on all nine of your cursed horcrux-level trust issues, I will hex you so hard you’ll be peddling tears and crying jizz for potion ingredients in Knockturn Alley.

You will NOT ruin every decent relationship in your path to whatever poetic, tortured self-destruction you're swanning toward.

FIX. IT!

The howler rips itself in half midair, the edges curling inwards and vanishing in a final puff of accusatory glitter-smoke.

There’s a beat of silence. Then Blaise, still chewing, says,

“…Crying jizz, mate. That’s a new one.”

Draco just stares at his toast.

Blaise smirks and says, “This is hilarious now, not at all poetic, tortured self-destruction.”

Draco groans and drops his head against the table.

-

The desk looks like a crime scene.

Scribbled notes are scattered like fallen leaves: a half-written apology (pathetic), contingency lists of Hermione’s likely curses (painful), and warding diagrams so convoluted they might double as summoning circles.

One parchment reads:
“I’m sorry for impersonating a person who doesn’t exist.”
Another:
“Shield charm. Disillusionment. Probable counter-hex to Langlock if she gets petty.”
And the most honest line, underlined twice:
“She won’t forgive you.”

He’s halfway through diagramming a layered Shielding Hex with ricochet protection when the Floo flares, an iridescent roar of green fire, and Theodore Nott steps out like he just waltzed off a magazine cover. Shirt half-buttoned, hair windblown, a tan like he’s been arguing with the sun for weeks.

Draco blinks. “Theo?”

Theo dusts soot off his sleeve. “You look like shit. That’s new.”

“You left South America?”

“Blaise mirror-called me. Said something about you impersonating a specter and seducing Granger under a fake name, and now there’s a howler involved and possibly, his words, a ‘bitchcraft reckoning.’” He shrugs. “Thought I’d come supervise the explosion.”

Draco exhales sharply and drops his head into his hands.

Theo blinks. “You good?”

“I am,” Draco says darkly, “literally a Fiendfyre. And I am the fire. And I am the manor on fire. And I am the poor sod standing outside watching it burn.”

Theo lets out a bark of laughter and collapses into the armchair across from him. “See, I always thought you should’ve gone into competitive wizard chess. You’re brilliant at sitting at a table with your head in your hands and the perfect expression of despair.”

Draco glares at him through his fingers. “You coming here was supposed to help.”

“I am helping,” Theo says, propping his boots on the edge of the desk. “If you’re going to confess to Granger, we’re going to need a better script, less impending doom, and maybe some wine that doesn’t taste like self-loathing.”

An owl taps sharply at the window, and Draco startles like it’s come to deliver his sentencing.

“This is more post than I’ve seen in weeks,” he mutters, rising reluctantly and opening the pane. “I swear, it’s either silence or a godsdamned avalanche.”

The owl doesn’t wait. It drops a folded note, small, tidy, purposeful, and flaps off like it wants nothing to do with the aftermath.

Draco picks it up and reads aloud, frowning. “Knock knock.”

Theo raises a brow. “Is that code for something?”

Draco stares at it. “It just says knock knock.” Then, warily, as if the note might explode, he mutters, “Like… a joke?”

“Please tell me she’s not about to pun you to death.”

Draco sighs and plays along, deadpan. “Who’s there?”

The ink shimmers, letters appearing on the parchment like a whisper against his ego.

Draco Malfoy.

He freezes. The note flutters from his fingers like it’s burned him. “Shit.”

Theo, of course, just leans over and snatches it mid-air. He waves his wand once and then nods. “Tracking spell. Passive. Smart girl, didn’t even trip your wards.”

“Well, fantastic,” Draco snaps. “The jig is up. The ruse is ruined. I’ve been knock-knocked into oblivion.”

Theo folds the paper with deliberate calm and says, “No apology.”

Draco blinks. “What?”

“No script. No impending doom. And definitely no more self-loathing,” Theo says, standing now, brushing imaginary dust off his trousers like he’s preparing for a duel. “Livia might’ve kicked this chaos into motion, but I didn’t come all this way to watch you spiral into I Know What You Did Last Summer.”

Draco lifts a brow. “Then why did you come?”

“To make Aster a bit more real,” Theo says, eyes gleaming. “If Granger’s already knocking… Aster better bloody open the door.”

Chapter Text

The parchment lies on the table between them like a bomb waiting to go off, only instead of a timer, it's armed with slow-burning magic and far too much curiosity. A replication charm pulses faintly over it, mirroring the voice identity charm Hermione sent off to track its recipient.

Hermione watches it with a measured stillness, fingers laced in her lap, a cup of lukewarm tea forgotten beside her.

Livia, on the other hand, is pacing in her silk wrap and bare feet, wine glass in hand like it’s the wand she actually trusts.

"I'm telling you, Blaise Zabini is completely untrustworthy,” she announces mid-step. “Brilliant in bed, outstanding, in fact, but the man would sell his own reflection for profit. Probably has.”

Hermione hums in vague agreement, not looking up. “You said that last night. Twice.”

“And I’ll say it again,” Livia says, flopping into the armchair opposite her. “Best shag I’ve ever had. But morally? A D-minus. Possibly an F. Like your Mr. Malfoy, if this Aster Selwyn thing turns out to be just another one of his gilded masks.”

Hermione’s eyes flick to the parchment. Still blank. “This from just a few weeks with Malfoy?”

“Three summers,” Livia corrects, holding up three fingers. “But yes, only a few weeks in total. Before the travel ban. Before everything went sideways.”

Hermione’s lips purse. “It is what it is.”

Livia groans and sits forward, planting her elbows on her knees. “But what even is it, Hermione? A misunderstanding? A twisted inside joke? A code name for his criminal alter ego?”

Hermione shrugs, though it’s tense. “It’s either Malfoy being Malfoy. Or it’s just a misguided owl. Maybe he goes by Aster Selwyn now. Maybe Malfoy is his given name, and Aster is some middle name he dusted off for a night out.”

“You’re a good person,” Livia says suddenly, watching her too closely.

Hermione snorts. “I’m naïve.”

“That’s not a bad thing,” Livia says gently, for once. “It just means life hasn’t destroyed you yet.”

Hermione looks back at the parchment. “I don’t want to know what life has in store for me if that’s the case.”

The silence stretches a little after that. Then, finally, the parchment shivers, ripples. A flicker of a name begins to bloom across its surface in faint, magical ink.

Livia leans in, “Well then,” she whispers. “I guess we will know now.”

Livia is the first to react.

She lets out a strangled sound, not quite a laugh, not quite a curse, and gets to her feet so quickly her glass topples. She kicks it away without noticing, pacing, spinning on her heel. “That fucking idiot,” she mutters. “Of course it’s him. Of course. I knew it. I knew it.”

Hermione doesn’t move at first. She’s still sitting, staring at the parchment as if it might change. As if another name might appear, something kinder. Truer. Something that wouldn’t make her feel like she’s been played, like she danced too close to a flame and somehow forgot what fire does.

Livia throws her arms up. “I’ve kissed the mask, Hermione. Not the man. That’s the worst part. Blaise is never honest, why should Malfoy be.”

Hermione stands slowly. Not with rage, but with this strange, aching grace. Her feet shift, right, left, like she’s grounding herself, like the floor is suddenly a battlefield and she needs her footing.

“I should’ve known,” she says softly, not to Livia but to herself. “The way he moved. The way he listened. Like he already knew me.”

Livia’s pacing turns into hopping, frustrated steps without purpose, just motion for the sake of release. “And that stupid fake name. Aster fucking Selwyn. Who does that? Is this some post-trauma, wizarding midlife identity crisis?”

Hermione takes a step forward. Then another. She isn’t angry yet. She’s in the liminal space before anger, where sadness and humiliation dance just out of reach, not touching, just watching. The truth on her chest and she’s learning how to breathe with it.

She spins, once, on her heel, and her hair flies like it did that night on the dance floor. But there’s no music now. No beat. Just her and Livia moving in a room full of cracked illusions.

“This wasn’t supposed to mean anything,” Hermione says finally strained. “Just a night. Just someone new.”

“But it wasn’t someone new, was it?” Livia says, suddenly still. “It was someone old. And that makes it worse.”

Hermione nods, swallowing the tightness in her throat, circling a betrayal. Jumping from denial to fury to heartbreak in erratic, jagged steps, grief trying to find whatever is left in the aftermath of a lie.

Finally, she lifts her chin with a sharp, decisive little nod, like she’s just crossed a line in the sand, and left something behind on the other side.

“No,” she says, mostly to herself, mostly to the air. “No. I’m not going to let this ruin it.”

Livia raises a brow, pausing mid-step as she slings her tote bag over one shoulder. “Ruin what?”

“The night,” Hermione says, running a hand through her curls like she’s brushing away the embarrassment with the frizz. “It was a good night. A stupid, surreal, sweaty, glitter-drenched night. That’s all.”

Livia hums skeptically, like she’s hearing a thesis she’s not quite convinced of. “You danced like he was the only man left in Rome.”

“I’ve been through war, Livia,” Hermione says dryly. “I can survive one misleading alias and a handsome face borrowed from a childhood nemesis.”

“Oh, we’re using the word handsome now?” Livia teases, grinning.

Hermione groans but doesn’t back down. “Look, I can pretend it was just this fictional Aster Selwyn. Or I can go the other route, and he was Draco if Draco hadn’t been a mangy, arrogant bigot. A ferret masquerading as a boy with nothing but spite and idiocy holding up his spine.”

Livia lets out a sharp, delighted laugh. “Gods, you’ve got poetry when you’re pretending not to care.”

Hermione smirks, eyes glittering. “I don't care. It’s all part of the summer experience, remember? New country. New things. Low emotional stakes.”

“Well speaking of new things,” Livia says, tapping her wristwatch charm, “I have that orientation for my auror training rotation. It’s mostly a glorified safety briefing with three blokes who’ll spend the entire time asking if I’m single.”

“Should I send backup?” Hermione asks, mock-serious.

“Please. It won’t take long.” Livia grins as she heads for the door. “And then we’re going sailing, yeah?”

Hermione’s expression brightens like the sun just cracked through her ribcage. “Sailing,” she says with wonder, as if tasting the word for the first time. “I’ve never done that.”

“That’s what this summer is for,” Livia says over her shoulder, teasing but cheery. “New spells, new sins, and one Hermione Granger, emotionally unburdened and vaguely sunburned on the Mediterranean.”

Hermione laughs, eyes trailing after her friend before glancing back at the parchment now folded neatly on the table.

“Right,” she murmurs, softer this time. “New things.”

She tugs on her sandals, and steps out into the day. Not to forget, but to live anyway.

-

Puccini spills out into the humid afternoon, swelling and lilting across the piazza like an incantation. Hermione sits cross-legged on warmed stone steps, lemon gelato balanced in one hand, eyes closed, not because she’s tired, but because she doesn’t need to be alert.

The singer holds a note so long the crowd collectively stops breathing. She lets herself feel instead of think.

She opens her eyes as the aria dips into its aching close, and that’s when she sees him. No, them.

Draco Malfoy. And… Draco Malfoy?

Her breath hitches. The spoon in her hand pauses halfway to her mouth as her eyes flit across the square, trying to process what she’s seeing.

One of them is Draco. Or Aster. Or whatever he’s calling himself. He’s leaner, sharper, summer-shadowed in a linen shirt rolled at the sleeves, gesturing dryly toward the other man with a taut sort of disdain. That’s him, the Draco, slick and self-assured, jaw shadowed with stubble, posture bored and cutting.

Her chest tightens because that one. That’s Draco Malfoy. This one is broader, less sandy, all pale. He’s wearing dress robes, his hair a little too perfect, and the stiffness in his shoulders is all too familiar. That’s the Draco she remembers from the war trials, from the corridors of Hogwarts. Tired-eyed. Controlled.

And he’s got a girl on his arm. Blonde. Smirking. Draped over him like entitlement.

Hermione’s mind doesn’t even spiral. It short-circuits.

What in Merlin’s bloody time-turning fuck, her gelato drips over her hand. She doesn’t even notice until the cold slides down her wrist. She laughs, too loudly, too suddenly, startling a man beside her.

She presses her palm to her mouth, trying to hide the manic grin that’s cracked her face open. Because, gods, her letter did make it to Draco Malfoy in Italy.

And apparently, Aster and Draco aren’t on speaking terms.

Fantastic.

She licks the gelato from her fingers absently, still watching. It feels surreal, like a Syfy show she’s been dropped into, Draco Malfoy and his linen-clad clone at odds in the middle of an opera piazza, each pretending not to look at the other, both acting like they weren’t born from the same wreckage.

She leans back on her elbows, lets the aria begin again.

It’s a full-on comedy, staged in pantomime. Draco on Aster. Or Aster on Draco. Or maybe they’re just… on each other’s last nerve.

Hermione watches from her perch from across of the crowd, opera notes swelling behind her like a melodramatic soundtrack to this absolute circus. She can’t hear them, too far away for that, but she doesn’t need to. Their body language is loud enough to write its own libretto.

Draco gestures with long, impatient fingers, pacing in a controlled little arc like he’s giving a lecture only he finds deeply fascinating.

Aster stands opposite him, arms folded, smirk cocked to full bastard setting, nodding along like he’s indulging a particularly dense house-elf.

They move in perfect sync, Draco nudges Aster with one shoulder. Aster hexes him with a flick so casual it could be a yawn.

Whatever the spell is, it leaves Draco scowling, trousers smoking lightly at the hem. He makes a dramatic show of dusting himself off. Hermione bites down on a grin. The smugness radiating off Aster could heat the piazza without magic.

Blaise, the peacekeeping disaster, steps in, hands raised, trying to talk them down. He’s barely started before there’s a splash, liquid, from somewhere, and the blonde girl on Draco’s arm lets out a shriek.

Oh, that gets Draco’s attention. He’s suddenly all gallant hands and sharp glares, fussing over the dress like he’s personally woven it from unicorn mane and Galleons. Hermione imagines the hiss of, “Do you have any idea what that cost me?” in perfect aristocratic outrage.

And Aster. Gods. Aster just leans back on his heels, so self-satisfied he might actually be levitating.

Hermione doesn’t know what’s funnier, the dramatics or the fact that she no longer wants to scream about it.

Now that the ache’s been aired out, she can see it for what it is. Aster’s laying it on thick, no doubt saying something truly inappropriate, and by the looks of it, he’s winning.

Even Blaise looks mildly impressed before giving up and grabbing Aster by the collar like a misbehaving Crup.

Hermione snorts into her gelato, content to watch them all combust like a Greek tragedy written by a drunken playwright.

Somewhere, Puccini is still playing and she decides this might be her new favorite opera.

Hermione slides down from her perch as the opera continues behind her, but the real drama has already exited stage left, tugged by Blaise Zabini and quickly discarded and abandoned.

She trails a careful arc around the piazza, pretending it’s all whimsy and chance, that she isn’t watching every flick of streaked bronze hair ahead of her, every loose-limbed step Aster takes. He’s paused now by a market stall, brow furrowed at a collection of ornate brass compasses and charmed cigarette tins like they’ve properly insulted him.

Hermione peels off toward a nearby stand, linen-bound journals and overpriced olive oil, close enough for coincidence, far enough for plausible deniability. She acts like she’s riveted by a basket of sun-dried tomatoes. Her body screams nonchalance. Her brain is melting.

And then, his head turns.

Their eyes meet.

Damn.

Aster blinks, clearly startled. His posture shifts, the sharp edge of earlier arrogance dulled. Maybe the argument with Malfoy left a mark. Or maybe it's her.

He steps toward her, hesitant but not reluctant. “Hermione,” he says, and there’s something bashful in the way he runs a hand through his hair.

She smiles, awkward and too wide, and replies like a woman possessed, “Nice weather, isn’t it?”

The weather, Hermione. Really?

She wants to slam her forehead into the table of garlic-infused souvenirs between them. You talk about the weather with your gran. Or your dentist. Or someone you’re stuck in a lift with for ten minutes, not,

Not someone whose mouth you’re still thinking about.

Aster, to his credit, plays along. “Stifling,” he says, with a half-smile. “Good for tourists, bad for overdressed wizards avoiding emotional crises.”

She laughs, genuinely this time, and for a second, it’s just them. No Malfoy. No melted gelato. No performance.

Just Hermione, pretending not to want what she clearly does. And Aster, pretending he hasn’t noticed, still looks rattled, though he’s trying to mask it beneath that swagger. The furrow in his brow gives him away. Hermione watches him shift his weight, eyes flicking across the piazza like he’s expecting Malfoy to rise from the cobblestones for round two.

“You alright?” she asks gently, nudging a toe at a pebble between them.

He rubs the back of his neck, his eyes dropping to the ground. “There’s… something I should probably tell you.”

Hermione cocks her head, watching the way he drags a hand down his face, clearly trying to fish out the least disastrous version of whatever confession he’s mustering.

“I already know,” she says.

He freezes mid-rub. “You do?”

“Malfoy’s here.”

The sheer shock that paints itself across his face is almost worth the opera ticket. His jaw ticks, lips parted in disbelief so absolutely floored by the idea that she might be one step ahead of him.

“I saw you,” she says, arms folding as she leans casually into the conversation. “Just now. You and him. And Blaise. Honestly, Zabini hauling you off like an unruly toddler might’ve been the best part of my night.”

Aster groans softly and shifts again, a long exhale through his nose. “Right. Brilliant.”

There’s a flicker of embarrassment, maybe even shame. Hermione sees it in the way his shoulders hunch slightly, like his confidence has sprung a slow leak.

“Wanna go sailing?” she asks, trying to lift the moment back into lighter air. “You seem like you need to get away from him.”

“Absolutely,” he says, with such blunt sincerity that it catches her off guard.

She grins and turns toward the docks. “Good. If you’re dramatic on boats, I swear I’ll push you in.”

“I’m excellent on boats,” he calls after her, already falling into step beside her. “Terrible with ferrets, though.”

Hermione just laughs. “Aren’t we all.”

The sea stretches out in gleaming folds, sunlight winking off the water flirting with the hull. Hermione leans back against one of the cushioned benches, toes bare, drink in hand, and utterly unprepared for the level of luxury that “sailing” entailed.

“This isn’t sailing,” she says flatly, watching a crew member charm a tray of olives and cured meats into midair. “This is a floating spa with a bar license.”

“I know,” Livia says, grinning wickedly from beneath a silk scarf and far-too-chic sunglasses. “Isn’t it glorious? I was thinking of naming her Moral Ambiguity, after Blaise.”

Hermione huffs a laugh. “How touching.”

Aster reclines with one arm hooked behind his head, legs stretched, entirely too at ease. “She did this just to get me talking, you know.”

Livia doesn’t even pretend otherwise. “Obviously. So. Malfoy. Spill.”

Aster groans, tilting his face toward the sun. “Are we really doing this now?”

“Yes,” Livia and Hermione say in tandem.

Hermione sips her drink to hide the smile. She’s learning how to enjoy this, the absurdity, the playfulness, without constantly scanning it for deception. Or at least… less so.

Livia leans forward, jabbing a finger. “We sent the spelled note.”

“I, what?” Aster blinks, clearly caught off guard. “What note?”

“The knock knock one,” Hermione offers, laughing softly. “With the tracking spell.”

Aster squints at her, then at Livia. “That was you?”

Livia raises a glass. “Guilty. Honestly, it was more fun than my actual job this week.”

“I never got any owl,” Hermione adds, a little more serious now. “I tried. Twice. They bounced back unopened.”

“Sounds like Malfoy,” Aster mutters, sitting up properly now. “He probably intercepted them. The man thinks he’s subtle and ends up acting like a cartoon villain with a grudge.”

Hermione gives him a sharp look. “So he was behind it.”

“Most likely.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a compact mirror with a small flourish. “Now you can just mirror-call me. Here.”

He offers it to her, turning the reflective surface toward her. “Give it a tap and wave your wand over it, and poof, awkward morning-face connection guaranteed.”

Hermione eyes it. “You just hand that out to anyone?”

He smirks. “Only the ones who send cursed post.”

She chuckles because there’s no guardedness with him, he’s open, responsive, and maddeningly easy to talk to, even as she keeps waiting for some kind of deflection. But he doesn’t give one. Not even when Livia resumes her Auror-mode grilling for another solid ten minutes.

Finally, Livia sighs dramatically and sprawls across the bench. “Alright, I’m bored. You’re slippery, but not in the good way. I give up.”

“I take that as a win,” Aster says, raising his drink.

“I take it as a ceasefire,” Livia mutters. “You’re still sus.”

Aster throws Hermione a look. “Is that a real word?”

Hermione shrugs. “She mentors teenagers. It rubs off.”

Livia says, closing her eyes beneath her enormous hat, “Wake me when we dock or if one of you decides to make out.”

Aster turns to Hermione, one brow lifted playfully. “So. Dramatic ocean kiss? Or do we wait till the third act?”

Hermione hides her smile in her drink. “You wish this were a play.”

“Oh, it is,” he says, reclining once more. “It’s just not clear whether I’m the leading man or the comedic relief.”

The boat slows to a gentle lull, rocking beneath them as the breeze carries across the deck. The coastline glows amber in the distance, its spires and villas etched in late afternoon light. Livia is sound asleep, sun-hatted and snoring softly, a half-finished spritz still in hand.

Hermione stands, glancing toward the still, inviting blue, and then back to Aster with a spark in her eye.

“We should swim,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Aster squints at her, as if she’s proposed cliff diving in a lightning storm. “Swim?”

She shrugs, stepping closer to the edge. “Kind of the point of the ocean, isn’t it?”

He gestures grandly toward the shimmering expanse. “That is the domain of shipwrecks, sirens, and jellyfish. It tells you to stay away in at least a hundred different languages.”

Hermione laughs, then flicks her wand in one smooth motion. Her sundress vanishes, revealing a sleek two-piece swim costume in deep navy, modest by some standards but elegantly cut, with delicate golden threads laced like constellations over the fabric. The sunlight catches on her skin, and for a moment, Aster has appears as if he forgets how to speak.

His mouth opens slightly. Then closes. Then opens again. “Sharks,” he says dumbly.

Hermione cocks an eyebrow and flicks her wand again, executing a crisp detection charm over the water. A second charm follows, casting a subtle shimmer across the surface, sealife repellent.

“No sharks,” she says brightly. “No excuses.”

“I’m convinced,” Aster replies, blinking like he’s trying to reset his brain. “Entirely convinced. I just, need a moment for the drama.”

And then, before she can challenge him further, he takes a quick step onto the rail and executes a surprisingly graceful, if showy, backflip off the side of the boat, limbs flung wide like a stage actor leaping into a final act. There's a splash, a muffled whoop, and then his head reappears, hair plastered to his forehead.

Hermione grins at the shriek of it, and without hesitation, dives in after him, pointed toes, graceful arc, all elegance and no theatrics.

Livia snores on, unmoved.

The sea is tepid and calm, the way Mediterranean water can be, silky and indulgent, waiting all day for them to arrive. They swim lazily at first, side by side, Hermione’s curls damp and clinging to her neck, his hair darkened to bronze by the sea.

Aster glances at her, a glint of mischief in his eyes, and then suddenly ducks beneath the surface without a word. She turns, scanning the ripples, only for him to pop up behind her with a triumphant smirk and a slicked-back mess of hair.

“Menace,” she laughs, shoving water at him in retaliation.

“Charming,” he says, wading closer, arms moving slowly to stay afloat. He brushes against her, just barely, skin to skin, thigh to knee, and it sends something thrilling and hot spiraling through her chest. He doesn’t reach for her, not really, but there’s a tension in the space between them, a magnetic weight to every near-touch.

They circle each other in slow arcs, teasing and splashing like something out of a slower, sweeter dream speaking in random musings that insight the occasional story. And every accidental graze, her fingers against his chest, the slide of her palm along his waist, even the unremarkable brush of his ankle, feels like firework sparks against her palms. She wants to touch this man. And worse, she wants him to want it just as badly.

He treads water and asks, What if I had been him?” he asks, his voice quieter than before. “What if it turned out he,” his jaw shifts, correcting. “I had lied to you. Would you shut me out for good? Do you hate him that much?”

Hermione exhales slowly, smirking as she ducks her chin and floats closer.

“It would be Draco who shut me out, wouldn’t it?” she says, not quite teasing. “Live behind a false name, you shut out everyone before they even get the chance to know you.”

Aster hums at that, thoughtful. His eyes, hazel and unblinking, lock on hers, and it steals the breath from her lungs. He isn’t just listening. He’s looking at her like she’s a question he doesn’t know how to answer, like maybe he doesn’t want to.

It is too much.

So she splashes him, hard, playful, enough to cut through the heavy air.

“Hey!” he laughs, sputtering and laughing, and lunges after her. She turns, kicking away, and then,

He’s there, behind her. His hands catch her arms just above the elbows, gently turning her, and she goes still. He’s close, pressed against her back now, chest to spine, his cheek nearly grazing hers. His breath is pleasant against her temple. The sea rocks them together, water lapping quietly around their bodies.

Her skin sings. Her heart stumbles. His hands don’t move. Not yet.

They rest just above her elbows, warm even through the water, fingers curled anchoring himself to her. Hermione can feel the slow, steady rise and fall of his breath against her back, and the muscles of his chest, solid, effortless strength beneath the easy movements of the sea. Her skin prickles where he touches her, and her heart is thrumming like mad.

“I think we’re turning into prunes,” he murmurs low near her ear.

Hermione glances down at his hands where they cradle her arms and smiles. “Speak for yourself. Some of us age gracefully.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll wrinkle like a Renaissance painting,” he teases. “Soft light, elegant decay.”

She turns her face slightly, just enough that she can catch his smirk in her peripheral vision. “And you’ll become intolerable and insufferable, but with slightly better posture.”

“Already am,” he grins. “But I hide it well under awful charm.”

Hermione laughs, breath hitching on it. It feels easy, intimate, like they’ve carved out a pocket of the world that’s just theirs, suspended in gold water.

She lets herself look then, over his arms to the horizon. The sun’s dropped low, casting long streaks of burnt amber across the rippling sea. Another day gone. Another one slipping through her fingers.

He follows her gaze. “I’d ask what you’re thinking, but I’m afraid it’d be something profound and I’m still working out how to float without embarrassing myself.”

She leans back slightly into him. “That the sun always sets before you realize how much time has passed.”

“Deep,” he says, mock-solemn. “Do I comment on that or,”

Then there’s a loud splash. A wave barrels into them, soaking them both, and the spell shatters like glass.

Hermione sputters, blinking back water as Livia pops up, hair slicked and triumphant.

“What, did you think I wouldn’t join eventually?” she calls, grinning, “The water’s divine!”

Aster groans. “You ruined a moment.”

Livia snorts. “I did you a favor, Romeo.”

Hermione is still breathless, lips quirking as she moves out of his grasp. But her skin still tingles where he’d held her, and the sea hasn’t quite washed that away.

-

He’s just finished some wildly animated retelling of a childhood broom collision, age seven, dramatic spiral into a neighbor’s duck pond, a chipped tooth and an irreparably bruised ego. Hermione’s still grinning when they reach her door, the soft hush of night settling around them like a velvet curtain.

Aster leans in, bracing a hand above her on the doorframe. It’s both cocky and uncertain, like he’s not sure if he’s seducing her or about to fall asleep on her stoop.

“You want to come in?” she asks, light, playful. “For coffee?”

His eyes flick to her lips, then back to hers. “I really should go,” he says, straightening. “I’m exhausted.”

She hesitates. Part of her wants to say, Then stay. Sleep. Just like that. But it’s too soon. So she only nods, folding her arms, watching the little twist his boot makes on the uneven stone like he’s trying to summon the confidence to stay… or maybe kiss her.

You kiss her, you idiot.

But instead, he starts to walk backwards, grinning sheepishly.

“Broom race,” he says, like it’s a question. “Sunday?”

She raises a brow. “Will Malfoy be there?”

“Small chance.”

She shrugs. “Then small possibility I’ll go.”

He laughs, full and delighted, then disappears with a soft crack.

Hermione exhales a laugh, then a sigh. The door clicks shut behind her as she leans against it, the silence of the flat so very different than the enthusiastic chaos of Aster. She slips off her shoes, stares at the empty hall.

“Right,” she mutters to herself. “Another night of taking care of myself.”

Chapter Text

The court glows faintly under the enchanted dome, pale-blue light bouncing from spell to spell as they volley a crackling orb of energy between conjured paddles. Hex-Bounce, it’s called. A wizard’s game somewhere between tennis and dueling, fast, flashy, and designed to bruise egos more than bodies.

Draco’s paddle deflects the orb perfectly. Blaise misses the return with a lazy flick, then yawns.

“I do have better things to do with my Saturday,” Blaise mutters, wand hand limp at his side.

“Then why are you here?” Draco snaps, not even trying to hide his irritation.

Blaise glances at him sidelong. “Your mother asked me to keep you company. I'm being dutiful.”

Across the court, Theo’s paddle shimmers as he scores the final point with a smirking flourish. His partner Zoe Crowe, a statuesque witch with glossy blonde hair and a criminal streak that makes Theo stupid, throws her arms up in victory and claps his shoulder.

Draco doesn’t even register the loss. His jaw is still tight from earlier.

Theo says breezily, letting his paddle dissolve into sparks. “I must say, I make an excellent Malfoy.”

“Excellent in the sense that the Prophet called you heroic,” Blaise adds. “Narcissa sent you sweets, you know. Imported candied violets. She was touched.”

“I love those,” Theo says, scandalized. “You didn’t save me any?”

Zoe plants a hand on her hip. “I want some too. Her confectioner uses elderflower crystals. That’s real magic.”

Draco grits his teeth. “You’re all getting nothing. And if you Polyjuice as me again without warning, I will hex you so thoroughly your ancestors feel it.”

They all laugh, Zoe’s is ardent and delighted, Blaise’s a smooth drawl, Theo’s a careless bark.

“Oh, come on,” Zoe says. “It worked out both times, didn’t it?”

“By chance,” Draco says sharply. “She happened to be there.”

Blaise, still toying with his paddle’s hilt, says lightly, “Not entirely.”

Draco turns to him, eyes narrowing. “What?”

“At the club,” Blaise says, as if recounting the weather. “I slipped a tracking-charmed lozenge into her bag. Something she wouldn’t need, but would definitely keep. She’s always so… prepared.” The sarcasm lands with a soft thud.

Theo whistles low. “Genius.”

“This is getting out of hand,” Draco mutters.

Blaise steps closer. Not threatening, not quite, but the air cools slightly with the shift.

“It’s fun,” he says. Then, more quietly, but with a weight that makes Draco’s shoulders stiffen, “It’s what you said, wasn’t it? You said this would be just for fun.”

Draco doesn’t respond.

Theo arches a brow. “Don’t tell me you’re growing a conscience.”

Draco meets Blaise’s gaze, sharp grey against lazy brown. He doesn’t blink.

Maybe Aster is.

Draco exhales slowly, wand hand loose now, the tension bleeding out with the last volley.

“Fine,” he mutters, wiping the back of his neck with a conjured towel. “It is for fun.”

Theo smirks like he’s won something more important than the match. Zoe’s sitting on the edge of the court now, stretching her long legs and looking infuriatingly pleased with herself. Blaise levitates a lemon water toward him without a glance, and Draco catches it mid-air with a flick.

But the second he lets himself relax, a cold thought flares in his mind like a misfired hex.

The broom races.

The ticket. Theo’s ticket. The one he was going to use for her. For Hermione. And it’s not like she’d blend in. If Blaise tracks her, or worse follows to confirm…

Draco schools his face into blank aristocratic indifference, but his brain is already reeling through a half-dozen contingency lies, none of which would survive Blaise’s soft, smiling scrutiny.

Gods. He’s always been one of them, a plotter, a schemer, a lunatic with a sorry excuse for a conscience.

“It’s just for the summer,” Draco says too quickly, hoping it lands like a casual boundary and not an anxious disclaimer.

Theo sprawls onto the grass with a lazy grin. “Mhm. I’ll draft you a tragic exit strategy, maybe she finds your hidden basilisk collection. Or you 'accidentally' insult a house-elf within earshot.”

“Just don’t sleep with her,” Blaise says, stretching with a luxurious groan. “I mean it. You always ruin the fun when you catch feelings. Be mysterious. Brood a bit. Women love that.”

“I want to be best friends with her,” Zoe says suddenly, dreamily, staring up at the enchanted dome like it’s a vision board.

Draco turns his head, deadpan. “She hates the real me.”

Zoe’s eyes glint. “Then I’ll only have Theo to thank for our impending friendship.”

“No more Polyjuice,” Draco groans, wincing slightly. “Every time I think about what you two got up to in my skin…”

Theo and Zoe exchange devilish glances. Their silence is somehow worse than confirmation.

“Nothing that would shame your bloodline,” Theo says innocently.

"Nothing in public," Zoe adds with a wicked glint. "And for the record, please extend my compliments to the Malfoy lineage, clearly, some heirlooms are very sizeable."

Theo rolls his eyes. “Draco knows.”

“I do,” Draco says smugly.

Theo swats him with his towel.

And the amoral little circle of brilliant disasters all laughing again.

-

Sunday morning Draco’s lounging in the sun-drenched solarium of the villa, cradling a steaming mug of black coffee as Hermione’s face floats in the mirror. Her curls are still damp, a towel draped around her shoulders, and there’s something oddly domestic about the sight that makes his chest feel uncomfortably full.

“Meet you at the second checkpoint,” she’s saying, reaching for a jar of something off-screen. “We’ll have a better view of the high loop.”

Draco hums. “Bold of you to assume I’ll be sharing airspace with the general public.”

She snorts, one of her quick, startled little laughs that always slips out before she can temper it. He’s started trying to bait them out of her like rare treasures. Each one’s slightly different, this one is airy and amused, yesterday’s was lower and restfu. Hogwarts never offered him this entire catalogue of Hermione Granger’s laughter, and he’s quickly become obsessed.

“I’ll bring you a disguise,” she teases, eyes crinkling.

He’s about to fire back, something about already owning too many ill-advised disguises, when a sharp crash echoes through the villa, followed by what distinctly sounds like Blaise shouting, “That was vintage!”

Draco sighs. “I should go. Someone might be getting Avada’d.”

Hermione chuckles again, this one bubbling and involuntary. He grins, triumphant.

“Save me a seat,” he says, before the mirror goes dark.

Draco pockets it and walks into chaos.

Blaise Zabini, barefoot, shirtless, now entirely unbothered, is pouring elf wine into delicate stemware, while Harry bloody Potter and Neville Longbottom stand awkwardly in the middle of the room like two misplaced Aurors at an art showing.

“Is this... a hostage situation?” Draco drawls.

“Depends,” Blaise says lazily, handing a glass to Potter, who accepts it with the wary suspicion of a man who once drank Polyjuice disguised as Crabbe. “If it is, I’ve been kidnapping myself for years.”

Potter glares at the wine. “It’s nine in the morning.”

“It’s Italy,” Blaise retorts smoothly. “This is a breakfast beverage. Frankly, if I weren’t feeling civilized, I’d have gone straight for the Firewhisky.”

Longbottom sniffs Potter's glass. “This smells expensive.”

“Because it is,” Blaise replies, draping himself over the back of the couch. “You’ll either develop taste or waste it. There’s no middle ground.”

Draco raises a brow. “Should I be worried?”

“Oh, always,” Blaise says, sipping. “But not about them. They came with questions, not wands drawn. Pity.”

Potter and Longbottom size him up with the suspicious, tight-lipped intensity expecting a confession just by glaring hard enough.

Their eyes rake over his tailored linen shorts, the open collar of his shirt, the faint sheen of cologne and inherited entitlement. He almost says something cutting about Potter’s hair, still a disaster, as if being a hero grants immunity from mirrors, but he catches himself just in time. Right. He’s not supposed to know them.

He blinks slowly and tilts his head like someone trying to remember if he’s seen these wizards in a Quidditch catalogue.

Potter narrows his eyes. “Malfoy.”

Draco’s brow lifts. “What is it with you lot and last names? Is that a war-era trauma thing or just poor socialization?”

Blaise chokes on his wine.

“Dray’s asleep,” Blaise adds smoothly, recovering. “Horrible habit. Beauty rest, I imagine. You know how vain they are.”

He flicks his wand and a house-elf pops into existence with a startled squeak.

“Go fetch the lazy sod,” Blaise orders, waving his glass. “And don’t be gentle about it.”

The elf vanishes with a loud crack, and Blaise smirks to himself. “Really hoping he kicks him in the shin.”

Moments later, there’s a second crack, and suddenly Draco Malfoy, or at least on from last season’s collection, is standing at the far end of the room, barefoot and bleary-eyed, tugging a robe around his shoulders.

Both Draco’s look at each other and immediately Theo gives his best Malfoy sneer. Draco laughs.

Harry looks mildly horrified. “That’s… creepy.”

Neville blinks hard. “That’s unbelievable.”

Draco holds up a hand. “Right, let’s make this easier, Aster. Pleasure.”

Theo steps forward and claps Draco on the shoulder. “The family leech. Parasite. Horrible influence.”

Draco shoves Theo’s hand off his shoulder.

“I’m going to be sick,” Harry mutters.

Neville stares between them and mutters, “I think I owe Pansy an apology.”

Theo immediately stops laughing, playing the part of jealous Draco before Draco can, “You hurt Pansy?”

Neville stiffens. “I wouldn’t say hurt, I might have been a little brash,”

“Brash, my arse,” Theo snaps, stepping forward, jaw tight. “You better fucking make it up to her, if she hasn’t banished you entirely, you’d be a lucky man for it.”

Neville’s ears go red. “I, I didn’t mean to, I just thought you all were having some deranged laugh at Mi’s expense.

Draco raises a hand again, calm as ever. “That’s really nice of you to have her back.”

Harry looks like he’s re-evaluating every decision he’s made since arriving. “That’s most certainly not Malfoy.”

“Thank you,” Blaise says cheerfully, raising his glass in a toast. “And welcome to breakfast.”

As the front door shuts behind Harry and Neville, there's a long, lingering silence, like the room itself is still processing what just happened.

Once they’re sure the wards are reset, the three of them break.

“Convinced?” Theo drawls from behind Draco’s face, arms crossed and smirking at the door like he might call them back just to do it all again.

“Sworn to secrecy,” Blaise confirms, lounging on the arm of the nearest chair. “Potter even gave the noble-oath hand gesture.”

Draco exhales slowly, rubbing his temple. “They think I’m here to ‘finalize the vaults split.’” He gestures airily, voice dripping with irony. “So gracious of you to offer, Draco.”

Theo sneers with theatrical disdain. “Well, I am very generous. Especially when divorcing myself from scandal.”

“Or reinventing yourself as a saint,” Blaise adds, raising his glass in mock salute. “Poor Lucius, though. I almost feel bad using him.”

“You don't feel bad,” Draco sneers.

Blaise shrugs. “True. But I said almost.”

Laughter erupts, sharp and unrestrained, Theo doubling over with one hand on the mantel for support, Blaise wiping his eyes and shaking his head.

“Did you see Potter’s face when Draco started talking about emotional boundaries and healing?” Blaise cackles. “I thought he was going to pass out.”

Theo gasps for breath, still wearing Draco’s features. “He looked like you just offered him a hug. From Lucius.”

Draco doesn’t quite smile, but the corners of his mouth twitch. “And Longbottom. Our humble, herb-growing, kneazle-feeding Longbottom. Nearly pulls out a bloody knife when he thinks I’ve wronged Pansy.”

“He was ready to shank me,” Theo says proudly.

“And me, by extension,” Draco mutters. “Which is,”

“hot,” Zoe says, breezing in with two croissants and no idea what’s going on. “Also, I like this face. Can we keep this one?”

“No,” Draco and Theo say at the same time.

Blaise, still chuckling, swirls his wine lazily. “Why haven’t we done this sooner?”

“Because,” Draco says flatly, “this is the definition of messed up.”

“And?” Theo prompts, delighted.

Draco finally allows the smallest of smiles. “And we’re very good at it.”

-

Draco spots her easily in the crowd near the race stands. She's pacing by the entrance with her ticket in hand, exasperated, amused, and her hair down in loose waves like it’s not a national treasure.

He nearly forgets the line he was rehearsing.

“Right on time,” he says smoothly as he approaches, noting the faint glimmer of magic around her shoulders. “Though I was warned I might be hexed for elf labor.”

Hermione turns to him with a mock glare, arms crossed. “You sent a house-elf with the ticket.”

He lifts both hands in mock surrender, suppressing the smile tugging at his mouth. “Blaise warned me you’d give me a full dissertation. I went in prepared.”

She narrows her eyes. “Did he also warn you I once started a society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare?”

Draco adopts a solemn expression. “Yes. I’m told it was a legendary grassroots uprising with limited traction and deeply moving leaflets.”

She snorts, actually snorts, and the sound makes something in his chest unravel a bit.

“You’re mocking my activism,” she accuses, but it's lighter with laughter.

“Not mocking,” he says, lips twitching. “Admiring.” Hearing her retellings of familiar stories is like getting the director’s cut commentary on a story he missed the first time.

That earns him a real smile, the kind that makes him feel like he's done something worth doing.

Her brow furrows a little as she tugs at the neckline of her dress. “It’s scorching,” she mutters, issuing another cooling charm.

Without asking, Draco flicks his wand subtly beside her, layering his own charm over hers, cooler, steadier, calibrated just for her. The breeze that rolls over her skin makes her blink.

“You didn’t,”

“I did,” he says. “Stronger charm. Better wand.”

“Modest, aren’t you?” she murmurs, but she doesn’t cancel it.

He shrugs. “Sometimes I’m insufferable. Sometimes I’m helpful. It’s a gamble.”

Hermione arches a brow, amused. “So which is this?”

He grins. “A gamble that paid off, apparently.”

They move through the crowd toward the box seats, and as they settle in, Draco makes a deliberate choice, one that feels increasingly easy around her.

“So,” he says, turning to face her fully. “You mentioned you hated broom races until a friend forced you to one and you accidentally started cheering. I want to hear that story.”

Her eyes light up, surprised, pleased. “You remember that, do you?”

He does. He’s been remembering everything she tells him. But instead of saying that, he just leans back, letting her speak, arms crossed, eyes fixed on her with lazy amusement, his own little theatre, with her laugh as the show.

Draco barely watches the race.

He sits in the shaded box seat beside Hermione, posture relaxed, legs crossed at the ankle like he’s only mildly interested in the broom blur on the track. But his eyes? His eyes haven’t left her in ten minutes.

She’s animated now, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, mouth open in excited disbelief as one of the racers pulls a risky maneuver. Her hair falls around her shoulders in a mess of curls she didn’t bother charming into submission, and the late sunlight turns the flyaways gold.

She's beautiful like this, unpolished, entirely alive.

He’s seen that glow before, but only ever from a distance. Granger, surrounded by Weasley and Potter, their trio untouchable. Laughing about something absurdly nerdy, correcting Ron’s broom stats mid-bite of treacle tart. This version of her is familiar, but this time it’s beside him. For him. Sparked by things he says, lies, all of it, wrapped in this carefully crafted charm.

That thought should unsettle him.

But then she laughs, laughs, bright and rich and unselfconscious, and her hand darts out again, fingers curling around his forearm as if it’s instinct now, like she doesn’t even think about touching him. He feels the press of her and his stomach does something entirely improper for public viewing.

He exhales slowly, measured. The restraint he’s practicing right now should qualify him for a bloody Order of Merlin. Inlaid with emeralds. Personally handed over by the Minister with a handwritten apology for all the years of character assassination of the Malfoy name.

Because this? Watching Hermione light up beside him, lean into him, touch him with no suspicion in her eyes?

It’s madness.

It’s a high.

And it's all a lie.

But her gaze flickers to his as she sits back, breathless from shouting, eyes shining, and something tender presses hard against his ribs. Her smile lingers and he doesn’t look away.

If this is what lying feels like, he’s never stopping.

The race ends in a dizzying blur of cheers and magical fireworks, and the crowd begins to spill out of the stands like bubbling champagne. Draco turns toward Hermione with a smirk still caught on the sound of her laugh echoing in his skull like a song he doesn’t want to stop humming.

"Shall we check out the sponsor tents?" he offers, casually adjusting the front of his shirt like this is just another Sunday.

She whips around to stare at him like he’s just grown wings.

“The broom manufacturers?” she asks, stunned. “You have access?”

He tries for modesty and probably fails. “Naturally.”

“I cannot wait to tell Harry about this,” she says, absolutely delighted, bouncing on her heels. “He’s going to be green with envy.”

Draco can’t stop the smile. It’s part smug, part… something he doesn’t want to name. He doesn’t know why he says what he says next, maybe it’s the way she’s glowing, maybe it’s for the role, maybe it’s for her.

“Shall I send you tickets to give him for the Appleby race in July? I was just going to let Blaise give them to Nott.”

She gasps, clutching his arm again, and he’s going to need to have words with his nervous system if it doesn’t stop reacting to her touch like a bloody teenager.

“Same access?” she breathes, eyes wide.

He chuckles. “Is there another kind?”

She beams. “Harry’s birthday is in July. I won’t even have to fuss with a gift. Honestly, why are men so hard to shop for?”

She doesn’t let him answer. They’ve started walking now, winding down the stadium steps and toward the sponsor area when she turns and says offhandedly, “When’s your birthday, anyway?”

Without thinking, without godsdamned thinking, he says, “June fifth.”

He hears it the moment it leaves his mouth. June fifth. His real birthday. Draco Malfoy’s actual, on-the-record, traceable-in-Ministry-documents birthday. He blinks, feels the color drain from his face. For a moment, he contemplates just stepping off the edge of the platform and ending it all in a dignified swan dive.

But Hermione doesn't blink.

Her eyes just light up, and she claps her hands. “That’s so soon! Oh, I have thoughts about birthday cake, and don’t even try to stop me. Do you prefer chocolate or lemon? Wait, let me guess, dark chocolate with something unexpectedly adult like orange blossom.”

He stares at her, utterly speechless.

She grins at him. “See? I’m good at this.”

They’re halfway through the sponsor tents when Draco gets pulled into an animated conversation with a silver-bearded broomwright from a company called ZephyrCraft, whose logo looks like a falcon mid-dive with wings shaped like lightning bolts.

“This one uses a spell-treated blend of chimaera hair and storm ash, more reactive mid-air and less drag in turns,” the rep is explaining, tapping the handle of a sleek, graphite-colored broom that gleams in the afternoon sun.

Draco narrows his eyes, intrigued. “You sacrifice directional stability for speed at ascent, though.”

“Only by a fraction of a tilt,” the man insists. “We corrected for that with a double-finned rear stirrup, here, just fly it.”

Draco barely glances at the broom. He’s more interested in the way Hermione’s standing just behind him, arms crossed, head tilted skeptically, like she’s just been handed a wand made of bubblegum.

“You fly,” she says. “I’ll observe.”

“You don’t trust it?” Draco teases, already reaching for the broom handle.

“I don’t trust you not to show off and get us thrown out.”

Draco grins at her, wickedly. “Then I must prove you wrong.” And without warning, he grabs her hand, his fingers closing around hers like he’s done it a hundred times before. “Come on, don’t make me be impressive alone.”

“Wait, Aster, hold up!” she stammers as he pulls her toward the edge of the tent and out to the side of the track.

He swings his leg over the broom like he was born doing it and looks over his shoulder with a smirk. “Mount up, witch.”

With a scandalized laugh, she climbs on behind him, hands finding his waist with more confidence than she probably means to show.

“Hold on tight,” he says.

“I’m going to kill you if I fall off.”

He leans forward, kicks off, and the broom launches them into the air like a stone from a sling. The wind tears past, whistling in their ears, whipping Hermione’s hair around his cheek. Her arms clamp around his middle, tight and instinctive, and that, not the flight dynamics, not the acceleration or pitch of the broom, that is what thrills him.

He’s grinning like an idiot. All thoughts of storm ash and rear stirrups are obliterated by the fact that Hermione Granger is clinging to him, laughing, laughing, as they soar in a perfect arc above the crowd.

He thinks vaguely about broom specs, about technical finesse, about what they’re supposed to be testing. Ten her chin brushes his shoulder as she yells over the wind, “I cannot believe you just kidnapped me via broomstick!”

He shouts back, “I’m testing torque under emotionally volatile conditions!”

And her laugh is so glorious, he forgets the broom entirely.

-

They’re walking down the stone path from the race stadium, the crowd nearly dispersed behind them. The sky’s gone lavender-gold with early evening light, and Draco is doing his very best not to smirk like a madman.

Hermione pushes her hair off her flushed face. “I don’t think I’ve ever flown that much in my life.”

He shrugs, hands in his pockets, feigning nonchalance. “I could do it all day.”

She gives him a sideways look. “You say that like you didn’t nearly kill us twice. You kept veering left.”

“I was accounting for wind drag,” he lies smoothly, he absolutely was not. He was testing how closely she’d lean in every time the broom dipped. Her grip had gotten tighter. So had her body.

Hermione arches a brow. “Wind drag, right. You just wanted to fly every broom in those tents.”

Draco pretends offense. “I was assessing craftsmanship.”

“You were making up polish-layer effect arguments just to get another test ride,” she accuses, not even looking at him as she says it, just walking casually, like she knows he’s caught.

He coughs into his fist to cover a grin. “Debatable.”

“You enjoyed having me cling to you like a terrified cat.”

“I did not,” he says, lying again. “You weren’t terrified. You were quite… enthusiastic.”

She snorts and shakes her head. “I should’ve known you’d enjoy that part.”

“What can I say? I’m a generous host.”

She narrows her eyes. “So why didn’t you buy the last broom the rep offered? That was a ridiculous deal, ninety galleons off, free maintenance for a year. You hesitated just long enough to seem polite and then declined like you already owned,” She stops short, realization dawning. “You already own that model, don’t you?”

Draco doesn’t even try to deny it. “Of course I do.”

Hermione sighs. “Unbelievable.”

“Some men collect watches,” he says lightly.

“Do you?”

“I collect taste.”

She’s still shaking her head when she says, “You’re wasting time. You should try out for a team. Ginny’s already worried she’ll be ousted from the Harpies before the year’s out.”

Draco checks his watch, real this time, and frowns. “Actually…I’m late for something.”

She looks up, curious. “What kind of something?”

He flashes an apologetic smile, careful, light. “Boring something. I’d rather not ruin the charm of the day.”

She doesn’t pry. That surprises him.

As they near the apparition point, their arms brush, and her hand grazes his. His fingers, traitors that they are, immediately find hers. She curls them in, warm and certain, and before either of them acknowledges it aloud, their fingers are twined.

He watches their mirrored hands. Hers, slender and callused at the tips; his, still pale against hers and careful.

They stop at the apparition mark. She turns to him and it's her mouth his eyes can't leave as she says, “I’ll call you.”

He nods. She squeezes his hand once, and then she’s gone. Just like that.

Her touch stays behind. His hand still feels hers. And in his head, all he can manage is a very calm, very composed: fuck.

Chapter Text

Hermione’s mirror floats just above her knee, propped against a warmed rock, the reflection of Padma crackling to life in the glass with a wide grin and a cheerful, “I can be there Wednesday and stay the whole week!”

Hermione sits bolt upright under the shade of her conjured umbrella, a gust of sea breeze tugging her hair into her mouth. She pushes it aside and beams. “Wait, seriously? That’s amazing, Pad! You have no idea how much I need this. I was not prepared for how quiet it would be after Michael left.”

Padma leans back, lounging in her own frame. “I did warn you living alone in a foreign country wasn’t just sun and spellwork.”

“I thought the beach would make up for the loneliness,” Hermione says with a soft laugh, glancing out at the pale, glittering sea. “It does not.”

Padma perks up. “Well, I for one cannot wait to meet Aster. Harry says the resemblance to Malfoy is uncanny.”

Hermione rolls her eyes but smirks. “You get used to it. Besides, I saw Malfoy last week. Still looked like he hadn’t eaten in a decade.”

“And Aster?” Padma’s brow arches high. “How healthy are we talking?”

Hermione gives her a long, deliberately unreadable look. “He’d make a Quidditch team easy.”

Padma grins like a fiend. “Noted.”

Hermione flicks a shell off her notebook and turns a page. “We went to the broom races the other day.”

“Oh? And what’s next in the strange, tanned, Malfoy-adjacent romance of yours?”

“I don’t know,” Hermione says, more honestly than she means to. “He missed a few mirror calls. And when he calls, it’s short.”

Padma’s smile falters into something more wary. “That’s not foreboding at all.”

Hermione sighs. “He’s staying with Blaise Zabini.”

Padma blinks. “That is foreboding.”

Hermione shrugs. “It’s not like Malfoy’s here.”

“No, he’s probably too scared of the sun. Have you seen the Prophet? Latest gossip has him slinking off to South America.”

Hermione just hums, noncommittal, absently dragging her quill across the corner of her notebook. Swirls and loops of ink unfurl lazily between spell diagrams. Her toes burrow into the sand, stretching her legs out in the sand, tilting the mirror slightly to avoid the glare. “I also booked a cooking class.”

Padma tilts her head. “A what class?”

Hermione grins. “Cooking. Baking, to be precise.”

Padma stares blankly. “You mean potions?”

Hermione lets out a short, huffed laugh. “No, Padma, you heard me. Cooking. With eggs and flour and sugar. Muggle-style. No bezoars involved.”

Padma leans closer to the mirror, squinting like Hermione’s just grown a second head. “Who are you? Did the sun bake your brain?”

Hermione sighs dramatically. “It’s Aster’s birthday tomorrow.”

There’s a beat.

Padma’s mouth curves into a slow, delighted smile. “You’re going to bake for him? Hermione, I’ve tasted your idea of scones. They were defensive weapons.”

“Oh, come off it! Baking is just potion-making with more… three-dimensional risk.”

Padma barks out a laugh. “You mean more opportunities to catch fire.”

Hermione lifts her chin defiantly, squinting at her list of ingredients. “I’ve got a recipe. I’ve got a plan. And I’ve got exactly one birthday gift idea that isn’t imported broom wax.”

“Well,” Padma smirks, already leaning back from her mirror frame, “good luck, Martha Wand-stewart. Try not to hex your whisk.”

Hermione rolls her eyes fondly as the mirror goes dark, and immediately flips to a fresh page in her notebook, scribbling down “buy a whisk” at the top.

Then underlines it twice.

-

The heat hits Hermione first, then the sight of him, Aster, pacing like he’s expecting news from a war front rather than a girl with a suspiciously pristine cake box and frosting on her elbow. Her curls are wild from the kitchen steam, there's flour in her shoe, and, Merlin help her, some dried egg clinging to the ends of her hair like a badge of shame.

She straightens, lifts the box like it’s a trophy she earned with valor and not pity, and marches toward him.

He spots her instantly, his brow furrowing with something between confusion and, was that relief?

“Well,” she declares breathlessly, “I survived. And you’re a day early.”

Aster stops pacing, his eyes flicking from her flushed face to the state of her shirt, spattered with what may or may not be batter, and then to the box in her hands.

“What happened to you?” he asks, bemused. “Did the oven fight back?”

She huffs. “The batter turned on me first. The oven was just the final betrayal.”

He opens his mouth, maybe to comment on the egg in her hair, but she lifts the box between them, triumphant. “Cake.”

Aster eyes it warily. “Is it… safe?”

She gasps, mock-affronted. “Are you questioning my skills?”

“I’m questioning the flour on your ankles.” He gestures vaguely, as if afraid getting too close will get him dusted in sugar.

Hermione narrows her eyes. “I’ll have you know the chef said it was an ambitious effort.”

“Did he also say that while sliding his own cake into your box and patting your shoulder in sympathy?”

She opens her mouth. Shuts it. Then smiles sweetly. “I don’t recall the exact phrasing.”

Aster smirks. “So you’re smuggling someone else’s cake for my birthday?”

“I’m presenting an edible metaphor for effort and affection,” she says primly.

He steps closer now, tipping his chin toward the box. “Well, it’s certainly the most delicious lie anyone’s ever told me.”

A beat passes and Hermione nudges open the door with her hip, juggling the small cake box and wiping her brow with the back of her hand.

“You haunting stoops now?” she calls over her shoulder, breathless from the heat and her culinary shame. “Not that I’m complaining, just unexpected.”

But Aster doesn’t follow her inside. She pauses, halfway to the kitchenette, and turns. He’s lingering in the doorway like a ghost caught in the threshold, arms lifted, hands resting on the top of the frame as if it’s holding him up, or keeping him back.

Her brow furrows. “Are you... waiting for permission? Come in.”

He doesn’t move. “I have to confess something.”

That makes her freeze mid-step. The cake lands on the counter with a faint thud.

She tries for nonchalance, wiping her palms on her skirt. “Alright. Go on.”

Aster’s face twitches, something tedious shrouded behind his eyes. Finally he takes a slow breath, “I have to cancel our plans tomorrow.”

Her stomach drops just slightly, not enough to show, but enough to sting. “Oh,” she says, her voice light. “It’s fine. Not a big deal. Plans change.”

He watches her. She shrugs, gently nudging the cake box toward him. “Still, happy birthday. Thought I’d get in early, just in case.”

He takes the box with a slow smirk. “Thanks.”

Then, quieter, more hesitant, he adds, “But… I was thinking… maybe we could go out tonight instead?”

Hermione tilts her head, surprised. “Tonight?”

His tone is laced with something like nerves, He’s nervous and it’s endearing. “I know it’s last minute, and maybe it’s not the same, but... dinner?”

She narrows her eyes at him, half-pretending to assess the damage to her dignity. “I mean, I’ll have to change.”

He grins. “The restaurant does have a dress code.”

She glances down at herself, batter-splattered shirt, sock full of flour, an unidentified smudge on her elbow. “I’m guessing it doesn’t include raw egg and pastry crimes.”

“Probably not flour socks either,” he adds.

She gives him a smirk, the kind she only lets out when she’s already forgiven someone before they’ve truly asked. “One hour?”

He nods. “One hour.”

The door closes behind him and she lets out a breath, then pivots toward the lavatory with grim determination. “Next time,” she mutters under her breath, “just buy a blasted cake.”

-

The terrace is strung with floating lanterns, soft and golden like they’re suspended in honey. A clement breeze wafts through the linen curtains framing the stone archways, carrying the smells of garlic and citrus and something deeper, like aged balsamic and ancient olive groves. The restaurant is impossibly elegant, chairs that adjust subtly to your posture, cutlery that gleams without polishing, and food that shimmers faintly with minor enchantments. Hermione would never have picked it herself, let alone afforded it.

She glances across the table, tucking a curl behind her ear. “I’m just saying,” she says, drawing a slow circle on the tablecloth with her fork, “flour and I are no longer on speaking terms. It got in my socks, my eyes, somehow my pocket.”

Aster leans back with a smirk, swirling the wine in his glass lazily. “It’s just like potions, isn’t it?”

“That’s what they say,” she says, almost accusatory. “Except potions don’t judge you if your dough doesn’t rise. Or if your instructor quietly hands you a perfectly finished cake and suggests you ‘take this one instead.’”

He chuckles into his glass. “Now that I’d have paid to see. You were a prodigy in Slughorn’s class. You put everything together perfectly.”

She pauses mid-bite. “How do you know about that?”

A flicker of hesitation crosses his face, then he shrugs. “Blaise mentioned it, I think. You were a footnote really. He mostly went on about your friend Harry being top of the class that term.”

Hermione snorts, recognizing the bait and letting herself nibble. “Oh yes. Harry’s glorious potioneering renaissance. You should’ve seen Slughorn’s face. He practically adopted him.”

“I can imagine,” Aster replies, offering his plate across the table. “Try this. It’s enchanted to taste different depending on who takes the bite.”

She blinks, intrigued, then spears a forkful delicately. The taste blooms on her tongue, something unexpected, rosemary and sea salt and something floral, like lavender. She hums in surprise.

“Well?” he asks.

“I think mine’s better,” she says, teasing, sliding her own plate an inch toward him.

He obliges, trying a bite from her plate. His eyes narrow thoughtfully. “Yours tastes like smug self-satisfaction and cinnamon.”

She smirks. “Accurate.”

They sit there in the relaxed candlelight, city sounds distant below, the evening slow and golden and full of implied things. She refills their wine and says, lightly, “So. Blaise is a fan of Harry’s potion skills?”

He lifts a brow, swirling his wine. “Blaise is a fan of anything with legacy, danger, or gossip potential. Harry must fit all three.”

Hermione laughs softly, leaning her elbow on the table, eyes bright. “Dangerous legacy gossip. Sounds like a Zabini motto. It's no wonder he'd take in a stray like you.”

Hermione waits until the plates are cleared and the wine is low before she says it, grinning across the table like she’s bracing for impact.

“I got you a gift.”

Aster blinks. Just blinks, like she’s just told him the Italian Ministry fell to Kneazles. “I thought the cake was the gift.”

She rolls her eyes. “That was dessert.”

He leans back in his chair, one brow arched. “So this was your backup plan, and I’m getting both? What did I do to deserve this level of generosity, rescue a Niffler in a past life?”

She shrugs. “Don’t make me regret it.”

"Well," He smirks. “I’m assuming the cake was delicious.”

Hermione narrows her eyes. “Assuming? What do you mean assuming?”

Aster grimaces, lifts his hand in semi-surrender. “Theodore was mad I hid my sweets he’d claimed as his own, so he stole my cake. The entire thing. I’m sorry. I know how much effort you put into it.”

Hermione exhales through her nose like she’s considering a hex, but her lips quirk. “It’s fine. Honestly. It wasn’t… the most triumphant bake.”

He grins. “We should take a class together. Maybe not baking, you made that flour look dangerous.”

She snorts and pulls a small box from her enchanted satchel, sets it in front of him like it might be cursed.

He looks at it. Then at her. Then back at it, as if it might vanish.

“Go on,” she nudges, chin tilted expectantly.

He unties the ribbon and lifts the lid slowly, and the moment he sees what’s inside, his expression shifts, surprised, genuinely astonished, like someone just handed him proof the moon’s made of chocolate.

He opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. Closes it again. Finally: “I thought men were hard to shop for?”

Hermione smiles, more pleased with herself than she’ll admit. “Maybe a friend you’ve already exhausted all your gift tactics on. Those are hard.”

He glances up, teasing again now that he’s found his footing. “So you’re recycling a gift idea you used for Pot, Harry Potter?”

She laughs. “Not exactly, but… you’re both Quidditch fans. And I thought this was… appropriate.”

Hermione watches him carefully as he lifts the box lid again, a sort of boyish energy overtaking him. He’s already rolled back the cuffs of his pressed shirt, eager fingers unclasping his current cufflinks, simple silver, and setting them aside on the white linen tablecloth without a second thought. Right there. At the table. Like it’s Christmas morning and he's seven.

She can't help but laugh softly. “You’re not even going to wait until you’re home?”

He grins, eyes glinting. “Absolutely not.”

The new cufflinks slide in neatly, slender gold discs etched with the tiniest fluttering wings, charmed to shift and shimmer like they might lift into the air any second. She leans closer, her voice low with pride.

“They’re from the actual Snitch used in the 1980 Quidditch World Cup.”

That stops him. His fingers still at his cuff. He stares down at the tiny wings, fluttering with magic and memory. He swallows.

“Hermione… this must have cost,”

She cuts him off before he can ruin it.

“It’s your birthday,” she says firmly.

“But still,”

“It’s a gift. You’re not allowed to question a gift.” Her tone is light but final.

He exhales through his nose like he wants to protest more but instead just smiles, softer now, turning his wrist to admire the delicate motion. She watches the pride and disbelief on his face like she’s just handed him something sacred. Maybe she has.

Later, as they walk the cobbled streets under charmed lamps that glow like starlight, she catches him glancing down at his cuffs again. It’s not performative. He’s not adjusting them for her benefit. He’s genuinely taken with them, fingers brushing over the edges.

It tugs at something deep in her chest, this strange boy who isn’t Draco Malfoy, not really, but somehow is. The way he’s lit up over something she gave him. Not to impress. Not to manipulate. Just to make him smile like this.

They’re walking slowly, leisurely, the crowd shifts and spills forward into a little square where a street performer has drawn a circle of onlookers. Aster stops first, tilting his head, then Hermione follows his gaze.

The performer’s balancing a dozen wine glasses on a rod that somehow sits between his teeth, all while juggling small citrus fruits and spinning one precariously on the tip of his finger.

Aster blinks, mesmerized. “Merlin’s teeth, how is he, how’s he doing that?”

Hermione grins. “Very carefully.”

“No magic?” he mutters quietly, but it’s mostly to himself. He squints slightly, his expression full of genuine curiosity.

“None at all,” she says, quietly proud of the awe on his face.

“Bloody hell,” he murmurs, then clasps his hands behind his back like a schoolboy in a museum, watching intently. “He’s brilliant. All that balance, bit mad, but brilliant.”

Hermione watches him instead of the act, fascinated that he’s not scoffing or dismissing. She says, mostly to herself, “Malfoy would never appreciate something like this.”

Aster doesn’t look away from the act. “Surely he would, this,” he says, incredulous. “This is barmy. In the best way.”

She smirks. “I mean it. He would’ve walked right by. Said it was beneath him or that he could conjure better.”

Aster’s jaw tenses just a second, but then he glances sideways at her, amused. “And here I thought you were trying not to compare me to Draco.”

“I am,” she says, lifting a brow. “I said I try. Doesn’t mean I always succeed.”

He grins, clearly enjoying this. “That’s thoughtful of you.”

She rolls her eyes, nudging him with her shoulder, and they both laugh lightly. Then there’s a lull. The crowd murmurs as the performer shifts acts, preparing to breathe fire. They turn to each other, still grinning, but it slows, softens. It would be so easy, too easy, to just lean in. They're close enough. His eyes flick down, hers falter briefly. The space shrinks, and then a massive flame erupts from the performer’s mouth, drawing a loud gasp and applause from the crowd.

Hermione startles a little, then laughs, breaking the tension. Aster laughs too, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Close one," he says.

“Very,” she replies, watching the fire light flicker across his face.

The mirror in Aster’s pocket buzzes faintly, barely audible over the chatter of the street and the faint music of the street performer wrapping up his act. His eyes flick down and he stiffens, the relaxed line of his shoulders straightening.

“I, sorry, I just need a moment,” he murmurs, already stepping away and slipping the mirror halfway from his pocket with an apologetic glance. “Won’t be long.”

Hermione nods, pretending not to watch him cross the square and duck around a column near an old fountain. He keeps his voice low, too far for her to hear anything, but she sees the telltale hand run through his hair. The one that means stress, not vanity.

When he returns, it’s with that same mussed hair and an unsettled energy that clings to him. “Blaise,” he says, in a voice that tries to sound light, “has a knack for hosting people while also completely dictating their schedule.”

Hermione lifts a brow. “Does he provide an itinerary and everything?”

“Oh, no, it’s far more sinister than that,” Aster replies dryly. “You think you’re choosing. But it’s all a trap.” He exhales. “I have to go.”

Something falters in her chest, but she masks it. “Oh.”

He looks at her for a beat longer than necessary, then softens, offering a smile. “Thank you, for sharing dinner. For the company. And for quite possibly the best gift I’ve ever been given.”

She grins. “The cake?”

He grins wider. “Yes, the cake. The legendary, vanishing cake. A tragic loss to wizarding patisserie.”

He pauses, steps a little closer. “The cufflinks are nice too,” he adds, as if it’s an afterthought, but his eyes flicker with genuine earnestness.

Hermione lets out a breath of a laugh. “I’ll be sure to let the ghost of the 1980 Snitch know you approve.”

Then, then, he leans in, and for one sparkling, fleeting second she thinks this is it.

And he kisses her.

On. The. Cheek.

Her smile freezes as he pulls back, casually, politely, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like it didn’t just set her nerves and stomach into chaotic spirals. Like she’s not seconds away from screaming into the Mediterranean.

“Good night, Hermione,” he says, and it’s sincere.

She manages to nod, to smile, to say “good night” back. Watches him vanish down the street with a gust of cologne and charm and cheek kisses.

She’s not mad.

It’s… cute.

But the fucking cheek?! After all that?

Surely this is some level of interpersonal purgatory. This is punishment. This is slow-burn torture dressed in Italian linen and a crooked grin.

Hermione storms to her room. It's not even 9 o'clock, but she's already in her bed, her mind full of only frustration and unspent sexual energy. Tonight was supposed to be, more than, well that. It was Aster's birthday, and she had planned to suck his cock and let him do whatever he wanted to her. But instead, he left with his fancy cufflinks, a kiss on her cheek, and fucking Theodore Nott eating the cake SHE kind of made. If she sees Nott, she'll curse him stupid.

She casts a lubrication charm on herself, and retrieves her toy from the nightstand. She inserts it, the sensation making her gasp as she turns it on, the vibrations humming to life. She works her clit in tandem, her fingers moving in circles, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She's flustered, with anger and arousal, but the toy helps to focus her energy.

But then, just as she's building towards her climax, the toy's batteries die, leaving her with frustratingly empty whimpers. She gasps in annoyance, hitting the bed a few times with alternating wrists, throwing the toy across the room in a fit of pique.

She grabs her wand, casting a vibrating charm on her fingers, but it's not the same. With the toy, it's like someone else is pleasuring her, the sensations more intense, more real. But with her magic, she can feel that it's her own touch, her own effort, and it's not as satisfying.

Determined to find release, she dips her other hand into herself, her fingers curling inside her as she imagines Aster down there, his tongue, his fingers, his cock. She works her clit with her other hand, her breaths coming in short, sharp gasps as she chases a cry, her body convulsing, her inner muscles clenching around her fingers. But it's not as satisfying as the real thing, so she does it again, and again, planning to keep going until she's spent or finally satisfied.

-

Padma’s laugh echoes off the stone walls of the little beachside flat, sharp and scandalous, as she fumbles with the tie of her swim top. “Sorry, sorry!” she gasps, laughter making her fingers useless. “I swear I’m not laughing at you, it’s just, the cheek, Hermione?”

Hermione’s face is buried in her hands, groaning into her own palms like she could disappear into them. “The cheek, Padma,” she drones, muffled and miserable. “The cheek. I’ve half a mind to jump his bones or jump off a cliff, and I can’t decide which.”

Padma collapses onto the towel next to her, the ends of her dark braid still damp from their last dip in the sea. “I’m sorry. I am. For your dreadful start to summer. Truly.” She tries to sound contrite, but her lips are twitching. “Maybe he’s gay?”

Hermione lifts her head just enough to squint sideways. “Maybe. He’s living with Blaise, and that man is questionable all over. Expensive shoes, too many rings, too much hair product. It tracks.”

Just then, the front door creaks open, and the unmistakable sound of Livia’s sandals clicking on tile fills the flat. A gust of serene air and the scent of bergamot follows her in.

“In here!” Hermione yells, sitting up and brushing sand off her knees, suddenly animated. “Livia! We need your wisdom.”

Livia appears in the doorway to the bedroom-turned-salon, windblown and radiant in her oversized sunglasses and a sheer wrap. She throws her arms up in exaggerated supplication. “Perché mi invochi, o dèi? What sins am I being asked to absolve today?”

Hermione sits up straighter, still grinning. “We have a question. You dated Blaise Zabini, yes?”

Livia immediately winces, clutching her chest with mock agony. “Madonna santa, why do you remind me of my first mistake?”

Padma gestures wildly. “Perfect. You’re qualified. Is Blaise gay?”

Livia makes a face like they’ve asked whether the sun rises in the west. “Certainly not,” she says, with a flick of her manicured fingers and a mutter of rapid Italian too fast to translate.

She sighs dramatically, smoothing a hand through her waves. “Blaise loves all. Women, men, enchanted statues. It’s not his preference that is the issue, it is his appetite. Too much. Always too much. That is why it never worked with us.”

Padma snorts. “Sounds exhausting.”

“It was.” Livia drops onto the edge of the bed. “One time, he made me late to my cousin’s wedding because he was flirting with the mirror.”

Hermione groans and collapses backward onto the bed. “Great. So maybe they are just friends. Glittery and distracting.”

Padma pats her knee sympathetically. “And still no excuse for the cheek.”

Hermione covers her face again and wails, “The cheek!” like it’s a curse word, and the three women dissolve into hysterical laughter, filling yet another summer day, with the sea breeze in their lungs and too many feelings in their chest.

Chapter Text

The morning sun glints off the Tuscan hills as the group tumbles briefly following a rocky apparition, all suncream and sass, loaded with satchels, foraging knives, and the cocky energy that comes with having done this trip too many times to be sensible about it.

“Theo, if I hear the phrase ‘boomslang skin’ one more time, I swear I’ll leave you in the bloody lake,” Draco mutters, adjusting his broom strap with theatrical disdain.

“It’s rare this far north!” Theo insists, eyes already scanning the path like it might leap out and wrap itself around his ankles. “And you lot always miss it because you're too busy complaining or flirting with pond spirits.”

“Pond spirits have better conversation than you,” Blaise says, tossing a lazy grin over his shoulder. “And better hair, too, once the water gets to you.”

“Don’t start with the water,” Allegra groans, flicking her wand to levitate her pristine boots over a patch of mud. “I told you, I don’t swim. I... lounge. Floating is a lifestyle, not an emergency survival tactic.”

“You can always hold on to me, amore,” Blaise says with mock gallantry, striking a ridiculous pose. “I am famously buoyant.”

“You're cursed,” she corrects flatly. “And you know the lake ruins your hair.”

“I know. It’s part of the annual trauma.”

Meanwhile, Zoe bounds ahead like she’s already in the cave, calling back, “If anyone finds beetle-wing moss, don’t hoard it like last time, Theo!”

“I didn’t hoard it,” Theo mutters. “I just, fairly out-foraged everyone.”

“And I,” Draco says, walking a little faster so no one notices how much he's enjoying this, “am absolutely thrilled to be your fifth wheel. Nothing like playing third fiddle to a double date with leeches.”

“Oh come on,” Zoe says brightly, “you’re not a fifth wheel. You’re more like... the emotional support cynic.”

“That,” Draco says dryly, “is disturbingly accurate.”

As they hike up toward the first ridge, broomsticks slung over shoulders and potion pouches at their hips, the familiar chaos of tradition settles in, the hunt, the heat, the mockery, the inevitable dunking, and the quiet truth that none of them would miss it for the world.

They barely make it a hundred yards up the dusty trail before Draco halts, brow furrowing at the unmistakable sound of someone laughing behind them, a sharp, clever laugh he knows far too well.

He turns slowly, eyes narrowing, and there is Hermione, hiking boots laced tight, curls up in a ponytail, wand holstered like she’s reporting for an adventure op-ed. And next to her, Padma Patil in mirrored sunglasses and a sunhat, waving cheerfully.

Draco doesn’t even turn to Theo, just hisses, “What. Did. You. Do.”

Theo’s hands go up in mock innocence. “I didn’t want you to be the fifth wheel.”

“You fucking goblin. The four of you are bound to slip up! You’ve just added too many variables to a cauldron already on fire!”

Theo smirks and mutters under his breath, “The only thing that’ll slip into her is,”

“Don’t.” Draco doesn’t even look at him, already flicking his wand with efficient spite.

Theo chokes as his next word comes out as a braying “HEE-HAWWWWK!”

Everyone turns. Allegra blinks. Blaise raises an eyebrow. Zoe claps her hands with glee.

“Oh,” Draco says with brutal satisfaction, “I’ve charmed it so that every time he says my real name, he sounds like a donkey. Figured I’d help prevent any... slip ups.”

“Brilliant,” Blaise says, grinning. “Can you do it for when he lies, too?”

“I’d never speak again,” Theo croaks, still red from the sound effect.

Hermione and Padma finally catch up. Hermione looks suspicious but amused. “What was that sound?”

“Local wildlife,” Draco says smoothly, shooting Theo a warning glare.

Padma, not missing a beat, nudges Hermione. “Told you it’d be interesting.”

Theo tries to mutter “You’re welcome, HEE-HAWWWWK,” and Draco just smiles wider.

He’s barely shaken off the initial ambush when the group begins their hike again, winding through sun-dappled trees and dry brush that crackles underfoot. Draco glances back with impeccable manners barely masking his irritation.

“I only brought three brooms,” he says with a perfectly apologetic shrug to Hermione. “Didn’t realize I could extend invitations.”

“That’s why I took the pleasure,” Theo chimes in smoothly, hands behind his head, grinning like he’s done them all a favor.

Zoe extends a hand to Hermione with cheerful elegance. “Zoe.”

Hermione eyes her with curiosity, shaking it. “Didn’t I see you on the arm of Malfoy the other day?”

“Hence,” Theo interjects with a dramatic sigh, “the retreat to another country. I have that effect on people.”

Zoe leans into it, looping her arm through his like a smitten debutante. “He’s exhausting but charming. Like a Nundu in silk robes.”

Draco wants to hurl, not vomit, just himself. Preferably off a cliff. Tragically, the trail is far too level.

Hermione’s lips twitch. “It’s sweet, in a way.”

Theo whispers, “Yeah, it’s sweet.”

Blaise echoes under his breath, “It’s sweet.”

Draco groans audibly, dragging a hand down his face as Padma and Hermione burst out laughing behind him.

“My holiday,” Draco-aster declares, “is feeling extremely crowded all of the sudden.”

Theo claps a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I brought two extra brooms.”

Hermione arches a brow. “For what?”

Draco’s about to explain when something on the bark of a nearby tree catches his eye. Hermione spots it too and crouches instantly, tugging a sample of violet-tinted moss into a collection vial. She says, “Frondensia glossa. The moss. Doesn’t usually grow at this elevation.”

Zoe peeks over his shoulder. “Well, Hermione wins for first find then.”

Allegra smirks. “That counts?”

“Absolutely,” Zoe says. “She’ll be insufferable by the time we get to the lake.”

Hermione grins at Draco. “You planning to push me in?”

Draco glances at Theo, who already looks like he’s gearing up to say something filthy, and cuts in sharply: “Only if your broom breaks.”

Theo mutters, “Not the only thing, HEE-HAWWK!”

Padma laughs so hard she nearly drops her satchel.

By the time they reach the lake, the sun’s climbed high enough to gild the water in soft gold, casting shifting reflections of the trees along its banks. The group’s packs jingle lightly with potion ingredients, gleaming roots, shimmering leaves, a few lucky finds, and more than one enthusiastic exclamation from Hermione about expanded uses she’s only read about in theory. She’s radiant here, flushed from the hike, holding a stalk of vibranthis ivy like it’s treasure.

“This,” she says, gesturing to her half-filled satchel and the glistening plants poking out, “is what fieldwork should always feel like.”

“And you still made flashcards for it,” Padma notes with a grin.

“They’re laminated,” Hermione admits, unrepentant.

Ahead, the brooms are being handed out. It’s already been decided, Hermione will ride with Padma, who flies like a panicked mouser on a rain-slick roof. Theo tosses Hermione a broom with mock solemnity. “For the dignity of the passenger.”

Zoe leans into Theo as they mount their shared broom and stage-whispers just loud enough for Draco to hear, “Aster is still alone with his wood.”

Theo snorts, delighted with himself, while Draco, sitting alone on his broom, doesn’t dignify it with a reply. Instead, he mutters under his breath, “You’re all children.”

Hermione and Padma exchange a knowing look that feels suspiciously like shared amusement. Draco scowls. “Is it gang-up-on-Aster day?”

“Isn’t it always?” Allegra chirps holding on tight to Blaise.

But solitude has its perks, without a partner clinging to his waist or offering unsolicited commentary, Draco catches a flicker just beneath the water's surface. Something iridescent, darting. A school of fish, magical, judging by the faint shimmer of the path they leave behind. He dives without warning, casting a swift stasis charm and scooping one into a conjured flask before it can vanish.

When they land on the far side of the lake, Hermione rushes over, windblown and grinning. “Was that a silverlace darten? They’re a dream for dreamless sleep draughts. Will you share a sample? Just a sliver of fin?”

Draco slides the flask into his bag and smirks. “Depends.”

“On?”

“What you’re offering in trade.”

Hermione narrows her eyes at him, playful. “You drive a hard bargain.”

“Rare fish don’t come cheap.”

Zoe strolls past, elbowing Theo. “If he asks for your flashcards, don’t give them up too easily.”

Theo grins. “I don’t know, I’ve heard his wood’s worth it.”

The walk to the cave is short but winding, the trees thinning into rocky outcroppings as the poor excuse for a path gives way to cliffs and mossy ledges. The air grows cooler with each step, and the sound of the lake fades behind them. Draco’s ahead when he glances back and notices Hermione hesitate at a jagged dip in the path.

Without thinking, at least that’s what he tells himself, he doubles back and holds out a hand. “Here,” he says, as if the rock is particularly treacherous, though it’s barely more than an awkward step.

Hermione raises an eyebrow, but takes his hand. “Is this chivalry or insurance in case of another rare find?”

“Both?”

She laughs softly, and he helps her across, but doesn’t let go. Not right away. Not until Blaise fake-coughs the word “subtlety” and Theo snickers behind his hand. Only then does Draco pointedly release her hand and strides ahead.

The path narrows to a shaded cleft in the rock, cool air whispers out, signaling the entrance to the cave. Theo’s practically vibrating with excitement. “Yes!” he crows, dropping to one knee to inspect the dry stone near the threshold. “Water level is low, bone-dry season. We can walk all the way through!”

Hermione tilts her head. “Why are you so giddy about not swimming? I thought you liked the plunge.”

Before Theo can answer, Draco, Blaise, Allegra, and Zoe all groan in perfect chorus, “Boomslang skin.”

“We’ve heard nothing else for the past week,” Blaise mutters. “He’s worse than a sixth-year trying to sneak into Knockturn Alley.”

But Theo’s already darted ahead, crowing in triumph. “There’s nearly a dozen sheds just at the entrance! Look! Fresh!”

Blaise doesn’t move. “Which means there are also snakes in the cave.”

“They’re not aggressive,” Theo says cheerfully. “Unless you smell like prey.”

Blaise levels a look at Allegra. “If I die in there, bury me in my spoonflower silk suit.”

Hermione tries to lighten the mood. “Well, at least it’s not a plane.”

Silence.

She looks around. “It’s, it’s a Muggle movie reference. Snakes on a Plane?”

More silence.

Padma pats her back. “You tried.”

Zoe grins. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

Theo, distracted by collecting boomslang skin with the highest care, just says, “Worth it,” like it’s gospel.

The air in the cave grows damper and cooler with each step as the narrow tunnel opens into a wider chamber. Orbs of enchanted light bob gently around them, casting glimmers against slick walls. Hermione’s voice rises in quiet awe as she notes some rare fungus sprouting in a crevice, but then, without warning, every orb vanishes.

Darkness crashes in like a curtain dropped.

A sharp intake of breath. Someone curses. Someone else stumbles.

“Theo!” several voices bark at once.

“That wasn’t me!” Theo’s voice echoes indignantly. “This time!”

“Oh for Merlin’s sake, really?” Draco mutters, a hand instinctively lifting his wand.

“Hush,” Allegra commands with the cool, amused clarity, enjoying the drama. “That was me.”

“You?” Blaise sounds betrayed. “You know what you just did to my heart rate?”

Allegra hums. “It’s tradition. Seven years ago, remember, Theo killed the lights, and the Luminelles came out.”

“Ooh,” Padma says, sounding intrigued. “I’ve read about those, bioluminescent cave beetles, right? Extract can replace Ptolemy in a stabilized Veritaserum formula.”

“Exactly,” Allegra confirms, pleased.

But Draco isn’t listening.

Hermione’s hand finds his sleeve, then his wrist, and then she's there, closer than before, pressed lightly against his side like she knows exactly who he is even in pitch dark. She doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t move.

He should.

He doesn’t.

He feels her fingers trace up the length of his arm, ghosting over his shoulder and curling there like she belongs. He doesn’t breathe. Her other hand drifts, tentative, searching, over the line of his jaw, fingertips feather-light as they map his features. A slow drag across his chin, then the softest pull at his lower lip with a single curious finger.

She’s not guessing anymore.

And he, he’s been avoiding this, dodging it like it might undo them both.

His hands lift, unthinking, tracing her waist, her ribs, and gently framing her neck. His thumbs hover beneath her jaw.

Around them, the others are murmuring, waiting for the Luminelles, arguing quietly about wandlight etiquette. No one can see. Not in this darkness.

But she’s searching him.

They wait in the dark, half the group already squabbling.

“This is so dumb,” Blaise mutters. “We always give up after five minutes.”

“That was one time,” Allegra counters primly.

“It was every time,” Theo groans. “We wait, we whisper, we pretend they’ll come back, and then we light our wands like idiots.”

Zoe chimes in, chipper, “I’m just saying, statistically, they only appeared that once because Theo tripped over a rock and screamed like a banshee.”

“It was a very sharp rock,” Theo says with mock offense.

But Draco barely hears them. The voices are somewhere else, far off, distant, irrelevant.

Hermione’s breath brushes against his lips.

Her hand is still against his jaw, fingertips steady now, not searching, knowing. There’s no uncertainty in her touch, and it’s all he can think about. Every point where they’re connected burns like a live wire.

And it’s intoxicating. Dangerous.

Too dangerous.

Because if he lets this happen, if he leans in even a fraction closer, there’s no guarantee it ends here. One kiss turns into another. Into a night. Into something that can’t be undone with clever words and distance.

Don’t sleep with her. Blaise’s voice slices through his head like a knife, sharp and untimely.

And Merlin help him, Draco’s never been great at walking away from fire, till it was already charring his heals.

Her lips barely graze his. Not even a kiss, just the softest pressure. Like a breath. Like an invitation.

His pulse hammers. His throat tightens. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Every instinct warring inside him.

Because this isn’t pretend, it’s no longer an illusion.

She tastes like mint and cinnamon left out in the sun, and it’s only the ghost of a taste, just her breath on his, but it’s enough to unravel him. Her head dips back into his palm, the curve of her neck pressing trustingly against his fingers as they rise to the base of her skull. She’s still waiting, still, breath held, lips parted, heart open in a way that terrifies him.

But he doesn’t move.

He can’t.

And then she shifts. The spell breaks in an instant.

“Oh,” she breathes, eyes catching something above.

Tiny teal lights burst out of the darkness like startled starlings, Luminelles, dozens of them, and Hermione moves, stepping just enough to reach into her bag and uncap a jar. The shimmering insects stream toward her, obedient and radiant, vanishing inside the glass as if called home.

A collective groan rises in the dark.

“You’ll divy those out right?” Theo whines into the black, full of theatrical despair.

Hermione barks a laugh. “You invited me, remember?”

“So you wouldn’t hex me for eating that cake!” Theo protests. “It wasn’t even good cake,” he adds, sulking.

Draco flicks his wand in Theo’s direction, murmurs a charm under his breath.

Theo’s next words come out in song, high and dramatic, “It was dry and dense and sad, like my lo-o-ove liiiife!”

Laughter explodes around them.

“At least he rhymes,” Padma grins.

“Sort of,” Blaise mutters. “It’s Theo. Set the bar low.”

Draco chuckles under his breath, still dazed, still not entirely back in his own skin. Hermione’s glow, lit now by the swirling teal fire in her jar, doesn’t look like magic. She just looks like temptation.

They wait.

And wait.

“All right,” Blaise sighs, loud and annoyed. “Two times in seven years, there’s no chance it’ll happen twice in one day.”

With a collective shuffle and the glow of conjured orbs slowly relit, they all retreat deeper into the cave until they reach the main chamber, a vast, echoing expanse with a dark, open crevice at its center like the mouth of a slumbering beast.

Blaise holds up a hand, nodding toward the opening. “You know the drill.”

Padma peers down, unconvinced. “Wait, really? We’re just tossing stuff in a hole? Is that actually necessary?”

“It’s absolutely necessary,” Hermione says, already rifling through her bag. “I’m not risking it. Caves are ancient, sacred magic.”

“Not to mention petty,” Allegra adds with a knowing look. “And jealous.”

Hermione frowns, coming up empty. “Damn. I don’t have a coin.”

“I’ve got one,” Draco offers, already fishing a galleon out of his pocket.

“Ah ah,” Allegra tuts, wagging a finger. “Can’t be from someone else. The cave doesn’t like borrowed sentiment.”

“It doesn’t have to be gold,” Zoe chimes in. “Just something meaningful. Our lot are just shallow and uncreative.”

“I am creative!” Theo insists, hands on his hips, still tragically rhyming. “Just cursed, betrayed, and misunderstood…”

Hermione, ignoring them, pulls off a small bead, iridescent, smooth, and barely the size of a fingernail, from the corner of her bag and repairs the stitch with her wand.

“That’s it?” Theo sings with theatrical disbelief. “A baaaaead so tiny, it hardly seems fair, like giving the cave your old split-end haaaair, hey!”

He stumbles forward when Draco elbows him.

“Cancel this hex, please I’m perplexed!”

Hermione’s voice cuts in, level and calm. “It is meaningful. You wouldn’t understand.”

She drops the bead into the void. It disappears soundlessly.

A beat of silence. Then Theo says, still in song, “You’re inviting bad luck!”

“I’ll stick with her,” Draco says casually, stepping up beside Hermione as the others prepare their own offerings.

Hermione smirks at him, eyes soft.

He mentally adds, And ask about that bag. That bead. That whole everything.
Because even in a cave, even underground, even with Theo rhyming like a drunk bard, Hermione remains the most interesting mystery in the room.

-

With a jolt of portkey magic, they land in a staggered heap at the apparition point slightly damp, mildly bruised, and wholly victorious.

“Merlin’s balls, I nearly sat on a snake,” Blaise groans, clutching Allegra like she’s a fainting couch. “Sat on it. I saw my life flash before my eyes. It was elegant. And tragically short.”

“It slithered past your boot,” Allegra says, rolling her eyes but petting his shoulder like he’s survived war all over again. “Honestly, the snake was probably more afraid of your dramatics.”

“It hissed at me, Allegra.”

“That’s what snakes do, Blaise.”

Meanwhile, Zoe and Padma are practically vibrating with excitement, heads bent together over a small velvet pouch.

“If we cross-pollinate the blushing nightshade with the star-dusted lily, we might get a bloom with dual-reactivity,” Zoe murmurs.

“I’m naming mine after you,” Padma beams. “If it bites someone, it’s a Zoe.”

Theo is lovingly admiring a tiny lizard that’s stirring in a jar, practically preening. “I’m calling him Apophis. He knows things.”

Hermione groans. “I’m wiped. And I need a shower. Whatever dripped on me back there, I don’t want it identified.”

Draco smirks. “Theo should’ve warned you not to stand there. But…it’s sort of an initiation thing. Got me the first time I came.”

Hermione raises a brow. “Which was when, exactly? You seem oddly comfortable with all this. How often do you lot come?”

There’s a flicker, just a beat of hesitation, and Draco opens his mouth, but Theo jumps in smoothly.

“You have to come back to the villa,” Theo says turning to Hermione. “We inventory, we trade, we brag. It’s tradition.”

“Excuse me?” Blaise snaps, still half-covered in Allegra’s shawl like a traumatized Victorian widow. “Now you’re inviting them back to my villa?”

“Padma too,” Theo says, ignoring him. “It’s not just fun. It’s sacred.”

Zoe makes a face. “We’re not children anymore. It’s not All Hallows’ Eve with cauldron cakes and star charts trading sweets.”

“Speak for yourself,” Theo says, shameless. “It’s tradition. And more importantly, I’m still short on lacewing flies, and Padma pulled like twenty.”

Padma smirks. “You can trade me for one of those glowing Fiendwurms.”

“Fiendwurm?!” Blaise flinches.

“They were flying, Blaise,” Draco says dryly. “You’re safe. For now.”

Hermione just shakes her head, slimy-streaked and radiant. “You’re all unhinged.”

Draco loiters near the makeshift lab room, formerly Blaise’s lavish guest suite, now overrun with cauldron-stained tables and mismatched glass vials, trying not to stare too obviously down the corridor that leads to the guest bath.

He should be portioning out the rare moss he found. Or at least labeling the gilled tubers that were starting to leak a suspicious ichor. But instead, he’s brooding with professional efficiency, wishing, just a little, that Hermione had somehow ended up in his room. His shower. That there had been some plausible excuse, like an accidentally locked door or Blaise’s bath being mysteriously filled with mooncalf dung, that forced her to wrap herself in a towel and,

“Stop thinking, Malfoy,” Zoe says, without even looking up from sorting crystalline powder into teeny jars. “You’re leaking daydream. It’s gross.”

Draco scowls. “I’m thinking about...labels.”

“Mmmhmm,” Allegra says, swishing her wand and elegantly stacking vials. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

There are five of them here. Five very observant, infuriatingly perceptive human obstacles between him and any accidental towel-adjacent encounters.

He flops onto the stool beside Theo, who’s singing softly, still singing, despite the hex being lifted, as he decants powdered wormroot into amber bottles.

“I could’ve cursed her shower,” Draco mutters. “Made the water pink. Or reversed gravity. Something.”

“Subtle,” Theo says, not even glancing up. “And romantic.”

“You’re one to talk. You practically stuffed her in the villa.”

“I invited her. You didn’t not want her here.”

Draco slams a lid on a jar. “I wanted plausible deniability.”

“Still mad she’s not in your bathroom?”

Draco glares. “You’re enjoying this far too much.”

“Oh, I’m thriving,” Theo grins.

“Can we please finish sorting before the new moon?” Blaise calls across the room. “I want my room back before the decade ends.”

“Your room had a fainting chaise and a golden harp,” Zoe says. “Now it smells like mushroom spores.”

Allegra, carefully counting out star-dusted petals, says, “I vote we make the change permanent. This is the most productive I’ve ever been in a Zabini residence.”

Blaise groans. “We agreed to one week of full transformation. After that, I’m exorcising you all with scented oils and harpy jazz.”

Meanwhile, the old record player, freshly charmed and spinning something jazzy and brass-heavy, had been selected through an intense round of Spindle-Spark-Hex, which somehow involved minor hexing if you lost three times in a row.

Zoe, smug champion of the game, had picked “Sunset over Hogsmeade” a jazzy instrumental with a swoony tempo that only made Draco’s mood worse.

“She’s probably naked by now,” Theo murmurs like a commentary on the weather.

Draco drops a vial.

Padma starts in light, maybe a joke, maybe partially a test, as she measures out a handful of dried iridescent seeds, tossing them into a dish with a flick.

“So, Aster,” she says sweetly, “you always bring girls to your secret magical caves and let them shower in your friend’s overly expensive villa, or is this a special occasion?”

Draco chuckles, affable, measured. “Only the ones worth impressing.”

Padma hums. “Mmm. And how long does that worth last? Until the hike’s over? The potion ingredients are sorted? Or are you one of those ‘disappear after the holiday’ types?”

The words are lilting, light, but there’s heft beneath. He knows it. He’s not stupid. And he’s usually so good at this.

But something about her tone, this syrup-sweet sanctimony cloaked in House Gryffindor logic, scrapes at the part of him that’s still far too Malfoy. That unshakable reflex, the one with a hair-trigger when his dignity’s questioned.

So he slips just enough and says, without thinking, “I suppose that depends on whether they turn out to be worth more than just clever commentary and social climbing.”

The words hang like a curse in the air. Too sharp. Too clean. Too Malfoy.

Padma stills. Her brows rise, slow. Her gaze, which had moments ago carried curiosity and cautious approval, now sharpens into something cold and glittering.

“Oh,” she says softly. “There you are.”

Draco’s heart lurches. “Padma, I didn’t mean,”

“No,” she says, still in that perfectly civil, deadly voice. “You did. You just didn’t mean to say it aloud.”

And the room changes. Not for everyone, not yet, but for her. She’s no longer looking at Aster. She’s looking at Malfoy. With all the decade’s baggage and war-born memory behind it.

She steps back from the table, careful with her tools, precise with her motions, and walks out the door towards the guest bath.

Draco exhales. Quiet. Controlled. But inside, he’s spiraling.

Theo, without looking up from his labeling, mutters, “And there goes your plausible deniability.”

Chapter Text

Hermione steps into the guest room, the one that looks more like an apothecary than a bedroom now, islands of neatly labeled jars and carefully stacked vials. Her hair is damp from the shower, her skin still warm from the steam, and she’s grateful her things are exactly where she left them, untouched. No reason to linger.

She starts gathering Padma’s belongings with a flick of her wand. They lift in the air and tuck themselves neatly into Padma’s bag, which Hermione slings over her shoulder.

Behind her, Aster’s voice breaks the quiet. “How’s Padma?”

Hermione doesn’t turn around. “Fine.”

“Is she really?” he asks, softer this time. “I didn’t mean to be,”

“Mean?” Hermione finishes for him, still not looking at him. She exhales, eyes scanning the floor in case Padma dropped something. “She’ll be alright. We just had a spat of our own, that’s all. She just wants to get back.”

There’s a pause, long enough for Hermione to glance over her shoulder.

“I could call her,” Aster offers. “Just to… sort it out.”

That earns a small, surprised lift of her brow. “Sure,” she says, not unkindly. “That’s very… considerate.”

He nods like he’s not sure what to do with that word. She watches him for a beat longer, amused despite herself. Aster Selwyn, clone of Malfoy, sincerely trying to fix a new friendship he dented with a too-sharp tongue. The world may actually be upside down.

His smile is almost sheepish. And she’s already halfway out the door.

-

Padma’s trunk snaps shut with a finality Hermione pretends not to feel. The sun’s barely over the rooftops, but the air is merely temperate, full of the dull hum of an approaching summer storm and the faint, woodsy scent of floo powder from the fireplace, doors and windows open to let the salt air in.

“Your portkey leaves in an hour,” Hermione says from the doorway, arms folded. “And the international network might be backed up. You know how people get right before Merlin Remembrance Day.”

Padma groans, shouldering her travel bag. “Don’t remind me. I could stay, you know. Reschedule.”

Hermione shakes her head, firm. “You can’t. Your aunt would hex you from halfway across the Adriatic.”

Still, Padma lingers because their last argument, still unfinished, sits tedious between them. Padma breaks the silence first.

“Hermione…” Her voice is quieter now. “Please. Just… see reason. Call him out. You’re letting him get away with it.”

“I’m trying to enjoy my summer,” Hermione says flatly. “That was the plan. Remember plans?”

Padma sets her bag down with a thud. “You’re not just enjoying your summer. You’re avoiding it. Him. All of it.”

Hermione doesn’t argue, which only seems to frustrate Padma more.

“I’m afraid you’re just hurting yourself,” she says, desperate now. “It’s masochistic, Hermione. What the press is saying, have you even read it? They’re basically parroting Ron. You know how this works. If you don’t speak up,”

“Good,” Hermione cuts in, placid and biting. “Let Ron talk. Let him run his mouth dry. Because the second he starts talking about himself, no one listens.”

Padma looks startled. Hermione steps forward, steadier now, continues, “In his story, I’m the main character. The person he claims to hate is the one who makes him relevant. His own personal hell is that I exist, happy and unbothered. And knowing I can brush him off? That’s what stings.”

Padma shakes her head, disbelieving. “You want to be his main character? Don’t you want peace?”

“I am peace,” Hermione says. “I’m sunlight, Padma. People like him throw shade where the sun hits hardest.”

It’s defiant. Unapologetic. And it lands.

“I’m glowing,” Hermione adds, “and it burns his ego. I’m a mirror, and people who believe his lies flinch when they see themselves in me. They’ll cheer for your rise, until it makes their spotlight feel smaller, then they’ll dig a hole just to shove you in it.”

Padma looks away, her jaw tight. “Eventually the dirt they throw starts to get heavy.”

Hermione picks up Padma’s bag and hands it to her gently.

“He’ll try to bury me,” she says, calm now, “and he won’t be the only one. But they didn’t know…”

She meets Padma’s eyes with the hint of a smile.

“I was a seed.”

Padma laughs softly, bittersweet and fond. “You’re one of the strongest people I know.”

“I learned from the best,” Hermione quips, nudging her shoulder.

And now their goodbye doesn’t feel so sharp.

Padma steps into the hearth in a swirl of Floo-green flames, giving Hermione one last look that says everything they didn’t manage to finish saying out loud. Then she's gone, off to the Italian Ministry to fetch her portkey, off to family and obligations and a little less emotional chaos.

The silence that follows is short-lived.

A knock sounds against the open doorframe, pointless really, given the door’s wide open, but Hermione turns anyway. And there he is. Aster. Or Draco. Or whatever he’s calling himself in this half-charmed version of their lives.

He leans there, one hand in his pocket, the other resting lightly against the frame, casual like he hadn’t just possibly overheard her entire dramatic monologue about ego, seeds, and sunlight. His expression is carefully unreadable, except for the slight quirk of amusement at the corner of his mouth.

She eyes him warily, crossing her arms but not moving from her spot.

“How long were you standing there?”

“Long enough to learn you're either terrifying or inspirational,” he says smoothly. “I haven’t decided which yet.”

She snorts. “That’s a common reaction.”

He steps inside, slowly, and she watches the way he moves. It’s familiar, too fluid to be someone who grew up pretending to be anyone else. But there’s something about him today that’s more… collected. Less sharp-edged. His sleeves are rolled to the elbow, free of any ink or cursed marks, and his hair isn’t perfectly in place, like he’d rushed to come here. That’s Aster, she thinks. Not Draco Malfoy, heir to posturing and polish, but the version trying to play a different hand.

He says, stepping closer. “Is she okay? Padma, I mean.”

Hermione raises a brow. “She’ll live. But she thinks I’m an idiot.”

He gives her a once-over, thoughtful. “You’re too smart to be an idiot.”

“That’s what I said,” she says lightly, though she’s tired around the edges.

They stand there, too much unsaid to be easy, too much attraction to be ignored.

Padma’s voice echoes in her head, accusing her of brushing off the warning signs, just like Ron’s cruelty. Of ignoring the obvious.

But then Hermione looks at him again, at the kindness in his gaze, the slant of his smile, the way he seems completely aware she’s still deciding what to do with him, and she discards the thought like excess parchment.

He’s maddeningly attractive. He’s clearly interested. And Hermione Granger is tired of second-guessing herself.

So instead of asking the smart thing or doing the safe thing, she raises an eyebrow, tips her chin up just a bit, and says, “So, what brings you by?”

Aster leans back on his heals, “Since you don’t have plans for the holiday,” he says, watching her closely, “come with us. Me, Theo, the others. It'll be… low effort. Mostly.”

Hermione arches a brow. “Are you aware it’s dangerous to play with snakes?”

He blinks. “Er, there aren’t actual snakes involved. Because Blaise will leave.”

She sighs, shakes her head with the kind of tired patience she usually reserves for overly literal Ravenclaws. “No. It’s a joke. We were sorted into Houses at Hogwarts, Slytherin, Gryffindor, et cetera. You're living with a snake, Aster.”

It takes a beat, and then: “Oh. Salazar Slytherin,” he says, slow smile forming. “You think you’re very clever.”

“I am,” Hermione replies easily.

“You’re holding quite a grudge,” he accuses.

“I don’t hold grudges.”

He grins wider. “Prove it. Come with us. Blaise’s family has a manor just outside Lunefossa, no light pollution, the perfect view of the local fireworks. Not gaudy. Charming. Modest, even.”

Hermione crosses her arms. “Modest, really?”

“Well… modest by Zabini standards,” Aster concedes. “There’s a pool. We read in the fields. It’s ridiculously relaxing.”

She studies him. He looks too hopeful, like he knows she needs persuading but also knows she’ll say yes if he gets the tone just right.

“...What’s the catch?”

He coughs. “There may also be a party that night. Themed. Possibly, over the top. Blaise’s sister is in charge.”

Hermione blinks. “Blaise has a sister?”

“Half-sister,” Aster corrects. “He’s got eight stepdads. There’s bound to be more than a few accidental siblings hiding in the drapery.”

That earns him a laugh, genuine and loud, and Hermione shakes her head like she’s already regretting her amusement.

Aster steps into the room, slow and sure, like he’s approaching something sacred, or volatile. There’s a flicker of waywardness under the softness in his hazel eyes. Hermione doesn’t move, not away at least. She’s watching him like she’s still unsure what exactly he is, what exactly this is.

“There’s just one thing that might change your mind,” he says quietly almost teasing.

She lifts her chin, arms still crossed, skeptical but undeniably curious. “Oh? What’s that?”

He doesn’t answer with words. He just closes the last bit of space between them and kisses her.

It’s not hesitant, not testing, just confident and clean, like he’s been thinking about this as long as she has. And she’s stunned by how right it is. He tastes divine, exactly as she imagined in that moment in the cave, just the breath of him, electric with possibility. This is that possibility, realized.

She kisses him back, instantly, greedily. Her stomach flips. All the butterflies she thought she’d been enduring? Gone. Fled. Overwhelmed by heat storming through her veins.

His tongue slides against hers all so fluid, and far too much, and not enough at all. His hand moves to cradle the base of her skull, fingers splayed, holding her. He tilts her head, takes a little more, and for a second she thinks she might actually forget to breathe.

Then, suddenly, he pulls back, barely, just far enough that his forehead rests against hers, breath torrid between them.

“Good,” he murmurs, a breath of a grin in his voice. “Didn’t want that still lingering between us.”

Hermione lets out a small, stunned laugh, a little unsteady, a little unraveled. “You think that cleared the air?”

Aster smirks. “I think it lit it on fire.”

-

The Muggle circus isn’t what Hermione expected him to suggest that night, not when they’re surrounded by ancient Italian ruins and magical luxuries, but when Aster says, “After that street performer juggling knives. I need to see what else they’ve got,” she doesn’t argue.

And he’s buzzing when they arrive.

“I haven’t been to a circus since I was six,” he says, eyes flicking over the striped tents and the hum of music winding up into the dusky sky. “Magical one, of course. Trapeze artists who could fly without wires. Illusionists who used sleight of wand. “

“And let me guess,” Hermione says, raising a brow, “you’ve since dissected every trick and enchantment until the magic vanished?”

“I’m a tragic case,” he says solemnly. “Cursed with education. But this,” He gestures grandly to the technicolor swirl of muggle festivities. “No magic. Just sheer lunacy and talent. That tightrope walker could die at any moment. Isn’t it brilliant?”

“You’re mildly terrifying,” Hermione mutters, but she’s grinning.

This,” he gestures to the crowd, the sawdust, the earthy smell of rope and popcorn, “this is all real. That’s… terrifying.”

“Terrifying?” Hermione asks, smirking.

“Terrifying and amazing,” he grins. “They’re risking their necks without even a cushioning charm. It’s insane.”

He insists on buying candy floss, and promptly gets it all over his mouth. She pretends she isn’t charmed beyond repair. Then she insists he tries her favorite, Crackerjack popcorn.

His reaction is immediate. “This is sticky and crunchy and salty and sweet and I don’t know if I love it or hate it.”

“Welcome to the human condition,” she quips, tossing a piece in his mouth.

Just as the fire-breather finishes his act, Theo and Livia appear, arguing before they’ve even sat down.

“Oh excellent,” Theo’s voice drawls. “The romance aisle. And here I thought we’d sit in silence and pretend to tolerate one another.”

“Still pretending?” says Livia crisply, breezing in beside him. “I’ve decided to embrace the twat waffle you truly are.”

“I told you not to call me that in public.”

“I will call you that at your funeral.”

“I only invited her because Zoe had that university interview, and Blaise was being a twat,” Theo says, loudly, settling beside Hermione and stealing her popcorn.

“Uh-huh,” Hermione says dryly.

“You said you didn’t want to come,” Theo snaps at Livia.

“I said,” Livia replies with a syrupy sweetness, “I didn’t want to go to a party with my mother. You are not the same, caro.” She waves at Aster, fingers fluttering like silk fans, her nails gleaming. “Ciao, bello.”

“Right,” Aster chimes in. “So you invited Livia… out of revenge?”

“I am vengeance,” Livia says, tossing her hair. “Also, I wanted candy floss and didn’t want to pay.”

“You’re not getting mine,” Theo mutters, clutching his bag protectively.

Aster leans into Hermione, whispering, “They're actually enjoying this.”

“They are,” she says with a laugh. “And it’s a bit disturbing.”

They all settle in as the trapeze act begins. Aster’s eyes are wide again, childlike, delighted, utterly enraptured as the performers swing through the air with no magic in sight. Hermione can’t help watching him, the way he laughs and claps like he’s forgotten to be cool.

“Look at them,” he murmurs, not looking at her. “No spells, no charms… just pure trust. Isn’t that kind of amazing?”

She tears her gaze from him to watch the acrobat launch into open air.

Yes, she thinks. But not for the reason you mean.

The circus winds on through the balmy, humid evening, string lights glowing like fireflies across the canvas tents. The scent of roasted chestnuts and spun sugar clings to the air. Hermione walks beside Aster, fingers sticky from toffee and her cheeks sore from smiling. She hadn’t expected this. Not from him.

“I can’t believe you’ve never seen an elephant in real life,” she says as they pass the animal tent. Aster had stood at the railing like a child earlier, marveling at the creature as if it were a dragon.

He shrugs, licking salt from his fingertips. “Didn’t travel much till recently.” His tone is easy, dismissive, but there’s a quiet note under it that keeps her from asking more.

She lets it hang, and offers instead, “I didn’t travel a ton either. My parents were busy, dentists, both of them. But they made time a few times a year. We went to Africa once when I was ten.”

He glances over, genuinely curious. “Seriously?”

She nods. “Yeah. Just a caravan, no proper fencing or anything. I saw elephants, giraffes, a rhino up close. And once… we stopped to eat and realized there was a lion maybe a hundred yards away.”

Aster blinks. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not,” she grins, remembering. “You think a tightrope walk is dangerous? Try sitting on a canvas stool with a sandwich in your hand while a literal apex predator watches from the grass.”

“Okay, that is terrifying.” He grins, then pauses. “Wait… what kind of sandwich?”

“Ham,” she says, deadpan. “Which in hindsight might’ve been a poor choice.”

He laughs, the kind of laugh that catches and rolls, loud and reckless. It makes her laugh too.

“Merlin, Hermione, you’re full of surprises,” he says when he calms.

It’s just her name, Hermione, but the way Aster says it makes her chest flutter every time. It’s not just how he says it, it’s who says it. Having resigned herself to the fact that it might still be Malfoy behind his face, the soft-spoken charm and linen shirts, it still startles her. Not because it’s false, but because it’s not. Because it feels too real.

“You just haven’t known me long enough,” she says breezily, tossing her empty paper cone into a bin. “Wait until you see me win a three-legged race or hex a purse thief mid-sneeze.”

“I’ll believe the hexing,” he says. “Not the racing. You’d be too competitive.”

“Too competitive?” she gasps. “I’ll have you know I once dragged Ron across a finish line by the hood of his jumper.”

“That’s not winning. That’s warfare.”

“Same thing, sometimes.”

He chuckles and offers his arm theatrically. “Come then, my terrifying gladiator. Let us seek the contortionists or stilt walkers or whatever death-defying chaos we can judge next.”

She loops her arm through his. “Lead the way, Aster. But just know, if you try to buy more candy floss, I will make you share.”

They find Theo doubled over a garbage bin near the edge of the fairground, making horrible retching noises like he’s expelling a demon.

“Oh bravo, Theodore,” Livia drawls, patting his back with one hand and sipping her soda with the other. “Two funnel cakes. Did you want to die tonight?”

Theo gurgles something that might be “worth it” or “curse you,” it’s hard to tell.

Aster winces. “Mate, those things are fried. You can’t handle grease.”

“I obviously didn’t care at the time,” Theo moans between heaves, “because it was delicious.”

Livia pats his back with theatrical sympathy. “I’ll take him back to Aamon’s den before he dies in public. And with any luck, I’ll torture Blaise with my mere existence while I’m at it.”

“Give him hell,” Aster calls after them.

“You know I will.” She tosses her hair and steers Theo off like she’s directing a parade float, Theo groaning the entire way.

Hermione stifles a laugh, then gives in. “Grease is Theodore Nott’s kryptonite,” she says, shaking her head. “Noted.”

“Kryptonite?” Aster repeats, cocking his head. “What’s that, some kind of potion?”

Her laugh only doubles. “You’re serious? Oh my God, of course you are. You’re adorable.”

He frowns, mock-offended. “I’ve heard of it. Isn’t that something from, what do you call them, comic strips?”

“Comic books, thank you very much,” she says, nudging his arm. “It’s Superman’s weakness. Basically the only thing that can kill him.”

“Sounds inconvenient.”

“Well, yeah. That’s the point.”

He grins, amused and faintly fascinated. “And he wears the underwear on the outside, right?”

“Traditionally, yes. Iconic fashion statement.”

He’s quiet for a beat, then, deadpan: “I could pull that off.”

She snorts so hard she nearly spills the rest of her crackerjack popcorn. “Please don’t.”

“Oh, come on,” he says, nudging her. “Tell me more about this Superman. I’m suddenly very invested.”

They’re still laughing as they stroll the street away from the circus, popcorn dust on their hands and the scent of smoke and spun sugar lingering on their clothes. The night air is agreeable, humming with a summery hush, and Hermione’s halfway into a rant about superhero inconsistencies.

“and don’t get me started on Bruce Wayne,” she says, animated. “The billionaire with parental trauma and a guilt complex so deep he dresses like a bat and beats up low-level criminals instead of, I don’t know, funding infrastructure?”

Aster’s grinning, utterly captivated. “He’s in a world where normal rules of right and wrong no longer apply.”

She gasps, mock-offended. “Did you just quote Batman Forever at me?”

“Possibly, Theo had me watch it.” He raises a brow. “You’ve converted me. I want to understand this vigilante economy better.”

They reach her flat, and without thinking too hard about it, Hermione unwards the door and says, “Do you want to come in?”

He doesn’t hesitate. “Obviously.”

She tosses her bag onto the nearest chair and kicks off her shoes. He follows, suddenly quiet as she picks up the thread again.

“Anyway, the mask thing,” she says, flopping onto her sofa, “it’s all so symbolic. Anonymity. Power. Hiding your true self behind something supposedly braver or stronger.”

Aster lingers by the window, watching the night. “I think I could do it. Be the masked vigilante.”

Hermione tilts her head. “Really? You think you could wear a mask?”

He turns slowly, meets her gaze. “To do good? Sure.”

She sits forward slightly. “Is that the only way you think you could do any good?”

There’s a pause. A flicker of something sharp, then a cool deflection. “It’s more about protection. The people close to me, if anyone ever tried to hurt them because of me, I’d never forgive myself.”

Her voice softens. “Would you protect me?”

He looks at her like she’s asked him something impossibly delicate. “You can protect yourself,” he says delicately, and he’s right, she can. He continues, “But yes. Of course I would. I never want you to know war again.”

Her breath catches, just a little.

Then he shifts, uncomfortable, as if he’s said too much. “I mean, it seems like… your lot went through it the worst. It’s obvious.”

Hermione watches him, heart a little tight, mouth curved faintly. “Yeah,” she murmurs. “We did.”

The quiet stretches just long when Hermione, in true Hermione fashion, rescues them both from the edge of something tender.

“Do you want to watch a film?” she asks, moving towards Michael’s entire collection she has to offer. “It’s still pretty early.”

Aster perks up, eyes bright. “Do you have a superhero film?”

She lets out a laugh, flushed and faint. “I might,” she says coyly. “Maybe something with billionaires and dead parents.”

Ten minutes later they’re curled up on her sofa, the lights dimmed, and The Phantom starts to flicker across the screen in its purple-suited, jungle-cheesiness glory.

“This is what you picked?” Aster whispers, nudging her shoulder as the hero strikes a dramatically slow pose.

She insists, grinning. “It’s campy. Delightful. Also, I was sixteen when I saw it and fell madly in love.”

“Dangerous taste,” he murmurs, mock-serious. “Purple spandex?”

“It’s lilac. And the skull ring is iconic.”

He’s sitting closer now. His knee nudges against hers. His commentary is relentless, snarky observations about the villains’ eyeliner and the impracticality of fighting crime in capes.

Then his hand finds her leg, light at first, resting just above her knee, casual like he’s done it a hundred times. But Hermione stills, because suddenly everything is her leg. Not the film, not the purple costume, not even the popcorn. Just that easy weight of his hand.

She doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t breathe for a second. But she doesn’t move either.

He keeps watching the screen like he hasn’t just set her entire nervous system on fire.

And she thinks he knows exactly what he’s doing.

The movie plays on, flickering shadows across the walls, but Hermione can’t focus on it, not really. Her eyes keep drifting back to his hand resting so confidently, so comfortably, on her leg. Her heartbeat is a steady thrum in her ears, a distant drum keeping time with every slight movement of his fingers.

Aster doesn’t look at her. His eyes are on the screen, and he makes a small sound in response to some overly dramatic line. Then he turns, grins sideways, and says, “This acting is criminal.”

Hermione huffs out a laugh, but she’s barely breathing. Her eyes flick to his face again, the angles of his jaw, the way he’s smiling like he doesn’t know his hand has hijacked her entire sense of self.

Then, slowly, boldly, she shifts her hand over his. Her fingers curl into the space between his, friendly, tentative, until they’re laced together.

A charged second passes.

He doesn’t look down. Just lets out a small, satisfied sound and keeps watching like nothing has changed, except for the smirk now tugging at his mouth. “How many times have you watched this?” he asks casually, as her hand in his has just cracked something open between them.

Hermione exhales a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Well, it’s Billy Zane,” she murmurs. “So… a lot.”

“Mm,” he says, and finally turns his head, amused. “You can fill me in later.”

Then his mouth is on hers. The movie is forgotten. The purple suit, the dramatic one-liners, the villainous eyeliner, gone.

All that remains is Aster’s lips, the soft press of his jaw under her fingertips, the broad line of his shoulders under her palms. He pulls her closer with a hand at her waist, then shifts, tugging one of her legs over his lap until she’s straddling him.

Hermione’s heart is all heat and ache. Her tongue slides over his, slow and sure, and the way he groans into the kiss sends another flare of heat spiraling low in her belly.

There’s nothing else in the world but his hands on her hips, her breath mingling with his, the slow fire building between them in quiet, unstoppable waves.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Hermione wakes in the gentle sway of the hammock, the sun warm on her skin. When she opens one eye, Zoe and Allegra are standing over her like witches debating what to transfigure a pumpkin into.

“I’m not unconscious,” she says dry. “Would you like to wait until I actually give consent?”

“Hmm.” Allegra glances at Zoe. “Unclear.”

“We were just talking options,” Zoe adds, not at all guiltily. “I was thinking shimmer-dust across the collarbones and a golden fringe illusion, sunlight woven through linen.”

“I was thinking something citrus,” Allegra says. “She’s giving orange blossom. Or maybe hibiscus?”

Hermione groans, rolling dramatically in the hammock. “Why are you like this.”

“Because,” Zoe says brightly, “there’s a party. Costumes. Masks. Summer masquerade. It’s a theme.”

“A summer masquerade,” Allegra echoes, pulling a fan from seemingly nowhere and fluttering it with delight. “Like Midsummer Night’s Dream, but with less Shakespeare and more Aperol.”

“You have to choose a look,” Zoe insists. “Now. Before Theo claims the last flattering toga and Blaise decides the dress code is ‘shirtless Roman ghost.’”

“Can’t I just go as a rational adult who wears normal clothes and doesn’t get ambushed in hammocks?”

Both girls stare.

“No,” they say in perfect unison.

Hermione sighs, swinging her legs over the side.

Zoe grins, offering an arm to help her get up, “Now come on, hibiscus.”

The dressing room smells like perfume, candle smoke, and scandal.

Gowns and tunics in whisper-thin fabric spill across fainting couches and float midair on charm-hooks, glittering with intricate embroidery, jewel-toned silks, and hints of boning that suggest support while promising absolutely none. Lace spills over hemlines that don’t reach mid-thigh. Ribbons dangle like bait. A mannequin in the corner wears a mask made of peacock feathers and bad decisions.

“They’re just hanging out like they’re not worth a thousand galleons each,” Hermione mutters, eyeing the sheer slip of a bodice she’s apparently meant to wear.

“Six thousand,” Zoe corrects, rubbing lotion into her collarbone. “That seamstress is part fairy. Or part criminal. Either way, she stitched for a Stratford-upon-Avon theatre company until some fashion house lured her to Milan. Sixteenth century meets slutty future.”

“Historical accuracy,” Allegra deadpans, adjusting the sheer sleeves on her own outfit. “Important.”

Hermione stares down at her own reflection. Her dress, or costume, really, is silver, with a structured corset and floating off-shoulder sleeves that somehow manage to be demure and wildly inappropriate at the same time. Her hair’s been charmed up into soft curls. Her mask, when she picks it up, is like delicate wrought iron, filigreed and faintly shimmering.

“This is out of my element,” she says flatly. “All of this. I’m used to Merlin Remembrance Day with sad wizard games and stale butterbeer.”

Zoe snorts, looping a golden sash around her hips. “That’s not sad, Hermione. That’s just... what we did when we were kids. We’re not kids anymore.”

“Definitely not,” Allegra hums, stepping behind her. With gentle, practiced hands, she lifts and adjusts Hermione’s corset until her cleavage looks intentional. “Aster would die to get his hands on these ladies.”

Hermione swats her hands away, flushing. “Don’t, ugh, don’t say that.”

Zoe plops beside her on the ottoman, all tanned legs and a smug grin. “Oh, come on. He’s fallen for you, Hermione.”

Hermione hesitates, eyes still on her reflection. Her lips are pink and painted, her eyes lined in gold. She looks like a version of herself from a dream she might never admit to having.

“You think?” she says softly. Because all they've done is kiss, mind numbing kissing, but just that.

Zoe grins. “I know.”

Allegra winks at her in the mirror. “And tonight, he’s going to be thinking about nothing but these,” she gestures dramatically, “divinely lifted distractions.”

Hermione groans. “God, I need wine.”

Zoe tosses her a sparkling vial. “Already ahead of you.”

Hermione holds the vial up to the light, squinting through the pinkish shimmer of liquid inside. It fizzes slightly, catching the candlelight like champagne about to get ideas.

“What’s in this?” she asks, suspicious. “It smells like bubblegum and danger.”

Zoe grins, too quickly. “It’s like Pepper-Up Potion.”

Hermione arches a brow. “Like?”

There’s a loaded pause. Allegra and Zoe glance at each other, a brief exchange Hermione absolutely catches.

Her stomach flips.

“Allegra?” she asks low.

Allegra sighs. Her fingers fiddle with the pearl clasp of her mask as she finally admits, “It’s Flare. A party potion. Magical, mildly psychoactive, not technically legal in several Ministries.” She winces. “It’s… more Up than Pepper, if you know what I mean.”

Hermione blinks. “So not a cold remedy.”

Zoe laughs. “Gods, no. Though you’ll feel mellow. And light. And sort of like the moon’s humming at you.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“You won’t care in about ten minutes.”

Hermione stares at the fizzing potion again. She should say no. She knows she should. But it’s been like this the whole holiday: strange foods, stranger people, half-truths and full-lies, and pretending to kiss a man like it’s real. And maybe it is. Or maybe it’s just Flare.

She doesn’t overthink it. She tosses back the vial, the sweet taste sliding down like candied lightning.

Allegra exhales, impressed. “You just did that.”

Zoe leans forward with mischief and fervor. “You’ve never done it before, have you?”

Hermione shakes her head slowly, waiting for the potion to hit. Something begins to spark at the edge of her vision, and her fingers tingle like magic’s dancing just beneath her skin.

Zoe’s grin widens, wicked and giddy. “Don’t fight it. Just go with it.” So she does.

The party is a fever dream, lush and lawless, like something conjured from a decadent excitement or an old-money hallucination.

It spills out over the lawns and terraces of the manor like melted gold, with orbs of light bobbing through the air and charmed lanterns hanging from the trees, flickering in hues that match no known flame. Somewhere, there’s a string quartet, until there isn’t, and bass takes over, vibrating up from the stones and through their bones. Easily two hundred witches and wizards drift through the grounds, glamoured or masked, or glamoured to be masked. Identity is fluid. Rules don’t seem to exist.

The only constants are beauty, pleasure, and enchantment.

Hermione steps into it like she’s stepping into someone else’s life. She’s radiant in her costume, shimmering silk and scandalous cuts that don’t feel like her, and somehow, fit like a second skin. Aster finds her just beyond the garden steps, cutting through the crowd.

He stops in front of her, eyes dark and locked on her body, trailing over every inch of her before he leans in.

“You are unearthly gorgeous,” he whispers into her ear.

The words scorch. She blushes, surprised by how easy it is to believe him under the glamour-thin stars.

Theo is a few paces away, tangled up in a kiss with a witch Hermione doesn’t recognize, long hair, bare shoulders, possibly wings, and Hermione blinks in surprise when she realizes Zoe is right there, laughing in conversation, entirely unbothered.

Not that it should surprise her. Zoe kicked Draco to the curb the second Theo showed interest. Labels probably aren’t the point. She watches without shame as Theo leans in and kisses Zoe next, soft and slow. They grin into it like it's all a game.

Hermione barely has time to process more before Aster’s hand grazes the small of her back, grounding her.

“Have you eaten?” he asks, mouth close again. “Or do you want a drink?”

“Water,” she says, and then, because her mouth feels too dry and her heart too fast, “and a whiskey.”

His grin is all mischief and delight. “Brilliant choice,” he murmurs, guiding her through the crowd with his hand still on her waist.

The whiskey hits her stomach pleasantly, like liquid gold, velvet-slick and decadent, and then it blooms. It unfurls through her limbs like the potion's been waiting for it, hungry for that final spark to ignite. The mingling of the Flare and firewhiskey is glorious, too glorious, maybe, but Hermione isn’t questioning anything right now.

She’s laughing, breathless, her arms around Aster’s neck as he spins her through the grass-turned-dancefloor, her bare feet lifting off the ground. The sky above is ink-black and dripping with stars, but they rule the night below. Wherever they go, the crowd seems to part or follow. They kiss like no one’s watching, like they dare people to. He drinks her in like she’s been conjured just for him. She’s never felt more wanted.

“You,” he breathes into her ear as she sways against him, her body a live wire under the moon, “are dangerous like this.”

“I think I’m drunk,” she whispers, lips brushing his jaw.

“I think you’re glorious,” he counters, biting back a groan when she presses closer.

The moment breaks only when the music shifts and a small ripple of attention rolls through the garden. Livia has arrived.

She’s all opulence and expertly disheveled beauty, draped in a gown that’s more suggestion than fabric, a mask of crystal filigree perched delicately on her cheekbones. She laughs at something Marcella says, touches Blaise’s arm like they haven’t burned cities down between them. Marcella beams because she invited her, Livia has a manor “just down the lane,” which apparently means three kilometers away, behind private wards, and up a cliff.

Blaise isn’t nearly as bothered as he was last time. Likely because he’s riding his own Flare-high, all loose limbs and smirking ease. Still, there’s a flicker of tension when their eyes meet. Old ghosts rising just enough to glare. They bicker, softly, pointedly, like their insults are foreplay, not war. The undercurrent is all too readable.

But Hermione’s too high on whatever this night has become to dwell long. Until Allegra drifts over, lip gloss smudged, eyes narrowed like a cat.

“I hate her,” she says, staring daggers across the lawn.

Hermione blinks. “Livia?”

“Obviously Livia,” Allegra huffs. “I mean, she’s stunning and rich and the worst. And Blaise only even talks to her because he knows she makes me spiral. He won’t shag me because he says he likes me. Emotionally. Which is somehow worse.”

Hermione just nods, a little dazed from the potion, the alcohol, the dancing. “But… you’ve done stuff?”

Allegra rolls her eyes. “Stuff, sure. Fingers. Blowy here and there. But nothing serious. Not with eye contact.”

Hermione’s too light, too hot, too spun out to respond with anything more than another slow nod.

She turns to look for Aster again, heart thrumming like a spell on the verge of breaking, and thinks, gods help me, I’m having fun.

The corridor is calm with candlelight and distant music, its walls gently pulsing with the hum of the party's spillover, but Hermione is focused, trying to remember if Theo had said second or third archway past the courtyard stairs. She walks slowly, bare feet silent against the polished stone, trailing one hand along the cool wall. Her mask is tilted slightly, catching in her curls, but she doesn’t bother fixing it. Everyone else is glowing, glamoured, a little drunk. No one cares.

Well, not no one.

She rounds a corner and catches a small cluster of familiar faces, witches and wizards from school she hadn’t seen in years. Ones who’d been neither cruel nor kind, just there, part of the scenery of her past. A Ravenclaw girl who once borrowed her Arithmancy notes. A Hufflepuff boy she dueled once during Dumbledore’s Army.

They glance at her in passing, do a double-take, and then pause, stare.

"Wait," says the Hufflepuff, narrowing his eyes. “No way. That’s not?”

“I swear it is,” the Ravenclaw gasps. “It looks like, Hermione Granger?”

Hermione hesitates, then, grinning with a little wicked flourish, lifts her mask.

There’s a beat of stunned silence, and then they all erupt.

“No way! You’re here?”

She laughs. “In the flesh.”

“Didn’t think this was your scene.”

“Didn’t think I had a scene,” she replies, and it’s…surprisingly easy. No pointed questions, no suspicious glances. Just curiosity. And a little awe. It’s a novelty, not a scandal.

She’s still mid-story, something about the potion, and how the wine might have had actual starlight in it, when a presence slides in beside her. Aster.

He doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t speak. He just stands there, hand brushing hers lightly, content to wait. She feels the air change, though, the ripple of tension, the awareness that he’s watching only her.

A moment later, he links their fingers and, without a word, guides her away.

She doesn’t resist, though she glances back once with a sheepish wave. They duck into a quieter hall, golden light turning to a softer, more intimate glow. Her heart is still light, giddy from the interaction, the party, everything.

"Where did you go off to?" she asks a little breathless.

But Aster doesn’t answer.

Instead, he reaches up, fingertips grazing her cheek. He tilts her chin slowly, deliberately, like he’s memorizing her, eyes fixed on her mouth, and then kisses her.

Soft. Careful. But wrong. Her brows pull together before she can stop them.

It’s not bad. Not sloppy or rushed or anything she’d recoil from.

But it’s not him. Not the electric, reckless gravity of their kisses before. Not the wildfire.

This is…lukewarm. Polished. Measured.

Hermione’s unease sharpens the second the kiss ends. Something’s wrong, off. The taste, the pressure of his hand at her waist. The stillness in him, like he’s holding his breath.

She pushes lightly against his chest. “Alright, Aster. That’s enough.”

But he doesn’t budge.

Her palms press harder now, frown deepening. “I said,”

His hand clamps down on her wrist and her stomach drops.

It’s instinctual, the panic. Her eyes scan the mask again, gold-trimmed, too smooth, and his outfit. The tailoring is…off. She hadn’t noticed, too dizzy with drink and thrill and magic. The linen’s different. The scent. The stillness.

And then his hair shifts slightly. Curls. Not slicked back but soft. Too soft. The glamour begins to glitch, color bleeding, a shimmer where there should be none.

Her heart lurches.

“You’re not,” she breathes.

But she never gets the rest out.

He silences her with a wandless charm, quick, mean, and her voice cuts off with a jolt. Her mouth opens, but no sound escapes. She fights harder, shoving, twisting, trying to break his grip, but he forces her back against the wall.

Her eyes sting. Her lungs ache from trying to scream soundless cries. She kicks, claws, rages in silence. Her thoughts are screaming.

Tears burn down her cheeks.

When he kisses her again, it’s violent, bruising, and she bites.

Hard.

His blood floods her mouth, metallic and vile. He yells, staggered, finally letting her go just enough. She wants to vomit, but it’s a victory. She sees it in his snarl. The pain. The shock.

Neither of them can reach their wands, they scramble, slipping on panic and sweat. Her back hits a wall, his hand closing in again, this time raising her dress.

But this time, she focuses.

It’s wild magic. Deep. Untrained. But hers. The door behind him blasts open with a burst of wind and light.

The corridor fills with sound.

There’s gasps. Footsteps. Someone cries, “Over here!”

She sags, vision blurring, and then, like a sudden tide, he’s there. Aster, her Aster, with his mask gone and disgarded. His wand is already drawn. And the look in his eyes could split stone.

The imposter doesn’t stand a chance.

-

The morning paper is folded neatly beside the silver teapot, as if the scandal hasn’t already bled through the manor walls. Its headline, “Lucius Malfoy’s Bastard Son Resurfaces at Lunefossa,” is all angles and shadowed glamour, the kind of piece that makes tragedy look poetic if you’re wealthy enough.

Hermione reads it from the window seat where she’s curled like she doesn’t belong to the day yet, the rising sun casting long lines across her legs. The words are clear. The whispers are louder. And the guilt? Suffocating.

She knows Aster traded the truth for his freedom. A bartered secret for silence, justice for the right to breathe again without iron at his throat. Cormac Fucking McLagan had it coming. The article doesn’t say that, but she knows. Everyone does. He’s lucky to be breathing at all.

Still, it makes her sick. Not that McLagan nearly died. That she understands. No, it’s the shame of knowing she was the cost of the headline. That it was her presence, her misstep, that dragged the truth into the open. That everything beautiful about this illusion, the manor, the nights, the laughter, was balanced on a secret too fragile to survive exposure.

She doesn’t want to go down to breakfast.

She doesn’t want to see Blaise pretending to be unbothered, or Zoe hiding worry behind flirtation. She doesn’t want to face Allegra’s questions or Marcella’s apathy.

And she certainly doesn’t want to face Aster.

But he’s already there, under the silk sheets, having replaced Livia sometime in the night without her noticing. As though he could just slip back in to being her comfort.

He stirs, one hand shifting toward the empty side of the bed like instinct, and Hermione watches it.

Then, quietly, she leaves the window and crosses the room.

She sinks onto the mattress beside him. Not angry. Not forgiving. Just there.

He opens one eye slowly. “You saw it, then?”

She nods once.

A beat passes. He murmurs low and dry, “Don’t suppose you brought coffee.”

“No,” she says. “But I brought the consequences.”

He exhales through his nose, sharp but not surprised. “Always so generous.”

She turns to look at him fully. “You didn’t have to do it.”

He shrugs, eyes on the ceiling. “Didn’t have a choice.”

Hermione huffs a bitter laugh. “You had dozens. You just chose the one that scorched the earth behind you.”

“Was already scorched,” he mutters, then glances at her. “And anyway, I thought you liked the heat.”

She glares at him, but her fingers find his hand.

“Why did you do it?” she asks, not looking at him directly. “Why did you hurt McLaggen?”

Aster doesn’t even hesitate. “He hurt you.”

Her brow furrows. “Then pull him off. Stun him. Call the Aurors. Not,” she gestures vaguely, “not the bloody hospital wing. You could've been on your way to a cell too.”

He laughs, but it’s bitter and quiet, like the sound is only meant for himself. “Men like him don’t deserve Azkaban,” he says, eyes sharp now. “They deserve so much worse. Because you weren’t the first, Hermione. And you wouldn’t have been the last.”

She swallows hard. She knows he’s right. That behind McLaggen’s smirk and arrogance, there are likely dozens of stories left untold, witches who were hurt and silenced, or worse, obliviated before they even had the words to name what happened.

“It’s not the first time I’ve faced this,” she murmurs. Her voice barely carries, but it stops Aster cold.

He sits up, startled, his attention snapping to her. “What do you mean?”

She exhales slowly. “That’s how I met Livia,” she says. “There was a guy, at the club, the night I met you there. He dosed my drink. She caught it before I could take a sip.”

His jaw clenches. “Fucking hell.”

She shrugs a little, like the armor is reflex. “It happens.”

Aster reaches into his pocket, pulls out a small black velvet pouch, and opens it. Inside is a sleek bracelet, charcoal dragonhide, minimal, with a strange silver knot at its center.

“I was going to give you this later,” he mutters, “but I’m glad even more now I brought it.”

Before she can protest, he takes her wrist and clasps it on, fingers surprisingly gentle.

“You just need to press it,” he says serious now. “Bite it. Slam it against a wall. It doesn’t matter. It’ll release a kraken of sorts, something unspeakable and fast. It won’t stop until it neutralizes the threat.”

Hermione stares at it. She’s seen versions of it before, on Zoe, on Allegra, even Marcella had something like it dangling off a silk sash like jewelry.

“It’ll blend with anything,” he adds. “Change color. Disillusion if you want. Submerge it in water, or bloody acid, but it’ll always work. You’ll always be protected.”

She cradles her wrist, fingers brushing the smooth metal knot. “You… made this?”

He doesn’t answer right away. Just says quietly, “I’d rather you have something that stops them than needing a spell that cleans up after.”

For a long second, neither of them speaks.

Then she whispers, “Thank you.”

He doesn’t say “you’re welcome.” He just looks at her like he’d burn the world down if it meant she’d never have to say thank you for something like this again.

-

The moment Hermione steps onto the sun-drenched veranda for breakfast, her hand loosely laced with Aster’s, the chaos begins.

Theo lets out a low whistle. “Well, well, well. Look who finally emerged from the Room of Secret Trauma and Suspicious Moaning.”

There’s hooting. Zoe claps slow and exaggeratedly. Allegra makes a kissing noise into her mimosa and lifts her glass. Even Blaise gives a slow, mocking soft opra clap.

Hermione blushes violently. “It’s not like that,” she starts to say.

Aster, deadpan, hexes Theo’s chair mid-thrusty gesture, sending him sprawling flat on his back with a crack and a very unsexy grunt. The table erupts into laughter.

“Merlin’s balls, I think I dislocated something,” Theo groans from the ground.

“Your shame?” Aster offers, taking his seat with infuriating calm.

Blaise, sipping something citrusy, smirks. “So now that you're a free man, legally unclaimed, and dramatically outed by the morning press… what are you going to do with your new-found fame and paternity scandal?”

Aster buries half his face in the collar of his shirt like he’s seconds from crawling under the table.

Zoe doesn’t miss a beat. “You know your daddy is probably desperate for a family reunion. Might even send you a visitor’s pass to Azkaban himself.”

“I hear they’re letting in fruit baskets,” Allegra adds, buttering a croissant. “And family therapists.”

Hermione hides a laugh behind her coffee.                                                                         

Aster lifts his head finally, exasperated but grinning. “Absolutely not. They’ll still think I’m holed up here in Lunefossa, and when the press arrives, which they will any moment, I plan to go back to Amalfi today. Preferably ocean side. Wearing as little as legally allowed.”

Blaise raises a brow. “So, nothing?”

Aster shrugs. “It’s Amalfi.”

Hermione sips her drink, watching the morning sun bounce off the sea and the ridiculous group of degenerates who have somehow welcomed her into their madness.

Hermione isn’t over the ordeal from last night. Not even close.

The memory of his touch clings to her like smoke, his taste sour and invasive. Sometimes it creeps in without warning, a scent too sharp, a glance too long, the phantom feel of fingers not meant for her skin. Her body remembers even when her mind tries not to. She’s tired. She’s angry. And most of all, she hates that a part of her feels ashamed, like she failed to see it coming.

But being around these clowns, Zoe balancing croissants on Theo’s head as he tries to nap in the sun, Allegra loudly misreading Blaise’s star chart on purpose, Aster half-sulking under a towel because someone hexed his wine to taste like pickled beets, it helps. Merlin, it helps.

Their laughter isn’t a cure, but it’s something better, it’ll remind her who she is when she’s not afraid. When she lets herself be held by the confusion instead of undone by it.

She fiddles with the bracelet on her wrist, sleek and small, but heavier than it looks. Aster had given it to her without ceremony, without demand, just a firm look and a quiet promise that if anyone touched her again without her permission, they wouldn’t walk away from it. It grounds her. Not just the charm or the magic inside, but the fact that he’d thought of it so quickly, with such intensity.

He’d nearly killed a man for her and she wonders if she should be worried by that. But she isn’t.

She just feels safer near him. Even if all of this is a game, even if Aster isn’t really Aster. It’s a lie she’s willing to step into a little longer, if only to remember how it feels not to flinch.

Chapter Text

As Narcissa paces, the chill in her voice is worse than any Howler. Draco sits across from her, legs crossed, wrists resting on the arms of the velvet chair like he hasn’t just been cornered and accused of torching what’s left of the Malfoy name.

He doesn’t flinch when she says, “You fabricated an entire identity, Draco. A Selwyn, no less.”

Theo, unhelpfully lounging nearby with the calm of someone who didn’t grow up fearing Narcissa Malfoy’s disappointment, shrugs. “To be fair, he saved a girl. Aster was very heroic.”

“That’s not helping, Theodore,” she snaps, not even looking at him.

Draco exhales through his nose, eyes on a framed painting he hates. “Would you rather I let McLaggen gain another victim? Would you prefer your entire family ended up in Azkaban?”

That stops her. Stillness blooms across her spine. Her face doesn’t change, but he sees the way her hands clench, then smooth over her cloak she hasn't bothered to take off, and brushing away thoughts too heavy to entertain.

“Any other lies you’ve been telling?” she asks after a beat, her tone deceptively mild. “To get out of trouble, or in for that matter?”

Draco meets her eyes. “No.”

He lies cleanly. Easily. Years of practice.

Blaise strolls in from the corner he’d been skulking in, his shirt half-buttoned, an apple in one hand. “We’re being very well-behaved,” he says, biting into it with a wink at Theo.

Narcissa raises an unimpressed brow. “Doubtful.”

She sighs then, like the weight of generations is stitched into her ribcage and she’s the last one left carrying the threads. “I don’t want to deal with this,” she says. “The press can wait. I’ll say nothing, as we always do.”

Draco nods once, already turning over fallback plans in his head. There’s too much that can be unravelled. Too many eyes. Too many secrets now. But this battle is won.

Barely.

Narcissa pinches the bridge of her nose like she’s been cursed with three idiot sons instead of one and two unfortunate attachments. “I have now interrupted my own summer twice,” she says coolly, "and now,”

Draco mutters, “It was for my birthday, but whatever,” under his breath.

Her eyes cut to him like a blade. “Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, darling.”

Draco rises with mock solemnity, smoothing imaginary creases from his shirt. “Forgive me,” he says, bowing his head. “I apologize deeply for the inconvenience, Mother.”

She eyes him suspiciously, then, surprisingly, leans in to kiss his cheek. “Try not to burn Italy to the ground dear,” she says, and sweeps from the room in a flurry of cashmere and disdain.

The moment she’s out of earshot, Draco straightens, a grin crawling across his face. “She’s not telling the press a thing.”

Theo kicks his feet up on the ottoman, casual as sin. “Good thing our friend at the Prophet likes me more than Blaise.”

“She does not,” Blaise says flatly, strolling to pour himself a drink. “She just thinks your hair makes you look like a wet poet.”

Theo smirks. “She’s not wrong.”

Blaise ignores him. “Either way, if the Prophet doesn’t back the story, the rest are just gossip rags. They’ll run themselves in circles. No traction.”

Draco slumps dramatically back into the chair his mother just abandoned. “It’s already costing me a fortune in favors, glamour charms, fake Selwyn lineage documents,”

“Not to mention bribes,” Theo adds.

“and I’m not even getting laid,” Draco finishes, tossing a cushion across the room.

There’s a beat of silence. Then Blaise lifts his glass. “But your heroism is top tier.”

Theo tips his own. “And abstinence is a virtue.”

Draco scowls. “Kill me.”

Blaise swirls his drink like it’s holds the answers. “Just stay emotionally detached,” he says, as if he's offering sage wisdom and not the advice of a sociopath. “It’s not that hard.”

Theo, sprawled sideways on a chaise and smirks, “hummers and finger-fucking don’t count, by the way. Emotional detachment intact.”

Draco chuckles, covering his mouth with the back of his hand to stifle the worst of it. “You two are morally bankrupt.”

Theo shrugs, entirely unbothered. “And you’ve overdrawn more times than I can count mate.”

Draco shoots him a pointed look. “And you should take out a loan for going after Livia.”

That earns a blink from Blaise. “What?”

Theo goes very still.

So Draco answers for him. “With Zoe back in Amsterdam for the season,” he says casually, inspecting his nails, “Our Theodore is in need of a new toy.”

Theo tosses a cushion at his head. “You’ve got Allegra, don’t you? I don’t need permission.”

Blaise snorts. “No, but you’ll need many thoughts and prayers.”

Draco nods solemnly. “My condolences in advance.”

Theo waves a dismissive hand, already backpedaling. “It’ll be fine.”

But Draco and Blaise are already laughing, loud as unrepentant men do, who’ve watched one another make an uncountable number of bad decisions and still somehow survive them.

“You’re all delusional,” Theo mutters, but he’s grinning too.

-

The following week is a blur of sunstroke and sea breeze, all golden limbs and stolen glances. Draco spends nearly every waking hour with Hermione, on the beach, in the surf, under the slatted shade of an umbrella where books are forgotten halfway through chapters in favor of fingers brushing hands or the shape of her laughter. They read in silence, they nap in the sand, and they kiss in the sea’s rhythm, again and again.

Elf-delivered trays appear piled with prosciutto and nectarines and cool crystal glasses of pale wine. Hermione grumbles about elf rights every time, even while devouring slices of fig with soft cheese. Draco just shrugs. “They’re not my elves,” he says, not at all sorry, “I have no control over the hospitality staff.”

He waits far too eagerly for the inevitable: “Would you mind, just my back?” she asks, lifting her hair and turning. He smooths the sun cream on like it’s some kind of holy rite. “Better reapply sooner,” he murmurs, brushing his fingers near the hem of her bikini. “Preventative maintenance.”

She snorts. “Preventative, is it?”

“Purely medical,” he replies, mock serious. “Anywhere else you need attending to?”

“Maybe if we were at Spiaggia del Troncone,” she says sweetly, adjusting her glasses. “You know, the naturist one near Palinuro.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting I should see you naked in public?”

She only shrugs, but the look she gives him is devastating. He chokes on his strong lemonade.

In the end, they don’t go. They stay at their quiet spot, far from the summer crowds, where it's only them and the waves and the ridiculous ache he gets every time she looks at him like she’s just beginning to trust herself in this strange, sunlit softness of them.

-

The lantern festival is already alive when they arrive, colorful lights like fireflies swaying between crumbling stone buildings, the cobblestone alleys crowded with laughter, spells zipping harmlessly overhead in sparkles of gold and crimson. Draco tugs Hermione down a narrow lane smelling of hot sugar and fried dough.

“Are you sure the others didn’t want to come?” she asks, watching a vendor juggle glowing puffs of some enchanted pastry. “This feels like Theo’s ideal night, deep-fried everything and minimal self-awareness.”

Draco snorts, handing her a cone of fritelle. “Did you want to watch Theo inhale batter as his last meal?”

She considers it. “Maybe. Would’ve made good blackmail. Incriminating photos of puking powdered sugar.”

He laughs, the sound low and amused. “You’re assimilating.”

“I’m very adaptable,” she agrees, licking a dusting of sugar from her thumb. “Like fungus.”

“You’re not fungus.” He takes her in for a beat. “You’re... whatever the sexy version of a chameleon is.”

“Oh, definitely fungus,” she insists, grinning. “Some of it glows.”

They wander past musicians playing lilting strings and tambourines, and Draco buys them lanterns, simple, enchanted paper hovering gently in the air. He casts a subtle spell, and Hermione watches her lantern shoot upward, sailing higher than the rest like a spark reaching for the moon.

“That was cheating,” she accuses.

“That was grandeur,” he says.

Later, tucked between ancient walls overgrown with ivy and faint candlelight, she kisses him. Her hands are unshy, curious, hot against his ribs, sliding under his shirt. He returns her urgency, fingers sliding beneath the hem of her dress and in her knickers, the world muted except for her breath in his ear and the scent of her skin as she comes by his touch under Italian stars.

There’s a beat, after, when they’re breathless, and some quiet, stubborn part of him flinches, this wasn’t supposed to mean anything. And it doesn’t. It can’t.

But her head is on his chest. Her fingers trace absently over the signet ring he wears on a chain, the one he said merely lets him access his vault. And he doesn’t pull away.

Draco wakes to the smell of wildflowers and her breath against his neck.

The windows of her small flat are open, warm air drifting in and the city is just beginning to stir. But she’s still asleep, curled beside him, her locks a tangled riot on his chest. Her leg is thrown across his hip. Her hand rests, unconsciously possessive, on the bare skin of his stomach.

And for a full thirty seconds, he lets himself pretend they didn’t just fall asleep after she sucked him off and he made her come again with his fingers and wand, his actually ruddy wand of hawthorn and unicorn hair.

Then he breathes and it all comes back.

He was careful. Detached. Distant. That was the plan wasn’t it? But last night hadn’t felt like a mistake. It had felt, natural. Her laughter in the street, sugar on her lips, the way she looked up at their lantern like it was the only thing that mattered. The way she’d kissed him, not like he was Aster, a masked Malfoy, but just him.

He’s should be above this. She’s temporary. This is temporary. His name is still tangled in scandal and secrets, and he’s starting to fucking believe Hermione Granger does not belong in the wreckage that is his life.

He should feel triumphant. He got what he wanted, didn’t he? She wanted a version of Draco Malfoy, she still does. He should feel smug, satisfied, in control.

Instead, he feels... wrecked.

He shifts slightly and she sighs in her sleep, pressing closer. He should leave now. Put space between them before she opens those too-clever eyes and says something that makes him feel again.

But he doesn’t move.

Instead, he watches her and hates the way his chest tightens when she murmurs his greatest lie, Aster.

He brushes a curl away from her cheek and feels like an idiot. A very, very doomed idiot.

He whispers to himself, You weren’t supposed to fall for her, and finally, finally, slips out of the bed.

Draco raps sharply on the guest cottage door, not caring that it’s barely past sunrise and the cicadas are louder than reason. He hears cursing and movement inside, then the door creaks open to reveal Theo, shirtless, hair wild, wand in one hand, a half-eaten peach in the other.

Draco pushes inside uninvited. “I need the script.”

Theo squints at him. “The exit strategy?”

Draco drops onto the sun-bleached sofa, head in his hands. “Yes.”

Theo blinks. “Well, well. I was almost convinced you had a heart of reinforced trollhide, but look at you. All tender and tormented.”

Draco lifts his head, scowling. “I’m not tender.”

Theo grins, walking past him and dropping onto the opposite armchair with a groan. “No, you’ve caught tragic. Which is why I assume you barged in to discuss our theatre ambitions instead of, say, drinking poison or writing her a heartfelt letter.”

“I didn’t catch feelings,” Draco mutters.

Theo snorts. “No? Then what do you call it when you sneak off to a lantern festival and come back looking like a poet with a sunburn and a moral crisis?”

Draco glares. “We had fun. That’s all.”

Theo kicks his feet up on the coffee table. “Sure. Fun. That’s what we’re calling emotional implosion via Granger now.” He pauses, then mockingly serious: “Fine, assuming I believe you and this isn’t about how her laugh makes your stomach hurt or the fact she’s might talk in her sleep,”

“She doesn’t talk in her sleep.”

Theo beams. “Oh, now I’m curious?”

Draco stands up, pacing. “Forget it. Just… the script.

Theo counters, “We’ll need it after the trip to, what’s the name of that absurd town again?”

“Brumachia.”

“Brumachia,” Theo says, drawing the name out dramatically. “Cradle of magical artistry. Full of floating glass markets and history and everything your girlfriend can’t resist.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Uh huh. Tell that to the part of you that suggested Brumachia in the first place, knowing she’d jump at the idea.”

Draco sighs, defeated. “Let’s cancel it.”

Theo’s laugh is immediate and hoarse with sleep. “You cancel on a thousand-year-old witch, then. I give an excellent eulogy.”

“She’s not a thousand,”

“She smells a thousand,” Theo says. “She’s seven hundred and something and reeks of metallic and bone ash. Is that less intimidating, you moppet?”

Draco opens his mouth, then closes it as his mirror buzzes against his hip. “Brilliant,” he mutters. “Now who,”

He glances down.

His stomach sinks.

Without another word, he walks out, mirror in hand, leaving Theo behind grinning smugly, mumbling, “Definitely caught feelings.”

The mirror pulses with light, and Draco accepts the call with a flick of his wand, already halfway back up the path, shirt hanging loose and hair still salt-curled from the beach, but he doesn’t bother to bring it to his face.

The Ministry representative appears in the mirror, buttoned, balding, and already sweating through his robes despite it being barely past breakfast.

“Mr. Malfoy,” he says with strained formality, and Draco reverts his hair from bronze to white as he lifts it to his face. “We’ve received testimony from several guests at the, ah, event last week, identifying you, not this ‘Aster Selwyn’ individual, as present during the attack on Mr. McLaggen. We’re requesting your cooperation to clarify this matter.”

Draco raises an unimpressed brow. “As I heard it, it was an attack on Mrs. Granger, but I’d love to take a turn digging the cretin’s grave. Really. But I’m traveling, you see, off the grid, bit of a retreat. However,” he glances up at the sky like it’s done him a personal favor, “I do have access to a last-minute portkey. If you’d be so kind as to reimburse me, very hard to come by, last-minute and all.”

The man blinks. “That… can be arranged. Yes. We’ll bill Mr. McLaggen’s estate for the expense.”

Draco smiles like he’s just agreed to host a charity gala. “Splendid. Always happy to help the Ministry, especially when it comes to sending a sexually deviant, overgrown schoolboy to prison.”

He ends the call with a flourish and turns sharply on his heel, walking back toward the guest cottage with the purposeful stride of a man who’s about to cause more problems on purpose.

He bursts through the door, startling Theo mid-mango.

“How’s the Polyjuice coming?” Draco asks, deadpan.

Theo raises one sticky hand. “You’re joking.”

Draco drops into the armchair he’d only just vacated and sighs. “I wish I were. Apparently Aster isn't charming enough to pass as legit. Witnesses think it was me who tried to murder McLaggen.”

Theo laughs into his fist. “To be fair, Draco has that look air about him. Arrogant. Expensively violent.”

Draco tosses a cushion at his head. “He’s pressing charges. The Ministry wants me to come in.”

“And you offered to help,” Theo says, mock offended. “What happened to ‘I don’t answer to bureaucratic peons with damp foreheads’?”

“I got us an expense account,” Draco says, smug. “They’re billing McLaggen.”

Theo’s eyes go wide. “You beautiful bastard.”

Draco gestures to the bubbling cauldron near the sink. “So you’ll need my face. For a few hours. Just long enough to claim I was definitely in South America. They’ll question me,” he points to himself, “and I’m going to bring Hermione as back up. You just need to be the best me you can be, which is deeply unsettling at how well you do it.”

Theo grins. “You know, it’s deeply unsettling how quickly you revert to identity fraud.”

Draco claps him on the shoulder. “Practice, my love. Practice.”

Theo peers into the potion. “Alright, but if I’m going to be you, I demand better robes. And at least three compliments from the Ministry clerk. I will be convincing.”

Draco stands, brushing nonexistent lint from his trousers. “Don’t oversell it. One smirk too many and they’ll charge us both.”

“Then we’ll sue for defamation,” Theo says, already grabbing his wand. “They can’t prove you weren’t home dry humping the golden girl, failing to get laid.”

Draco smirks. “That’s the real crime, isn’t it?”

-

The Italian Ministry of Magical Law Enforcement is housed in a marble monstrosity built into the cliffside, half palazzo, half prison. As the four of them sweep through the gilded entry arch, there’s an immediate hush from the bustling atrium. Four stunning, well-dressed, clearly overprivileged young adults, this is going to be a scene.

“I still don’t understand why he’s here,” Theo, currently Draco Malfoy mutters as they pass through enchanted security wards that buzz around their ankles like persistent insects.

 “I am legal counsel? No, an eyewitness? Okay, I’m just incredibly well-dressed and emotionally invested.”

“You’re bored,” Hermione says, tight-lipped, eyes forward.

“I’m extraordinarily bored,” Blaise corrects. “And I wasn’t going to let the rest of you play courtroom drama without me.”

Theo, thanks to a very convincing Polyjuice, rolls his Malfoy eyes so hard it’s a wonder they don’t lodge somewhere in his skull. “Of course you weren’t. Merlin forbid Blaise Zabini go two hours without pretending he’s more essential than the mess she’s got us into.”

Hermione stops short in the middle of the hall. “I’m sorry, I got us into this mess?”

“Did I stutter?” Theo drawls, sneering in his best Draco impression.

“Wow,” Blaise says, cheerfully appalled. “That’s peak Malfoy. I’m impressed.”

Before Hermione can retort, Draco, currently playing the brooding, mysterious Aster Selwyn, spins and shoves Theo hard in the chest, just enough to knock the wind out of him and command the attention of every Auror in the hall.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Draco snarls, his voice low and trembling with fury. “McLaggen is the bastard here. She did absolutely nothing wrong. Do you understand me?”

Theo stumbles, blinks, genuinely stunned for a second, then narrows his eyes deciding whether to bite.

There’s a long beat of silence. Then Draco turns to Hermione and adds in a softer voice that still carries: “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

And it’s not for her, not really, not this time. It’s for the Italian Aurors watching from the edge of the chamber. For the officials behind the tinted office glass. For the observers scribing every word to float into the Ministry’s memory archive.

It’s Draco Malfoy, playing Aster Selwyn, playing the gallant protector.

And Merlin help them, it works.

One of the senior Aurors leans over and murmurs to a colleague, “Well, at least this one seems sincere.”

Blaise leans toward Theo with a grin. “You’re losing the courtroom Oscar mate.”

Theo whispers back through clenched teeth, “I’m going to kill McLaggen.”

Draco winks. “Get in line.”

-

The sun outside the Italian Ministry is blinding off the white marble steps, and Theo’s perfectly polished shoes, as he descends as Draco Malfoy is rehearsed, but convincing. The glance he throws at Aster as he speaks sells the act beautifully.

“I’m really sorry Granger,” he says to Hermione, tone gentle, careful. “For what you had to go through. It wasn’t right of me to even suggest it was your fault.”

Hermione stiffens slightly, surprised by the sudden shift. She searches his, Draco’s, face, confusion flickering, and then offers a small, sincere smile. “Thank you. For coming all the way here. It really helped, solidifying McLaggen’s… inevitable sentence.”

Theo dips his head like he’s weighed down by a very Malfoy sense of dignified remorse. “Of course.”

Then he vanishes with a neat little pop, not a strand of his glamour-disguised hair out of place.

Blaise watches the spot where Theo was standing like it’s about to burst into glitter. “Well,” he says, brushing imaginary lint off his robes, “the fun has been far from over, but alas, I have drinks to drink and people to scandalize.” He bows with a dramatic flourish. “Adieu, my loves.”

He struts off down the stairs, leaving Hermione and Draco, still playing Aster, alone in the placid Italian air, the scent of blooming jasmine trailing on the breeze.

Draco steps closer, voice low and quieter than before. “Are you alright? You were nearly shaking in there.”

Hermione exhales slowly, not quite trusting her voice. “I tried to hide it. But… it felt like reliving it all over again.”

Her hand lifts, instinctively seeking the bracelet on her wrist. Almost black the way it shimmers faintly. Her fingers hover over it, grounding her.

Draco watches her, softening even more. “You don’t have to relive it again,” he says.

And she nods like she believes Aster and a crack begins to form

They’re walking side by side through the glowing alleys of the Italian Ministry's outer quarter, and Hermione’s arm brushes his every few steps. She’s talking softly, something about Blaise being insufferable, but he isn’t really listening.

She still thinks he’s Aster.

He’s memorized how she looks when she believes in him. How her shoulders relax, how her laugh lingers. How she leans in just a little, unconsciously, when she’s comfortable. And he did that. Not Aster. Not some made-up bastard heir. Him.

But it wasn’t honest and as much as he tells himself this whole absurd performance is for her safety, for her peace, for her dignity, the crack widens with each step. Because it’s not just for her. It’s for him too. To be the version of himself she doesn’t flinch away from. The version that didn’t hesitate to give her that bracelet, or cut down her attacker, or promise her it was over.

But it’s not over. Not really, and soon she’ll find out that Aster Selwyn doesn’t exist. That Draco Malfoy stepped into the fire, not for justice, but because he couldn’t bear the thought of her looking at him like she looked at McLaggen. With hurt. With betrayal.

Because she will. When the truth unravels, she’ll lump him in with all the others who lied to her face and hurt her.

So Draco makes the choice, quietly, because choices like this are always quiet. After Brumachia, he’ll end it.

He’ll play his part a little longer. Keep the world from crashing in around her until the last lie is wrapped in silk and buried.

Then he’ll disappear from her life the same way he walked into it, deliberately, stylishly, and pretending none of it ever touched him.

Theo lounges across a divan like he’s posing for an oil portrait, one ankle hooked dramatically over the other as he holds court. “Honestly, I should be in theatre full-time. I was magnificent. The tilt of my chin? The casual disdain? I even nailed the Draco pout.”

Blaise, reclined nearby with a platter of snacks, doesn’t even look up before lobbing a cube of cheese squarely at Theo’s chest. “Maybe you can do that instead of auror training. The Ministry could always use another actor in politics.”

Allegra snorts as she kicks her legs up onto the arm of the chair. “He’d never give up a license to kill. Please.”

Theo grins, unbothered. “What Draco needed, frankly, was someone who could channel that unbearable aristocratic superiority with a touch of morally ambiguous charm. That’s me, baby.”

Draco, hasn’t said a word. He flicks his wand and lights a cigarette with a snap, his expression unreadable. He exhales slow, the veil of smoke curling as he leans back into his chair.

Allegra watches him, then drapes an arm over his shoulder, stealing the cigarette from his fingers just as he finishes his first drag. She takes one herself, lips curling lazily around the filter. “Don’t mope,” she says through the smoke, bumping his shoulder. “It’s not a good look.”

“I’m not moping,” Draco replies, tone dry as dust. “We won. I’m celebrating.”

She exhales again, handing the cigarette back with a soft laugh. “Bloody celebrating? This is triumphant?” She gestures vaguely with the valarian root cigarette, this is stronger than celebratory. “This is getting lost.”

But he knows, he’s not celebrating. He’s trying to outrun the godsdamned jagged edge of guilt that’s cutting closer by the day.

Chapter Text

The glare glints off the white deck of Livia’s impossibly sleek yacht as she lounges as a Roman goddess, legs stretched out and drink in hand. Hermione, shaded under a wide-brimmed hat, curls her legs beneath her on a lounge chair and tries not to get sea salt in her prosecco.

“He’s practically wagging his tail when I walk into a room,” Livia says, drawing out the syllables with lazy delight. “Theo. It’s embarrassing. Like a puffskein with a crush.”

Hermione snorts. “More like a nundu kitten, looks harmless until it explodes into chaos and takes out an entire emotional city block.”

Livia barks a laugh, tossing her braid over one shoulder. “You say that, but you find it charming.”

“I find it disarming,” Hermione corrects, raising her glass in mock toast. “There’s a difference.”

But Livia’s eyes glitter, too observant for Hermione’s comfort. The conversation lulls as the breeze shifts, agreeable and leavened, until Livia strikes again, her tone deceptively casual.

“So,” she says, “Are we ever going to talk about Aster, or shall we keep pretending your silence is just you enjoying the view?”

Hermione sighs, already knowing this moment was inevitable. “I was hoping my restraint would go unnoticed.”

“You? Quiet? Unnoticed?” Livia lifts a brow. “Please. You’re practically vibrating with annoyance. He’s been cryptic as hell since the Ministry. And you, he only brought you to avoid being tossed into an Italian holding cell. Not exactly the grand romantic gesture.”

Hermione sips her drink. “Which is why I think it’s time to stir the cauldron a bit.”

Livia narrows her eyes, intrigued. “Stir how?”

Hermione shrugs with mock innocence. “I don’t know. Maybe flirt with someone else. Get a little close. See if it jostles him out of whatever noble-prude shell he’s built around himself. Maybe then he’ll finally put out.”

Livia gasps, scandalized and delighted. “Hermione Granger!”

“What?” Hermione laughs, unrepentant. “He has been such a prude. That used to be my thing, I would know.”

Livia eyes her slyly. “Used to be?”

Hermione smirks. “A girl has needs, Livia.”

They clink glasses, both of them laughing now.

Livia swings her legs off the lounge chair and sits up, suddenly alert like a siren mid-scheme. “Here’s what we do,” she says with a ploy already in mind. “We find you a figo, but not just any figo, Hermione. He needs to be rich. Like Aster or Blaise rich. That’ll do it.”

Hermione eyes her warily. “So, what, we bait him with insecurity?”

Livia grins, “Exactly. Oldest magic in the book. I know a café, Il Velo Nero. It's so exclusive even the ghosts have a waiting list. We go there, you look delicious, and we let some beautiful heir from Milano with questionable morals flirt with you.”

Hermione laughs into her drink. “There’s no way I could get into Il Velo Nero. I’m a British war hero, not a Pitti Uomo model.”

“Oh please,” Livia waves her hand, “I own half the staff. You’ll be in velvet ropes and gold dust before you’ve even finished saying your name.”

“And you think that’ll actually get to him?”

Livia smirks. “Men like Aster are stubborn. But make him feel like he might lose you?” She taps her temple. “Panic does what logic never could.”

Hermione squints at her. “So what, you bring Theo along and hope he runs straight to his bestie with a dramatic retelling?”

Livia raises a finger. “I show up with Theo, and then he sees you across the café, radiant and not-pining. He tells Aster, Aster implodes, and bam, progress.”

“Or trauma.”

“Same difference,” Livia says breezily.

Hermione rolls her eyes but can’t help laughing. “Fine. But if this backfires, I’ll end up on some wizard tabloid cover with the headline Granger’s Italian Rebound.”

“Darling,” Livia says with a wicked grin, “if we pull this off, you’ll be on the cover anyway. But the headline will read: Stunning British Witch Leaves All Reeling.”

It works alarmingly well.

Hermione hasn’t even finished her first glass of prosecco, fidgeting with the edge of her napkin, trying to look not like she’s waiting for someone, when a tall, sharp-jawed wizard with a swoop of dark hair and charm to spare slides into the seat across from her like he belongs there. He doesn’t even ask.

“Your energy is too radiant to waste on solo dining,” he purrs, already flagging down a waiter.

She means to object, she really does, but he orders for them both in smooth Italian, and she decides to go with it. Twenty minutes later, she’s sipping a divine elderflower cocktail and pretending she didn’t choose this dress for exactly this kind of outcome.

When the bill comes, she reaches instinctively for her bag, already mentally counting Galleons and wondering if she has enough for even the poached egg, but he waves the waiter away and drops a sleek silver card onto the tray.

Hermione barely stops herself from exhaling thank Merlin. “You didn’t have to,”

“I wanted to,” he says, winking. “Let me have the honor of making a beautiful witch’s day.”

It’s absurd. It’s extravagant. It’s perfect.

Later, Livia nearly collapses onto the yacht’s deck laughing. “Theo was frothing. He saw the wizard pay for your meal and practically wore a hole in the restaurant floor trying to keep cool. I thought he’d pop.”

Hermione smirks, leaning back on a sun-snug cushion. “And here I thought you were the one tormenting him.”

“Oh no, he adores it. He lives to stir the pot. He sprinted off like it was Christmas morning, off to whisper in Aster’s ear like a little gossiping pixie.”

They don’t tell Theo the real plan, of course. That would ruin everything and sure enough, by sundown, there’s a knock at her door.

“I meant to call,” Aster says, sheepish. “I’ve been… busy. Something came up.”

She leans against the doorframe, arms crossed. “Right. Of course it did.”

He rubs the back of his neck, already floundering. “It wasn’t intentional. I wasn’t avoiding you.”

Which is exactly what someone says when they were avoiding you.

But Hermione smiles, just barely. “You came by. That’s what matters.”

Aster shifts awkwardly at her door, his hands shoved into his pockets like he's not sure what to do with them. "I’ve been away planning something. A surprise. For you.”

Hermione arches a skeptical brow, but there's a flicker of guilt crawling in behind her ribs now. “A surprise?”

He nods, glancing at the floor, suddenly bashful. “Brumachia. I pulled a few strings. Thought you might want to see it.”

The words knock the air out of her a bit. “You arranged a visit to Brumachia?” she echoes, wide-eyed. “The oldest magical archive in southern Italy?”

He looks up, “I was going to explain its historical significance but clearly, that’s not necessary.”

“I, Merlin, Aster,” she says, her hand instinctively going to her heart like she might catch it as it stumbles in her chest. “I’ve always wanted to...”

He shrugs, like it's no big deal. “You seem to enjoy books and educational things. And… you didn’t get into that program with Michael. I thought maybe you were sick of gossip rags and rereading the same transfiguration text twelve times.”

Her mouth parts slightly. “That’s… incredibly thoughtful.”

He gives her a crooked smile. “Wasn’t easy to get approval. The matron who oversees the site,”

“is like a thousand years old,” Hermione interjects.

Aster snorts. “Seven hundred and sixty-two. Let’s not round up and curse her early.”

Hermione laughs, covering her grin with her hand, but it’s no use. She’s already melting, inwardly and outwardly. She can’t even help it. “You really did all that?”

He nods once. “For you.”

And now she feels doubly guilty for staging a lunch date with a ridiculously attractive wizard just to get a reaction out of him.

Hermione steps aside when he agrees to stay, the salt-damp wind sneaking past her ankles as she does. Aster’s hair is already tousled from the breeze, and when the door shuts behind him, the muffled sound of the rain pattering against the windows makes the little chalet feel even more secluded despite neighbors stacked on one another. She glances past him, beaches nearly abandoned, umbrellas flipped inside out, and few chairs toppled like a battlefield of poor vacation decisions.

“Well,” she says, brushing a curl from her cheek. “So much for an evening stroll.”

Aster kicks off his sandals, eyes darting toward the fogging window. “Beach is cleared out. Must be the universe telling us to stay inside.”

“Cosmic intervention,” she agrees.

He glances at her with a teasing smirk. “Another film?”

She arches a brow. “Please not another comic book hero.”

“Absolutely not,” he says, mock-offended. “Something with less spandex this time. Unless you’re suddenly partial to capes and brooding.”

“I am partial to brooding,” she mutters, tossing a throw blanket onto the couch. “But fine, pick something decent. You still owe me for sitting through that last mess.”

Aster thumbs through the titles on the shelf with the grave solemnity of someone making a life-or-death decision. “How do you feel about horror?”

She narrows her eyes at him. “I feel like that’s a transparent excuse to make me cling to you.”

He shrugs, not even denying it. “It’s raining, the wind sounds like ghosts, and your power just flickered twice. I don’t make the rules.”

She sighs, dramatically, before curling up next to him, blanket already half-draped across his lap. “Just pick one, but I can’t promise I won’t scream.”

“I’m counting on it,” he says, unboxing The House Haunted Hill without warning.

They settle in, close enough that her shoulder brushes his chest, and when the music swells and the first ghostly shriek cuts through the sound system, she grabs his arm with an exaggerated gasp. He chuckles quiet, deep, from in his throat, not bothering to hide the satisfaction on his face.

“I knew you’d use the storm to your advantage,” she mutters.

“And you’re using the horror movie to justify clinging to me,” he counters.

“Touché.”

She doesn’t let go. Neither does he.

The lightning flares again, thunder rolling like a warning she doesn’t heed.

“I hate horror movies,” Hermione announces flatly, eyes fixed on the glowing screen as another suspenseful violin trembles in the background. “I have enough ominous unknowns in my actual life. I don’t need them accompanied by loud sound design and decomposing faces.”

Aster chuckles under his breath, too comfortable where he is, his body pressed along hers on the narrow couch. “You’re the one who said sure when I asked.”

“I was being polite.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” he says, grinning as he shifts slightly behind her. “You flinched during the opening credits.”

Hermione exhales and soon they’re laying horizontally on the sofa, she lets her back mold into the curve of him. “I was reserving judgment.”

“And now?”

“Still terrible.” But she continues to watch,

She waits for the next predictable shriek on-screen, another corpse, another ridiculous scare, and then pulls his arm around her. It’s an innocent motion at first, the kind of thing someone does when they need comfort. But when she guides his hand low enough that it brushes her breast, she feels him freeze behind her, then twitch. Just once. His cock shifts against the small of her back.

Oh. That’s interesting.

She doesn’t say anything, lets the movie do the work for her. Another scare, another excuse to shift, to press into him slightly harder, and again, his cock thickens a bit more, no retreat this time. His hand is still on her arm now, lightly trailing fingertips along her skin, distracted and shameless.

“Stop,” she says finally, keeping her teasing light. “The movie already has me covered in goosebumps.”

“I’m not doing anything,” he murmurs, but there’s most certainly a smirk in it.

“And I’m the bad liar?”

Then the camera swings around to show a grotesque corpse, bloating, blackened, mouth gaping in an eternal, soggy scream, and she jerks her head into his chest with an actual shudder.

“Okay. No. I can’t do this. I hate this movie.”

Aster frowns, reaches for the remote, but doesn’t hit pause just yet. “You’ve seen it?”

“No. And I don’t want to.” She tilts her face up toward him, cheeks flushed, lips parted. “I wanted an excuse to lie down with you. That’s it.”

His hand tightens just slightly on her hip, breath catching faintly. The rain lashes against the windows like it’s begging to be let in.

“You don’t need an excuse,” he says slowly, thumb brushing up to her ribs.

“Apparently I do,” she mutters.

He tilts her chin gently, searching her face, hesitant, but there’s a storm in his eyes too.

“Then let me make it easy,” Aster murmurs.

Hermione's lips meet his taking them both by surprise. The kiss is deep and hungry, their tongues dancing together in a rhythm that's exhilarating. She rubs against him, her body pressing into his, the friction between them building a heat that spreads through her veins. His hands grip her ribs over her shirt, his fingers digging in as he holds her close, his self-control is in the tension of his muscles.

When he sucks just below her ear, she lets out a soft moan, her body shuddering with pleasure. The sensation sends a jolt of electricity straight to her core, and she finds herself grinding against him more frantically, chasing the release that's just within reach. She comes undone with a force that leaves her breathless and trembling, aching for his cock. She can feel it, still just as hard and insistent, pressing against her, and she knows his self-restraint is crumbling.

But he makes no move to take her shirt off, his hands remaining rooted to her ribs as they continue to kiss. His touch is hesitant, careful, as if he's afraid to break her. She wants more, needs more, and growing impatient, she pulls away slightly, her breath ragged as she looks into his eyes. Seeing his hesitation, she takes matters into her own hands, grabbing the hem of her shirt and pulling it over her head in one swift motion.

His hands, still on her ribs, her waist, she can’t believe how much they tremble slightly as he explores her body, everywhere except her breasts. She can feel his hesitation, his careful roaming, and it drives her wild. She wants him to touch her, to explore every inch of her, to take what he wants. But he's all hesitation and careful roaming, his touch light and tentative, as if he's afraid to break her.

She leans in with a low whisper against his ear. "Touch me, Aster. Please. I need you to touch me."

Aster, his eyes lighten slightly from their copper hue, it’s a shift she didn’t expect, but an intensity she needs. He flips Hermione onto her back, his body pressing down on hers with a weight that's both comforting and exhilarating. His lips scorch a trail down her neck, his mouth sucking and nipping at her skin, leaving behind a path of pleasurable marks. Each suck, each bite, sends a jolt of electricity through her, her body arching into his, craving more.

He pauses at her stomach, his lips hovering just above her skin, his breath hot and ragged. She looks up at him, her eyes pleading, her voice soft but firm. "It's fine, Aster. I want this."

He nods, “I know, I just…”

She can see the surrender in his eyes, the moment he gives in to the desire that's been building between them. It's more than just physical; it's a surrender of control, of hesitation, of everything that's been holding him back. He tugs at her shorts, pulling them down her legs, and she quickly pushes her knickers off, kicking them to the side.

Aster throws his head back, a soft groan escaping his lips as he takes in the sight of her. He bites his lip, his eyes roaming over her body, taking in every curve, every line, every inch of her bare skin. She's not shy, not with the way he's looking at her, not with the way his body responds to hers. The tent in his shorts is a clear indication of this desire, and she smiles, a slow, seductive smile that invites him in.

Aster starts at her knees, his lips soft and gentle, kissing and nipping at her skin as he makes his way up her thighs. His hands explore her body, still tentatively. He kisses the inside of her thigh, his breath hot against her skin, and she can feel the tension in his body, the restraint it's taking for him to go slow.

Hermione wants him, wants this, wants everything he's willing to give. But as he inches closer, she can't help but wonder if he's ever done this before. The thought crosses her mind that he might be scared, unsure of what he's doing. Just as she's about to ask, his head dips lower, and his tongue finally, finally reaches her center.

She lets out a soft moan, her hands immediately finding their way into his hair. She can feel the bronze strands, just long enough to tug, but she doesn't stop him. Instead, she runs her nails gently across his scalp, eliciting another groan from him. He likes that, she can tell, and it spurs her on, encouraging her to explore his reactions further.

His tongue laps at her, the sensation sending waves of pleasure coursing through her body. He's losing control, and she loves it. She can feel her own control slipping, her body responding to his touch in ways she didn't know were possible. She's so close, and she guides him with a low whisper. "Good boy, right there. Don't stop, Aster. Please, don't stop."

He stays the pace, his tongue moving in a rhythm that has her seeing stars. She can feel the pressure building, the pleasure coiling in her belly, ready to explode. "Yes, fuck, oh gods, Aster, yes," she chants in pleasure and desperation.

She instructs him, “Fingers,” she manages, “I need you inside me, use your fingers,” she pants as she arches slightly.

He enters two fingers into her, curling them slightly, and it’s what’s been missing. Something to clench, something to hold on to, something real and tangible. The combination of his fingers and his tongue, moving in tandem, forces her to break overwhelmingly, her body convulsing, her inner muscles clenching around his fingers as wave after wave of pleasure washes over her. She's now hoarse when she cries out his name, all exertion and trembling.

Aster doesn't stop, his fingers and tongue continuing their relentless assault on her senses, drawing out the gratification until she's a boneless, shuddering mess beneath him. He looks up at her, his eyes, penetrating more, and it’s an concentration that makes her heart skip a beat.

Hermione reaches for his shirt, tugging at the hem. Her fingers curl, demanding and inviting.

But he hesitates.

“Why?” she asks, chest rising and falling, still trembling a little from what he’s just done to her.

“This is…” He swallows, shaking his head once. “This is going further than I meant to go.”

The words don’t land cruel, they land honest. That makes them worse.

She blinks, confused and suddenly fragile, aware of how bare she is, how clothed he still is, how uneven the space between them feels now. “We don’t have to,” she starts, then pauses, steadies herself. “We don’t have to do anything. We can just… play. Just be close.”

His gaze sharpens, something warring behind his eyes. But then, slowly, he pulls his shirt over his head and lets it fall to the floor.

She breathes again.

They kiss like it’s something holy and forbidden. Like neither of them knows how long they’ll have this window open before one of them shuts it in self-defense.

When she tugs at the waistband of his shorts, there’s another pause, but this time, he lets her. No words. Just heat and breath and skin.

They don’t rush.

It isn’t sex.

But it’s close.

Hands roam, mouths linger, and every touch is a question, Is this okay? answered in the way he sighs into her throat, or how she arches into him, not ready to let go.

Just play.

But gods, it feels like so much more.

-

The lazy descent of the sun is painting the horizon in bands of gold as Hermione and Livia sit on a stone wall overlooking the water, their bare legs swinging, fingers sticky from shaved ice dripping in the heat.

Livia says, twirling her spoon, “so tell me, can a hand job really mean anything?”

Hermione chokes slightly on a bite of lemon ice, laughing as she wipes her mouth. “It’s just exploring each other,” she says with a shrug. “It’s not… meaningful. It’s warm-up. Context.”

Livia lets out a dramatic sigh. “Merlino’s beard, the way you describe Aster, he seems so innocente. It’s almost sweet. Nothing like Theo and Blaise, who behave like they've mistaken sex for a competitive sport.”

Hermione grins around her spoon. “It doesn’t mean anything. With everything with Theo… Blaise is internally crumbling. It’s beautiful, really.”

Livia barks a laugh, all Italian flair and feline mischief. “Bellissimo vendetta!”

Hermione blinks, frozen for a moment. “Are you saying… you and Theo…?”

Livia shrugs one shoulder, the picture of casual elegance. “It was strategic. Therapeutic. Cleansing. He deserved it. I deserved it. It was purely… symmetrical.” She spoons a bit more ice into her mouth and grins wickedly. “Not unlike a hex.”

Hermione gasps. “I don’t think I could do the revenge sex thing.”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing?” Livia arches a brow. “With the clone of Draco Malfoy?”

Hermione grimaces and pushes her ice away. “Ugh. I try to forget that part. But… maybe. Maybe that’s what it is.”

“You haven’t gotten that far yet though, have you?” Livia asks, tilting her head, “So what are you afraid of?”

Hermione stares at the sea for a long moment. “It’s not me,” she says quietly. “It’s him. Something’s holding him back.”

Livia’s lips curve, slow and sly. “Maybe he’s a virgin.”

Hermione lets out a scandalized laugh, slapping her thigh. “No way! He was… skilled. Very skilled. At the… extra-curriculars.”

Livia hums thoughtfully. “I’m asking Theo.”

“No, Livia, please don’t,” Hermione protests, eyes wide.

But her voice is a little too light. A little too curious.

And Livia sees it. “Mmm. You do want to know.”

They both burst into laughter, the waves crashing below like punctuation. Hermione squints toward the horizon before nudging Livia gently with her elbow.

“So,” she says casually, “why am I going to Brumachia without you?”

Livia exhales, long and languid, her fingers toying with her spoon. “Because Theodore has played his part,” she says with mock gravitas, “and now, I must make my strategic exit before I start writing sonnets or throwing myself off a metaphorical balcony.”

Hermione chuckles, but eyes her sidelong. “You’re playing it off well,” she says, “but you miss Blaise.”

Livia's expression doesn’t change, not exactly, but her silence says plenty. Hermione fills it with gentle teasing. “You do. And you’re both staying in Italy after the summer, which is very suspicious.”

Livia lifts her brows, but doesn’t argue. “I’ll be working. Ministry placed me in the Roman branch for field duty.”

Hermione smirks. “And Blaise? Pursuing that rebellious, tortured soul arc?”

“He’s studying the arts,” Livia says, smoothing her skirt. “Against his mother’s hysterical sobbing. His painting is like… a troll’s fever dream. But his sculpting?” She shrugs. “Honestly? Rivals the greats.”

“A romantic,” Hermione murmurs.

“A masochist,” Livia corrects, lips lifting just slightly. Then, changing the subject too quickly, “What about you and Aster? The summer’s half over.”

Hermione picks at a fleck of ice on her knee. “It’ll stay in the summer,” she says. “That’s the plan.”

Livia tilts her head, curious. “That’s it?”

Hermione smiles faintly. “I want to keep it like a painting. Like a work of art I don’t try to drag into the real world. Something I can look back on and think, that was my renaissance era.”

Livia finishes another spoonful and continues, “So Aster is just fleeting art and ill-advised choices?”

Hermione scoffs. “Should I question further how close you came to sonnets.”

Livia smirks. “Oh, Only when I’m drunk enough to forget, Blaise would never let it go.”

They laugh, tangled up in sea breeze, secrets, and a friendship that feels like another summer all its own.

Hermione hadn’t expected to find someone like Livia. But there she is, bold, infuriating, impossibly stylish, and somehow exactly what Hermione needed.

Their friendship feels like a discovery. Not the kind that comes from books or study, but the kind that sneaks up on you in laughter and shared shaved ice and whispered confessions on windswept cliffs. Livia is sharp in a way Hermione respects, all wit and instinct and unapologetic ambition, and Hermione appreciates her not only for the companionship but for the mirror she holds up, someone else trying to make sense of what it means to grow up, to let go, to move forward.

She’s grateful for Livia, for someone to bounce thoughts off of, scheme with, and roll her eyes alongside when boys become too much. Hermione hadn’t always had friends. She had Harry, and probably still has Harry, and maybe even Ginny again someday, when the dust of everything with Ron finally settles. There’s Angelina and Padma and George, scattered like constellations across her past and future, their empathy steady even if they’re no longer in the same sky.

But this is different. This is hers. Not a relic from school or a bond born out of war. It’s new. Chosen. Unexpected.

She used to fear being left behind, watching her friends move on with their lives while she floated in place, still tangled in the same questions, the same expectations. But now? It doesn’t feel like being left behind. It feels like venturing out on her own, on purpose. Like a beginning, not an end.

And maybe that’s all this is, Livia, and Aster, and even Theo and Blaise. A warm-up. A breath before the next chapter. But it’s hers, and Hermione isn’t watching life happen from the outside.

She’s in it. Living it. Laughing through it and when the sun sets on this part of her life, she’ll start anew and not alone, because she knows she can make friends now.

Chapter Text

Draco folds another shirt into the enchanted overnight bag, pretending it matters whether it wrinkles. He’s already repacked it twice. Across the villa’s radiant sitting room, Blaise lounges with his feet up, tossing grapes into his mouth while Theo groans dramatically into a pile of cloaks.

“Only one night,” Blaise says, popping a grape with a satisfied crunch. “Wards are strong, elves can’t come, so they’re thrilled. They’ve been plotting their own bloody holiday since breakfast.”

“They didn’t want to go anyway,” Draco mutters, rolling a sock and pretending not to care that Hermione is probably doing the same in her room, meticulous and charmingly overprepared.

“Oh, they’re thrilled,” Blaise says again, sitting up. “One of them mentioned spiking the lemonade.”

Theo groans again. “This is punishment. I’m going to Brumachia as a fifth wheel. Why the hell am I even coming?”

“You’re not a fifth wheel,” Blaise says, brushing invisible lint off his shirt. “You’re just a wheel that doesn’t match.”

Theo lifts his head. “You’re not dating Allegra.”

“No,” Blaise agrees, calm as ever. “But you’re not screwing her either.”

“I could,” Theo threatens.

Draco snorts as he zips his bag. “Good luck. She’s head over heels for Blaise.”

“Is not,” Blaise says, but doesn’t deny it with much conviction.

Theo ignores them both, turning to Draco instead. “And you’re not head over heels for Granger?”

Draco laughs too fast, too loud. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

But the moment stretches, and his laugh dies mid-exhale.

Blaise sits up straighter, interest piqued. “Wait. Speaking of which, is it true Livia asked Theo,”

“Don’t,” Draco warns.

Theo grins devilishly. “She asked if you were a virgin. Because you’re so sensitive to Granger’s feelings. You know. Gentle. Thoughtful.”

Draco whirls on him. “What?!”

Theo sprawls back on the couch, arms behind his head like he’s on a beach. “Mm. She thinks you’re too polite to shag her.”

Blaise bursts out laughing.

“This is humiliating,” Draco mutters, face burning. “That witch thinks I’ve never, Merlin’s balls.”

“Well, you are emotionally clogged,” Theo says.

“Shut it.”

Blaise smirks. “Maybe just own it, mate. Virgin with a vendetta. Could be a new persona.”

Draco flips him off, but it’s half-hearted. He’s too distracted by the idea of Hermione thinking he’s some noble, untouched prude. Sensitive, careful.

It’s not entirely wrong. And that might be the most humiliating part.

“Oh come on,” Blaise drawls, utterly unbothered as he casually folds a linen shirt. “Let’s be honest, the only reason Granger hasn’t started interrogating your identity is because Aster comes off like he’s never seen a naked woman before.”

Theo snickers. “Draco Malfoy, virgin incarnate? No wonder she hasn’t figured it out, she’s never met a careful Malfoy.”

“I hate you both,” Draco mutters.

“No no, hear me out,” Blaise says, now with a mock-serious wave of his hand. “It’s another perfect convincing layer to the cover. Draco Malfoy at Hogwarts? He was notorious. Broom cupboard menace. How many times did you get caught?”

Theo lifts a hand lazily. “Twice. For sure. Possibly three, but I think the third time was just a false alarm because we heard someone moaning and assumed it was Draco.”

Draco smirks, still not confirming. “Wasn’t me that time.”

Theo raises a brow. “Oh, so the others were you?”

Draco shrugs, vaguely smug. “Allegedly.”

“Precisely,” Theo says, triumphant. “You weren’t even trying to be discreet. It was like you were making a statement.”

Blaise joins in again, affecting an exaggerated swoon. “Oh Professor, I simply can’t focus in Transfiguration knowing Draco Malfoy is snogging someone else senseless under the Quidditch stands.”

Draco whips around, flicks his wand with casual precision, and Blaise’s overnight bag suddenly yelps and clamps onto his wrist with sharp, enchanted teeth.

“OI,” Blaise yells, yanking his hand away and shaking it. “It bit me!”

“It warned you first,” Draco says coolly, brushing lint from his sleeve after commiting petty suitcase violence.

Theo eyes his own bag warily and mutters, “Alright, calling it now. That’s enough mocking before mine becomes sentient.”

“Wise choice,” Draco says.

“Still a virgin though,” Theo mumbles.

Draco raises his wand slowly.

“Okay, okay!” Theo laughs, ducking behind a chair. “Truce, bloody truce!”

Draco lowers his wand, but not his smirk. He might not touch Hermione the way he wants to, but he still knows how to bite back.

The laughter dies down, but the smirks linger as Draco’s cigarette lights between his fingers.

Blaise finishes wrapping his now semi-sentient bag in a Disarming Charm, just in case, then leans back on the edge of the table, his expression shifting, still relaxed, but thoughtful. “Alright,” he says after a beat, “jokes aside, sex means something to witches, yeah.”

Theo snorts from behind a glass of whatever leftover breakfast cocktail he’s been sipping on. “Not all witches.”

“Most witches,” Blaise counters, eyes sliding to Draco with a little more weight. “Especially ones like her.”

Draco doesn’t blink. “You think I don’t know that?”

“I think,” Blaise says carefully, “you’re starting to forget. And normally, I’d be the last one to stop you. Merlin knows I’ve tried to launch Theo at the nearest emotionally unavailable bed partner more times than I can count,”

“Proud of it,” Theo mutters, raising his glass.

“but this isn’t just for a laugh anymore, is it?” Blaise asks.

Draco leans back against the wall, arms crossed, watching them both and choosing his next move like it’s wizards chess. He doesn’t answer right away. Then confirms, “It is just for entertainment,” he says evenly. “That’s the point.”

Theo tilts his head. “You’re sure that’s still the point?”

Draco’s eyes cut over to him. “She thinks I’m someone else.”

“And when Aster exits the stage?” Blaise asks quietly.

Draco looks away, jaw tightening. “Then it ends.”

A beat. Then he adds, quieter, almost like it’s to himself:

“But until then… it’s just for sport.”

Theo, surprisingly, doesn’t needle him for it. He just watches Draco for a moment.

Blaise nods slowly, finally pushing off the table. “Alright. Then you know where the line is.”

Draco’s lips quirk, the faintest shadow of a smile.

“Course I do,” he says. “We all do.”

And for now, they let it lie. Even if they all know how fine that line really is.

There’s a war inside Draco’s mind, a quiet one, and Aster is winning.

Aster with his soft words and his careful glances. Aster who listens, who learns the rhythm of her breath, who touches her like she’s made of something ancient and precious. Aster who whispers nothings that feel like everything. Aster who is everything Draco never let himself be.

But Draco watches from the shadows of that name, arms crossed, unimpressed.

He doesn’t trust Aster. He doesn’t trust himself.

Sometimes he wonders, is Aster falling for her? Or is Draco letting him, so when it ends, it hurts worse? Is the softness just foreplay for cruelty? Because deep down, part of him still believes he was built to destroy beautiful things. That tenderness is a lie he tells to get close enough to wound.

Then there’s the other fear, equally horrifying. That, it’s not a lie. That Aster is real. That he is real. That the feelings aren’t a fabrication to manipulate the Italian Ministry or distract Hermione from the truth.

And it’s worse that she’s falling for him too.

That’s where the line blurs. Because Aster would never betray her. Aster means every kind word, every careful pause, every held breath before a kiss. Aster is all the best parts Draco polished and hid away.

But Draco… Draco sees how this ends. Draco knows she’ll find out.

And when she does, it won’t matter how gently Aster touched her or how reverently he made her laugh or come or feel wanted. It will still feel like a trick. Aster’s love, if it is love, will feel like manipulation. A mask. A trap.

And so, Draco will kill him. Quietly. Because Aster was only meant to be summer. Not fall, not winter. Not forever.

Just a trick of light in a hot, indulgent season.

He can’t exist past the last heated evening. He was never meant to. Because if he does… Draco doesn’t know what’s left for him to become.

-

Allegra’s voice cuts through the mild mountain air, “She said no venturing off the marked path, Zabini!”

Blaise holds up his hands in mock innocence. “We weren’t off the path. We were adjacent to the path.”

“Theo was halfway up a cliff,” she hisses, shoving her sunglasses into her hair channeling them as the source of her fury. “You don’t get extra points for being adjacent to death.”

Draco isn’t listening. Not really. He hears them, distantly, background noise on a wireless channel he’s not tuned to.

He’s watching Hermione standing near the terrace rail, itinerary in hand, grinning like she’s about to bite into a slice of heaven. There’s a rare, magnanimous delight in her face as she scans the dense calligraphy of the agenda, visits to ancient casting sites, an active magical ley line, exposed, glowing in parts of the mountainside like veins under the skin of the world, and the library. Merlin help him, the way she mouths the word library like a secret spell, he’s almost smiling.

Behind him, Allegra continues, “Do you want to get turned into a pile of dust? Because I’m fairly certain the matron of Brumachia will not resurrect you out of sentimentality.”

Blaise just shrugs. “Theo said it was worth a look.”

“Theo also said he could swim faster than a hippocampus when we were twelve,” she snaps.

“I almost did,” Theo calls from the window seat inside the villa, not looking up from the bottle he’s opened. “It just had a head start.”

The villa, for all its antique splendor, is clearly too small for five people with egos this size. And they haven’t even had lunch yet.

Draco steps closer to Hermione, low enough so the others won’t hear.

“You’re glowing,” he says. “Might want to dim it before one of them accuses you of being the ley line.”

She snorts. “I’m just excited.”

“I can tell. You’ve read that itinerary three times.”

“It’s detailed,” she defends. “And magical history this old and untouched is practically unheard of. They’ve preserved spells that predate even Beauxbatons.”

He watches her as she flips the page, eyes wide, eager, so bright with purpose it almost hurts.

“You know,” he says, “you could have gotten in here on your own.”

She glances up. “But I didn’t.”

“No,” he murmurs. “You let me take you.”

She’s silent for a moment, looking at him in that particular way, curious, cautious, maybe even grateful. Then Allegra yells something again about “respecting seven-hundred-year-old witches,” and Blaise feigns a bow so theatrical it nearly takes out a potted plant.

Hermione just sighs. “Lunch with the magic elite. Let me guess, half of them will try to hire Blaise, duel Theo, or seduce Allegra.”

Draco smirks. “And the other half?”

She tucks the itinerary away, pushing a stray curl behind her ear, “Probably ask you who designed your ring and if you’re ‘seeing anyone.’”

He offers his arm, mock formal. “Only for today.”

She slides her arm through his with a teasing smile. “I’m honored, Mr. Selwyn.”

He doesn’t flinch at the lie on her lips, not when she’s looking at him like that.

The way she looks at him shifts as the day wears on. Not all at once, not in some sweeping, romantic change. It's more subtle than that, like her eyes are slowly refocusing, not on the illusion of Aster Selwyn, but on something deeper beneath it.

It starts during the first tour, when the matron leads them through an overgrown garden that was once a training ground for elemental spellcasting. She's asking a question about why so few schools teach elemental foci anymore, and Draco, adds a dry, offhanded, “Because no one has the attention span anymore, and wild fire is inconvenient at brunch.”

She snorts, but then looks at him sideways, almost appraising. “That’s… actually not a bad theory.”

He grins. One point for subtle wit.

And the way she’s watching him now, engaged, curious, her lips parted slightly like she’s still deciding whether she’s amused or impressed, makes it worth every minute of the hours he spent prepping facts he pretended not to care about.

She’s alive here. Glowing like the ley lines themselves.

At the next site, an exposed fault in the mountainside where spells had been cast in layered succession over centuries, she’s radiant with intellectual hunger. And he is in his element too. He pretends not to be, pretends that he’s only listening because she’s talking. But he’s walking the perimeter before the guide finishes his speech, tracing the old enchantment grooves with the tip of his wand, muttering a counter-rhythm just to see what kind of echo he gets back.

Hermione watches him, frowning in thought.

“That wasn’t the chant they demonstrated.”

He shrugs, barely suppressing a smirk. “No, but theirs was sloppy. The resonance is off by three beats. I could do better blindfolded.”

She scoffs. “You’re such a,” She stops herself, smiling. “A wizard.”

“Brilliant deduction,” he says flatly.

“You know what I mean.” She crosses her arms, playful. “You pretend you’re not taking this seriously, but you are. You’re actually good at this.”

He bows, mock-proud. “I’ll have it etched on my gravestone: Here lies Aster Selwyn. Actually good at things.”

She nudges him, and his stomach clenches at the amorous touch.

Over lunch, seated between two ancient bloodline heirs and opposite a painfully self-important genealogist, Hermione plays diplomatic. She speaks with grace, insight, and just enough subtle defiance to make the oldest man at the table drop his monocle.

Draco watches her hold her own, challenge half the room, and charm the rest. She’s quick, sharper than any hex, and doesn’t even notice how easily she slices through centuries of pretension.

After the genealogist smugly states that wartime conscription muddled the integrity of magical pedigrees, Hermione tilts her head and asks sweetly, “So you’re saying the war improved magical literacy across bloodlines? What a fascinating silver lining.”

Draco has to cough into his napkin to hide his laugh at how she subtly mocks his prejudice by acting like he accidentally made a good point.

When they walk again in the garden, just the two of them, finally, he says quietly, “You enjoy putting old men in their place.”

She glances at him slyly. “I enjoy putting anyone in their place. You just make it too easy sometimes.”

“Do I?”

“You’re not as good at pretending not to care as you think.”

He tucks his hands into his pockets and gazes at her sidelong. “Neither are you.”

That earns him another glance, that curious, weighing one again and she doesn’t look away, right away.

She doesn’t know it, but she sees him. The way he thinks, the way he masks it with charm and nonchalance. Maybe she recognizes it because it’s how she operates. She’s spent her life sharpening herself to be heard. And so has he, except no one ever asked what Draco Malfoy loved about magic, but Aster gets to show her.

The ancient library of Brumachia smells like time itself and deep magic. Vaulted stone ceilings hum with old wards and the trace echoes of incantations whispered centuries ago. The guide, a wiry witch with half-moon spectacles and a voice like creaking floorboards, waves her hand grandly and says, “You are permitted to browse unaccompanied, within bounds. Touch only with gloves provided. No transcriptions without explicit approval.”

From outside, faint shouting echoes, Theo and Blaise, still exiled to the courtyard after an unfortunate incident involving a levitating ink urn, a botched disillusionment charm, and the sudden animation of several offended bookstands. Allegra is keeping an eye on them, sprawled dramatically on a stone bench enduring mild sunstroke and the tragic loss of ageless magical fashion literature.

Draco casts a sideways glance at Hermione as they step deeper into the hushed, magically cool corridors of books. “Do you think they’d have a copy of Thyrr’s Mutable Wards? First edition?”

Hermione pauses, one hand trailing along the edge of a sealed glass case. “They might,” she says, but her eyes are already scanning a different shelf, gleaming faintly with protective runes. “But I’m more curious whether their Dark Arts section is as extensive as rumor claims.”

He quirks a brow. “The Dark Arts, that’s bold.”

She shrugs, glancing at him with a glint in her eye. “It’s not illegal to study it. Just to practice it. Some of us are academic.”

Draco smirks, falling into step beside her. “That’s what they all say until they’re summoning inferi.”

“Please,” she scoffs. “You’d be more likely to animate a cursed cravat.”

He barks a quiet laugh, trying not to disturb the shelves. “Some cravats do deserve a second life.”

Hermione glances over her shoulder as they pass a locked cabinet humming with unspoken spells. “Besides, don’t pretend you aren’t curious too. You lit up like a Niffler when I said it.”

“I didn’t light up.”

“You definitely lit up.”

“I have a scholarly appreciation,” he says, overly prim, but there’s a faint flush on his neck.

She hums, pleased. “So do I. And you know what they say about dangerous knowledge…”

“It’s usually the most interesting?” he offers.

She smiles, sly. “Exactly.”

In the quiet maze of ancient spells and forgotten truths, they are just two minds, sharp and curious, reaching toward something dark and forgotten, together.

As their allotted time in the library ends, Draco watches from a respectful distance as Hermione leans in to speak with the ancient librarian who looks like she’s carved from olivewood and dust and who probably knew Salazar Slytherin personally. He can’t hear Hermione’s words, only sees the low intensity of her voice and the way her eyes influence, not pleading, but explaining something earnestly. Whatever she says must strike a chord, because the guide’s mouth softens, her eyebrows lift with interest… and then, with startling tenderness, she pats Hermione’s arm.

And by some divine misfire of cosmic favoritism, Godric’s mercy or Merlin’s trickery, the old witch nods and mutters a phrase that lifts the glowing wards from the glass. The protective runes peel away like smoke. Hermione, unshaken, reaches in and carefully copies down the faded ink of a spell onto a square of parchment. Draco waits for the giddy gleam, the triumphant smirk he knows she gets when she wins. But when she tucks the parchment into her pocket, her expression is... controlled. Composed.

He ambles over casually, hands in his pockets. “You didn’t even skip.”

Hermione looks up. “Skip?”

“You seem like the type to win a debate about cross-species wand law and practically levitate with smugness. You just got permission to transcribe a spell no one’s touched in centuries, and you’re barely even smirking.”

“I don’t skip,” she says automatically, then adds, “Well, not often.”

He narrows his eyes. “What was it?”

“What?”

“The spell. Why’d you want it?”

She lifts a shoulder and lets her lips curve, finally, just a bit. “I’m just proud I convinced her. Allegra’s going to be livid she missed her chance at that anti-aging glamour.”

Draco chuckles. “That’s the one they say actually works, right? Like, reverses sun damage and expression lines and all that?”

“Precisely. She’s going to kill Theo and Blaise.”

“They deserve it.”

“They do,” Hermione agrees lightly.

But Draco watches her slip that parchment deeper into her pocket. There’s a quiet satisfaction in her gaze that has nothing to do with vanity or bragging rights. Something about the way the librarian had looked at her, the way she’d touched her arm. Compassion. It wasn’t just academic. Not this one.

Still, she deflects so he lets her.

They’re ushered out before Draco can get another look at the book. The ancient librarian, with a flick of her fingers, politely guides them toward the doors. He wants to stay, just a second longer to catch the name of the text, a glimpse of the sigils on the spine, anything, but Hermione is already walking ahead, her hand absently brushing the spot over her pocket where she tucked the copied spell.

Later, the library’s mysteries soften into the wine-warmed hush of Brumachia’s evening and the sky overhead is starting to dust itself with stars. Their long table is set in a terraced garden covered with dessert that is light, fruit, cheeses, honey-soaked biscuits, and the wine is older than the matron’s patience.

Allegra is leaning into an astrologist's account of magical star theory, utterly entranced as he explains the convergence of celestial bodies and its effects on core magical affinity. “The Veela constellation amplifies glamour charms,” he’s saying, “but only when it crosses the eastern ley lines,”

“Stop it,” Allegra breathes, eyes wide. “You mean I’m literally cosmically enhanced?”

“Apparently,” Blaise murmurs into his glass, bemused.

Theo, for once, is on his best behavior. Draco suspects it has something to do with the death-glare they all received from the ancient matron after their last mishap, something involving a suit of armor and a potion spill that nearly melted a fresco. Allegedly.

“And the donation,” Draco says under his breath, watching the rare sight of Theo not fidgeting. “Can’t forget that.”

“We handled it,” Theo whispers back. “We’re now patrons of the Brumachia Conservatory for Magical Youth. And, I practically own a fresco.”

“I’m sure that’ll impress all the girls back in London.”

But then Draco’s attention shifts again, drawn across the table.

Hermione has changed. Literally. He recognizes the dress immediately, he’s seen Allegra wear it to at least two galas in Rome. But it fits Hermione differently, charmed to her figure with seamless care, as though it had always been hers. It’s black and backless, held at the nape of her neck with nothing but a delicate twist of gold chain. The skirt catches every movement she makes like moonlight slipping off stone.

She’s beaming, laughing at something the star-reader says, eyes glinting with curiosity and wine. Her hair’s swept back, exposes her throat and the soft curve of her spine.

Draco doesn’t say a word about the dress. Doesn’t tease, and can’t possibly compliment without betraying his strong urge to snog her senseless. And he watches her, drinks in the way she leans forward to challenge an interpretation of lunar alignment and magical inheritance as if she’d been born to debate constellations.

Draco takes a slow sip of wine. Watches her fingers curl around her goblet. The same fingers that curled around the parchment. The same fingers that had touched him in the dark, and in the midst of a storm, one that might just have matched the one raging inside his heart.

-

The door shuts softly behind him, muffling the snores and shifting sounds of their companions passed out inside. Draco steps into the thick summer air, heat curling around him, or maybe it’s just the slow rush of blood to his face when he sees her.

Hermione is still wearing that damn dress, standing alone on the narrow stone balcony. She hasn’t changed, hasn’t undone the glamour, as if she doesn’t want the spell of the night to end. Her hair has loosened from its pins, a few curls dancing in the ocean breeze. The sky above is a velvet swath of stars, endless and impossibly clear. The sea beyond the cliff is invisible in the dark, but they can both hear it crashing far below.

She knows he’s there. She doesn’t flinch when his footsteps sound softly behind her. Doesn’t move when he comes to stand at her back, his chest nearly brushing her bare shoulders.

He doesn’t say anything.

She does.

“Thank you,” she says quietly, still staring out into the abyss. “For today.”

He waits, watching the profile of her face, how starlight outlines the slope of her cheekbone.

“It’s…” She trails off, lips pressed together like she’s weighing the weight of her words.

Then she turns, slowly, and looks up at him.

“It could very well be life changing,” she says. “And I, I didn’t expect that.”

Draco feels like she’s punched the air out of him.

He forces a smirk, light but crooked. “Bit dramatic, Hermione. We only visited a seven-century-old magical sanctuary, possibly witnessed the after-echo of an ancient spell casting rite, and almost got kicked out for ‘improper wand behavior.’”

“That was Blaise.”

“And Theo.”

She smiles, and it’s too much. He steps closer, letting the space between them collapse.

“Still dramatic,” he adds lower now. “But you’re not wrong.”

Hermione raises a brow. “You think this might change your life?”

“Too late,” he mutters. “It already has.”

She blinks, just once, before replying, “That’s dangerously sentimental, Aster.”

“Must be the dress,” he says, eyes scanning down, then up again. “It’s clouding my judgment.”

She hums, soft and amused. “You didn’t say anything about it earlier.”

“I’m trying to be respectful,” he says, dry. “Also, Allegra would have prodded.”

Hermione lets out a light laugh, hand brushing his arm, just enough for him to know she’s glad he’s here. The wind picks up again, and she steps in, just slightly, a bare inch between them now. The scent of her, citrus, wine, wraps around him like a spell of its own.

“I didn’t expect this,” she says, her voice smaller, gentler.

“Which part?”

Her eyes meet his. “You.”

His heart stutters.

He doesn’t kiss her. Not yet. Just lets his fingers trail down the bare skin of her arm, slow.

“I didn’t expect you either,” he says, and it’s not Aster speaking. Not entirely.

It’s the cliffside between identities. The night air, full of stars and salt and the space between one heartbeat and the next where everything could still change.

He wants to kiss her.

Right there on the edge of everything, with the wind licking at her curls and the stars painting her eyes silver. The dress is part of it, gods, the dress, but more than that, it’s the way she’s looking at him. Open. Hopeful. Trusting in that maddening, dangerous way.

But instead, he ruins it with his godsdamned curiosity.

“The spell,” he says gently, tone careful like he’s handling something volatile. “From earlier. What was it for?”

Her body tenses almost imperceptibly, but he feels it, registers the way her spine stiffens and her mouth pulls flat. She doesn’t step back, not physically, but emotionally, she’s already retreating. Her eyes break away from his, darting down, to the sea, to the dark. Anywhere but him.

She tries, valiantly, to brush it off with a small smile. “It’s… personal.”

And that, of course, says nothing.

Draco doesn’t press. He won’t. He just nods once, like that’s all he needed.

“Okay,” he says. “It’s fine.”

She seems to deflate a little at his kindness, the tension loosening like she hadn’t expected understanding. That alone makes his chest ache.

He lifts his hand, tilts her chin back up, not demanding, just offering her the chance to meet his eyes again.

“You have every right,” he says softly, “to have anything personal you want.”

Something fragile shimmers in the air between them. Then she nods, and something like gratitude shimmers across her face.

The moment isn’t lost, just shifted. Like the stars above them, always moving, realigning.

He steps back just slightly, draws his wand, and with a flick, expands the lounge chair behind them to fit two. Then he glances down at her with a crooked smile. “Come on. It’d be criminal not to look at these stars properly.”

She laughs, soft and a little tired, but curls into the space beside him anyway, tucking one leg over the other, her arm grazing his.

They lie back together, heads tilted toward the sky, and for a little while, they stargaze.

But not for long because the summer air is welcoming, her breath is steady beside his, and the last thing he registers before sleep pulls him under is the sound of her murmur, something about the constellation above them, and how it used to be a different name, a different story.

He doesn’t remember his reply, only that she was beside him when he drifted off, and still there when he woke up.

Chapter Text

Hermione’s smile from the lighthearted visit with Aster fades the moment the knock echoes through her flat. A sharp knock, insistent. She barely has time to exchange a glance with Aster before she’s at the door. It’s Ron, fiery red hair and determined eyes.

“Can we talk?” he demands.

She crosses her arms, unamused. “I’m not interested in anything you have to say.”

His jaw tightens, voice low but urgent. “It’s important.”

She lets out an exasperated sigh. “Nothing you say could possibly be important.”

Aster snorts quietly from behind her. Ron shoots him a glare, then tries again.

Hermione moves to close the door, but Ron steps forward, blocking it.

“I didn’t come all this way just to be shut out.”

She cuts him off coldly. “Clearly, you did. And you were mistaken if you thought I ever wanted to hear your voice again.”

Ron’s eyes flicker with frustration and something softer. “I’m trying to protect you.”

She laughs, sharp, bitter. “Protect me from what? Your cheating? Your slander against my name?”

He snaps back tense. “From him,” he says, nodding toward Aster. “He’s not who he says he is. That’s the real Malfoy.”

Hermione’s eyes flick between Ron and Aster, disbelief at his audacity. What did I ever see in him? she wonders, the memories still bitter and almost strange, like it was a lifetime ago. Then, unexpectedly, a laugh escapes her, quiet, mocking, and probably tinged with sorrow.

“It’s not the accusation that’s funny,” she says softly, “it’s that I ever thought I could fix anything with you, Ronald... I wanted familiar. I wanted family. Your family accepted me when I was just a scared girl.”

She straightens, regaining her footing, and fixes him with a steady gaze. “But I was the one that lost the plot, yeah.”

Ron’s voice hardens. “He’s using you! Selwyn, Aster Selwyn, isn’t real. It’s a made-up name.”

Hermione shakes her head slowly, like she hasn’t heard this accusation half a dozen times. “What exactly are you trying to prove? No one wants to hear your story anymore. No one sees you. You’re a has-been hero, and the fact that you can’t stand it? That’s your problem. You don’t bother me.”

Ron flushes red with anger, and she doesn’t see the familiar boy she once knew but a man consumed by bitterness. She doesn’t expect the wrath that follows, and it pricks sharper than any cursed blade.

“And you’re walking blind into a Malfoy’s arms to what? To prove someone like Draco Malfoy would fuck a mudblood? You’re sad, pathetic, and always run away from all your problems. I thought I made a stupid mistake before, but I guess I just needed to see for myself how delusional you’ve become, so desperate to prove you didn’t earn that brand on your arm.”

Hermione’s blood boils, mixing anger with a flush of embarrassment. For the briefest moment she considers activating her bracelet and letting another beast sort it out. But instead she pulls her wand, the tip aimed steadily at Ron. He flinches, surprised, but before she can utter a hex, Aster lunges forward.

His fists connect with Ron’s face, but it’s a controlled fury, wholly measured, as if he’s holding back the full force, because he said how far he went with McLaggen still haunts him, so a wand is out of the question. Each strike is precise, enough to send the message, not to cause lasting harm.

Then, with a final shove, Aster tosses Ron down the path and growls, “Stay away from Hermione you lobotomized bin bag. Don’t ever come near her again.”

Ron doesn’t back down, he lashes out, throwing a wild punch that lands squarely on Aster’s jaw. The impact is severe, but Aster’s fingers grip into Ron’s shirt, knuckles white, jaw locked, the stillness that precedes something violent. Ron is grinning like he’s won something.

“Even if you’re not Draco Malfoy,” Ron sneers, “you’re still a Malfoy. That doesn’t just wash off. People don’t forget that kind of name. What kind of person could ever really see past that?”

Aster doesn’t say anything. His grip tightens, and for a second she thinks he might punch him again. She kind of wants him to. But instead, Aster just stands there, breathing hard, and lets him go with another shove, silent in a way that makes Ron laugh.

“Yeah,” Ron says, all teeth and bitter satisfaction. “That’s what I thought. You don’t even have a retort for that, do you?”

Hermione takes a step forward, about to intervene, but then Ron turns to glance at her, and the next words slice the air.

“Only someone as delusional as Mione could fall for it.”

That does it. Aster shoves him back in warning, but she can see he’s holding back all his rage, saying evenly, “You don’t get to speak to her. You don’t get to say her name like you know her anymore.”

Ron scoffs. “But I do know her.”

“No, you don’t,” she says. “You knew the girl who bent over backwards to earn a place in your world. Not the woman who stopped needing to.”

Hermione sends a bolt of light snapping at Ron’s feet. The warning is clear enough to make him stumble back. He mutters something under his breath, probably “bitch,” but the roar of blood in Hermione’s ears and the sting of tears blur the words beyond recognition.

Without another word, Ron Disapparates, leaving silence and only the sound of Hermione’s gasp as tears fall freely, hot and aching, the timing cruel and perfectly awful. Aster’s arms are around her before she can think of pulling away.

He guides her inside gently, wordless, steady, and starts making tea just the way she likes it. But somehow, the 2 sugars, splash of cream, and dash of cinnamon only makes it worse. Hermione knows what’s coming, the question about the brand on her arm, the scar hidden with glamours day in and day out. She knows Aster doesn’t know yet, so he’ll ask, or it’s Draco and he’ll just pretend, and the teetering between realities makes it almost unbearable.

Hermione takes the tea with a quiet thank you, her fingers wrapping around the warm mug like it might anchor her to the present. The silence stretches, taut and painful, until she blurts out, “I’m sorry.”

She winces instantly. “Not, not for him,” she clarifies quickly, shaking her head as if trying to loosen the words lodged behind her teeth. “Just…” Her voice trails off, and she gestures vaguely, helplessly, as though she could wave away the night, the confrontation, the truth that’s still buzzing like the curse beneath her skin.

She lets out a hollow laugh. “It’s hilariously delusional, isn’t it? To think I could keep what’s between us untouched by everything waiting outside of Italy.”

Aster doesn’t interrupt. He just watches her, listening like what she says matters.

And suddenly, it’s spilling out.

“I run,” she says quietly. “I do. I ran from Ron, from London, from everything that reminded me of what I lost. Because the last time I stood and fought my problems, really fought, it was a war. And I’m tired of fighting, Aster.”

“You’re not delusional,” he says gently, with the kind of certainty she wishes she could believe.

She laughs again, bitter and breathless. “But I am. About so, so much.”

He tilts his head. “Are you delusional,” he asks, “or just… hopeful?”

That stops her. She looks at him, and the question folds inside her ribs like a sharp little truth. “Maybe that’s what we are. Two people trying to hope their way into being more than what they were born from. A Malfoy. A Mudblood.” 

“Don’t,” he says suddenly fierce. "Hermione."

She swallows. “You don’t want the world to know who you are because that name, Malfoy, it means more shame now than legacy. And me… maybe I just want proof I’m more than a slur carved into… history.” Her voice cracks. “Is it too much to want that?”

"Don’t call yourself that.”

But she’s already setting her tea down, rolling up her sleeve slowly, deliberately. She holds out her arm to him, bare in the soft sunlight filtering through the windows. “It’s quite fucking impossible not to.”

She disenchants the glamour and the word ‘mudblood’ carved into her skin by Bellatrix’s curse blade is unmistakable.

The shock that steals over his face is devastating, his mouth parts slightly, and for a moment he’s clearly forgotten how to breathe. He had no idea, or just shocked to see it so close and not ten paces away like that day in the drawing room when Draco Malfoy stood by and watched her receive it.

Aster doesn’t ask what happened. He doesn’t offer sympathy. He simply says, “It’s what you asked the witch for, isn’t it? The spell.”

Hermione doesn't bother deflecting or denying again. Her shoulders drop with a kind of relief, maybe even surrender.

“Yes,” she murmurs. Her fingers tremble slightly as she reaches into her pocket, drawing out the folded parchment like it’s something sacred, because to her, it is. The edges are soft now from being handled, but the ink still holds. “It might work,” she mutters, more to herself than him, as if saying it aloud could jinx it.

Aster doesn’t ask to see the spell.

Instead, he just reaches out and squeezes her hand gently. “Only one way to find out,” he says.

Hermione blinks at him as he stands. “You’re serious? You’re leaving?”

Aster shrugs, trying for nonchalance. “I figured you might want privacy for something like this. If it’s personal.”

She stares. Then lets out a stunned laugh at his understanding and offers, “You think I dragged you through an ancient library, let you watch me sweet-talk a witch older than Merlin for one miracle page of text, and now I wouldn’t want you here?”

He grins, and there’s pride, admiration, maybe both. It softens the anxiety in her chest and she pulls him by the arm to sit once more.

She holds the parchment with both hands now, thumbs smoothing over the aged edges. “It’s just a scar,” she says, quieter. “The curse was removed, but not the mark. The blade, the magic was… old. Vicious. Healing charms couldn’t touch it. St. Mungo’s said it was permanent.”

“But you heard something else.”

“A rumor,” she admits. “That even the worst scars, even the Dark Mark, could be undone with this.” She lifts the parchment slightly. “With the right spell. More than just the right intention.”

Aster looks at her then like she’s already done the impossible. “You’re going to rewrite the kind of story people like us were told to live with forever.”

Hermione snorts softly, blinking the sting from her eyes. “Don’t say things like that unless you want me to cry.”

“I do like when you cry,” he teases lightly, then immediately holds up a hand in surrender. “Happy tears of course.”

She rolls her eyes but smiles anyway. Then she folds the parchment and sets it aside. She’s already memorized the words. With one last inhale, deep and steady, she raises her wand, closes her eyes, and speaks the incantation flawlessly.

There’s no blast. No shimmer of lights, just silence. And then… something shifts, her breath catches and when she looks down, the skin on her arm feels, is, different. Not tight. Not raw. Not marked. She runs a tentative finger over where the scar had lived, pressing gently. It’s smooth. Like silk.

Her other hand goes to the opposite arm, comparing.

It’s gone.

“It worked,” she whispers. She turns her arm in the light again. “Merlin’s bones, it actually worked.”

Aster doesn’t say anything.

But when she finally looks up, he’s watching her with a reverence she’s only ever read about in books, and she suddenly understands what he meant when he said hope might not be so delusional after all.

She kisses him with a passion that's newly unburdened by war and torture. The scar on her arm is gone, and with it, the last reminder of her past. She feels like a new version of herself, reborn and ready to seize the moment. And she wants him, all of him. There's a flash of hope in her chest, a hope that he shares this feeling, this desire, this need.

His response is immediate and fervent. His hands find the hem of her shirt, pulling it over her head in a swift, fluid motion. He quickly discards her bra and his lips brush against her perky nipples, his tongue circling and sucking, sending shocks of pleasure straight to her core. It's all of him, his touch, his taste, his scent, filling her senses, consuming her entirely. There’s no preamble of fondling of delicate places, just discarded clothes and instant connection.

But it’s the intensity of his gaze as he pushes into her that’s almost overwhelming. It's a look of pure, unadulterated desire, a look that says he's finally gotten what he's always wanted. Aster’s eyes lock onto hers, "Hermione," he rumbles hoarse, like he's been wanting this longer than he's known her.

She wraps her legs around him, urging him deeper, harder, faster. The sensation of him filling her is euphoric, a pleasure so intense it's almost painful. She can feel every inch of him, the heat of his body, the pounding of his heart, the desperation in his movements.

"Oh, Aster," she cries out as she comes, her body convulsing around him, her inner muscles clenching and releasing in waves of pure ecstasy. He doesn't stop, his hips continuing to move, drawing out her pleasure, his own release building with each thrust.

And in that moment, as they move together, Hermione feels like she’s crossed a threshold she can’t uncross, and the air around her feels thinner because of it, charged, changed, and undeniable. It isn’t just that they’ve come apart together, that they’ve finally reached each other in that way. It’s that elemental shifted in her, the moment she let him see all of her, and touched him like he mattered, which he does, more than she can admit aloud.

He leans down, his forehead resting against hers, his breath ragged and hot against her skin. "I've wanted this," he confesses. "I've want you."

It feels like a milestone, yes, but not like something checked off a list. It’s more like unlocking a door that was always there, buried beneath old defenses and second guesses. And no, she couldn’t rewind. She doesn’t have a Time-Turner, and for the first time in years, she didn’t want one.

The sex didn’t simplify anything. If anything, it complicated everything.

The heat of the summer seemed to rise with it, the sun sticking to their skin and the stolen moments between them growing heavier, hotter, needier. The physicality of it, the way they reached for each other in shadows and slipped away before the others noticed, only amplified everything else.

Aster had asked her not to tell Theo or Blaise, not even Allegra. And, surprisingly, she didn’t tell Livia either. Not out of shame, gods, never that, but because it felt like something too sacred to share, something still too new to joke about.

Around their friends, they were calm. Relaxed. A little too casual, maybe.

But the second they were alone, all of it, hesitation, doubt, reason, vanished like a disillusionment charm under phoenix fire.

-

They’re dripping salt and sun, boards under their arms as they trudge up the beach path when Sloane, ever bronzed and bemused, flashes a grin. “You two have really taken to surfing.”

Hermione adjusts her grip on the waxy board, brushing slick hair from her face. “I’m terrible, actually.”

“She’s better than me,” Aster says immediately dry but admiring.

“It’s like riding a broom,” Hermione explains with a shrug still a bit out of breath, “but with your feet. And possible sharks.”

Aster stops in his tracks, turns to her, dead serious. “You said you did the repellent charm.”

She smirks. “Did I?”

His eyes narrow, debating jumping back into the sea to cast it himself.

Allegra laughs behind them, towel tossed over one shoulder. “Italy looks good on you, Mi. You’re basically glowing.”

Hermione does look different, tanner, more freckled than she’s been since she was thirteen, and undeniably relaxed. She ducks her head modestly, cheeks flushed pink under the golden haze of late afternoon.

“So what’s next after Italy?” Sloane asks, brushing sand from her calf. “Going to live barefoot and sun-kissed forever, or what?”

“I’ve been accepted to Oxford,” Hermione says, trying to sound casual.

Allegra lets out a low, appreciative whistle. “That’s impressive.”

“It is,” Sloane adds with an approving nod.

Even Aster looks taken aback. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Hermione shrugs, squinting at the waves. “Because it is far too soon to think about. I’d rather surf and sunbathe and,”

Allegra coughs loudly. “and sex.”

Aster shoots her a warning glare, but Allegra just throws her hands up like, what?

Sloane snorts. “How long are you going to pretend I didn’t walk in on you?”

Hermione groans, burying her face in her towel. “Can we not?”

Aster warns, “Not a word to those Cornish pixies.”

Hermione points at Sloane. “Both of you, sworn to secrecy.”

Sloane waves her off, amused. “Please, like I want to talk to Theo and Blaise about your naked escapades.”

Aster rolls his eyes. “Speaking of Theo… you two are getting close.”

Hermione breaks into laughter. “God’s we’ve become a telenovela. You never know what’s happening, but you’re emotionally invested.”

The trio in front of her gives her blank stares. Allegra blinks. “What’s a telenovela?”

Hermione gasps. “Right. Okay. First of all, how dare you.”

Sloane shrugs. “We’re not Muggles.”

“Well, now you have homework,” Hermione says. “We’re watching one tonight, then you’ll understand.”

Allegra smirks. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“I am so tired of everyone saying that,” Hermione protests.

“Then stop blushing when we do,” Aster murmurs beside her, not bothering to hide his grin.

“Theo and Blaise are already at the café,” Hermione says, squinting beyond through salt-speckled lenses. “They’ve claimed the shady table, and I quote, ‘next to the hot bartender with opinions about oysters.’”

Allegra immediately groans. “I think I’ll pass.”

Hermione arches a brow. “Shocking.”

“I have to… rehydrate,” Allegra offers, not even trying for sincerity. “Also, Sloane and I were going to do seaweed wraps.”

“We were?” Sloane blinks, then catches on. “Right. We were. But their July menu is to die for. Especially that lemon crostata.”

“Mmm, suspiciously enthusiastic,” Hermione teases, then narrows her eyes at Allegra, who’s very pointedly pretending to adjust her bikini top. It’s Blaise. But Hermione doesn’t say that aloud. She lets the silence drag a beat longer than necessary before shifting her towel over her shoulder.

“Go,” Aster murmurs at her side low enough that it’s only for her. “It’s not the same without your commentary. Otherwise people-watching just turns into us sounding cruel instead of observational.”

“That’s because without her, you’re all just mean,” Hermione huffs dramatically.

Sloane grins. “No lies detected.”

“Besides,” Hermione says, brushing sand off her thighs and slipping into her sandals, “it’s not as fun if you’re not there for you to all put me in my place with your endlessly wise logic and noble self-control.”

They all burst out laughing genuine. Aster touches her elbow as they start walking, steadying her against the uneven beach path, the smile private, and reserved for her.

“You know we only sound clever because you say such ridiculous lectures.”

Hermione gasps, mock affronted. “I am the voice of reason in this group.”

“Sure, sure,” Sloane calls from behind them, “and Allegra only dates men for their minds.”

Allegra blows her a kiss. “That’s slander, and you know it.”

They keep walking, Hermione and Aster trailing behind the girls.

They trail behind the others, sand sticking to the backs of their calves and the boards left behind, an elf gathering their things. She feels entirely guilty but gave up arguing weeks ago. The midday sun is relentless, warming the stone path as they wind up the hill toward the café. Aster walks beside her, close enough that their elbows brush, casual and practiced like it doesn’t mean anything.

“So,” Hermione begins, but not as casual as she tries to sound, “what are your plans after summer?”

Aster doesn’t even glance at her, just lets a smirk pull sideways. “I thought we weren’t inviting after into our sacred little summer? You said so yourself. Or was that just a romantic ideal to lure me into a false sense of security?”

Hermione scoffs, but the corners of her mouth twitch. “Maybe I’m just making conversation.”

“Mm. Thought so,” he says smugly.

She huffs again, switching tactics. “Well, in that case, the sun’s bleaching your hair like mad.”

That gets his attention. He turns his head, a brow raised. “Is that a compliment or a cry for help?”

“It’s a fact,” she retorts, reaching up to flick a sun-bleached strand near his temple. “You’re going to be blond-er than a Malfoy if you stay out here.”

He smirks. “How tragic.”

They reach the steps to the café’s beachside entrance just in time for a grape to come hurtling from the balcony above. It misses by a meter and bounces pathetically down the stone path.

“Nice shot, Theo,” Aster calls up without looking.

Theo leans over the rail with mock offense. “That was aimed at Blaise, thank you very much.”

Blaise doesn’t even look up from his spritz. “I’m unbothered and untouched, as always.”

Hermione rolls her eyes as Aster offers her his hand, unnecessarily gallant as they ascend the steps together.

“God, I’m going to miss this,” she mutters under her breath.

Aster glances at her, grin still lazy, but eyes a little softer now. “You’re still making conversation.”

“Shut up,” she says, and nudges him with her hip.

The table is all laughter and clinking glasses on the café balcony. Hermione perches between Allegra and Aster. Across from them, Livia lounges between Theo and Blaise like she belongs there, and maybe she does. It’s hard to say.

She’s dazzling in a sheer linen wrap, her espresso-dark hair swept up with a red silk ribbon that looks dangerously close to matching Theo’s shirt. Or maybe it’s Blaise’s. It’s been a game, really, watching her lean slightly closer to one, then the other, accepting lazy compliments with a smile that means nothing and something.

Hermione’s not even sure if Livia’s aware of the effect she has, or if she simply doesn’t care.

“Darling, you have something on your lip,” Blaise says smoothly, brushing his thumb over the corner of Livia’s mouth in a gesture far too intimate for someone who claims nothing is going on.

Livia doesn’t blink. “Oh, do I?” she purrs, lifting her napkin instead, ignoring his touch completely and dabbing delicately. “Must be the gelato. Or your maybe just your desperation.”

Theo chokes on his drink, delighted. “God, I love when she roasts you. Keep going, please.”

“Maybe I will,” Livia replies airily, stealing a cherry from Theo’s plate with all the serenity of a saint and none of the guilt.

Across the table, Allegra scoffs, not quite under her breath.

It’s subtle and Hermione glances between them, bracing for the spark. The tension between Allegra and Livia has hovered over the group all week, never quite igniting, but always there. The way Allegra goes stiff every time Livia enters a room. The way Livia refuses to acknowledge it like it isn’t worth her time.

They used to be friends, childhood summers spent on boats and beaches, if the gossip was to be believed, but it all splintered, and now the fractures are sharp enough to draw blood.

“That dress is new,” Allegra says, and it’s almost a compliment.

Livia sips her drink. “It is to me. You used to wear it better, though.”

Blaise raises his brows. Theo lets out a low whistle.

Aster mutters, “And there it is.”

Hermione’s lips twitch. She leans toward Aster and whispers, “Do you know what happened between them?”

He shakes his head. “No clue. Could be a shared Italian tragedy. Could be a fight over a bottle of perfume in ’95.”

Hermione snorts.

But Theo, expert in chaos manifestation, swoops in like a diplomat caught in a food fight. “Speaking of perfume, don’t you think certain scents are inherently magical? Like amortentia, wouldn’t it make sense if old potion makers were just alchemists trying to bottle memory?”

Everyone blinks at him.

“Where the hell did that come from?” Allegra asks flatly.

“I’m just saying,” Theo continues, undeterred, “if you bottled the smell of this exact day, sun on skin, cherry gelato, the sea, it would be an illegal Class B narcotic.”

“That’s because you’re high on valarian root and heatstroke,” Blaise tells him.

“And cherry pits,” Hermione adds.

Livia laughs, finally. Allegra rolls her eyes but smiles too, and just like that, the tension scatters.

Theo leans back, smug as ever. “And that, my friends, is how you win the Mediterranean peace prize.”

“You don’t win peace,” Hermione says, sipping her drink.

“Tell that to my gelato,” he replies.

Hermione wonders, not for the first time, if she’d care, really care, if Aster hooked up with someone else.

It’s an idle thought at first, one that has slipped in while he’s off chatting with the girl at the market stand who keeps twirling her hair and smiling a bit too much. She tells herself it doesn’t matter. They haven’t said they’re exclusive, not like her and Ron had declared, he promised she was the only witch for him, till she wasn’t. With Aster they haven’t drawn lines or set rules. There’s no promise, no label, just long glances, till their laughter finds thin tangled sheets and he says he wants her, or the simple way he always hands her the mug with the crack in it, because she said it felt like hers.

She tells herself she wouldn’t be jealous. Not really. She’s had enough experience with that, with men who try too hard or not at all. Wizards flirt. Some more aggressively than others. Her expectations are practical, tempered. She’s keeps them in check, polished and distant, like Livia does. She’s not naive.

And besides, it’s not just about what Aster does or doesn’t do. It’s the fact that he would be jealous if she did. Comically, unmistakably jealous, yet, doesn’t define them. But gets snippy when Blaise so much as refills her wine.

And maybe that’s part of it, how easy it is to know where he stands without needing him to say it. Maybe that’s what makes it hard to imagine caring about some nameless girl brushing sand off his shoulder.

Aster isn’t built like Theo, juggling affections and lovers like they’re part of a performance piece, a dazzling sleight of hand. Nor does he have Blaise’s smooth detachment, that quiet way he moves through desire like it’s a room he can always exit unscathed.

She doesn’t think he could be so casual.

The conversation at the table turns quickly, from teasing to treacherous.

Livia and Allegra are circling each other again like sleek, perfectly manicured vipers. It starts with a comment about shoes. Then it's a jab about family vineyards. By the time the word “claws” comes out, it’s not a metaphor anymore. Allegra’s smile is tight, Livia’s tongue sharper than whatever spell she's likely holding back.

Theo, trying to salvage it with humor, leans back in his chair and drawls, “You two keep talking like that and someone’s bound to get cursed to shreds.”

Blaise lifts his glass and adds without missing a beat, “Still won’t be as bad as what Potter did to you.”

The table stills, just for a second.

Aster looks up from his drink, brows twitching with confusion, and Hermione glances at him. He’s waiting for someone to fill in the blank. She glances at Blaise. He blinks, lazy, and shrugs.

“Oh. Sorry, mate,” he says to Aster like it’s nothing, “That was Draco.”

And for a moment it doesn't hit Hermione like a betrayal or a reveal. It hits her like a joke, and she smirks before she can stop herself.

“Told you your hair’s getting lighter,” she says to Aster with mock sweetness running her hands through his salty streaked hair.

Theo bursts out laughing, nearly spitting out his wine.

Aster raises an eyebrow, but he coolly says, “Well, now I need to hear this story.”

Theo obliges, because he’s never been deterred by violence. “Potter got into a spat with Malfoy back in sixth year. Sectumsempra. Nasty business, slashed him right open across the chest. The DADA professor had to come running to stitch him back together before he bled out in the bathroom.”

Aster winces. “That’s… vicious.”

But Hermione’s already drifting. Because she’s suddenly remembering the scars.

His very faint scars.

The ones she’s traced with her fingers under sheets and breathless nights, the ones he said were from dueling, or reckless childhood accidents. They were all the same length. The same pattern. Almost… deliberate.

Her stomach tightens.

No one else at the table knows she’s mentally inventorying his body, but she is. And now she’s not just remembering, she’s calculating. Because they might have all came from the same curse. From the same day, from the same wizard.

Aster tilts his head and murmurs low, just for her, “Where’d you just go?”

Hermione blinks. She’s still seeing lines. She forces a smile. “Nowhere. Must be the wine.”

He hums like he doesn't believe her but doesn’t press. The tension simmers between them, until Allegra abruptly rises from the table, chair scraping back, her footsteps echo as she storms away.

Livia leans back, arms folded like nothing’s wrong. “What?” she says innocently. “Am I wrong?”

Hermione startles, catching only the tail end of whatever caused the detonation. She glances between the empty space Allegra left behind and the way Livia sips her spritz like it’s a weapon.

Aster nods toward the direction Allegra disappeared. “Would you…?”

It isn’t a command, and it isn’t awkward. It’s a request. Hermione nods.

She stands, unsure if following Allegra means choosing sides, then catches Livia’s eyes, unimpressed. No, checking on Allegra doesn’t feel like betrayal. Just… human.

The loo is marble and mirrors. Allegra’s already in front of the sink when Hermione enters, her posture composed but her hands trembling. She’s trying to wand away the red around her eyes, the streak of mascara under one cheekbone, cursing under her breath, but her hand won’t steady.

Hermione hesitates, then conjures her own makeup compact, holding it out to her. “Here,” she offers gently. “Real makeup. No charms needed.”

Allegra takes it embarrassed. “Thanks.” She says quiet, but grateful.

They don’t say more. But they don’t really need to. It’s Livia, and she’ll ask Allegra more later not in a loo that while nice, is still not the place she wants to have a heart to heart.

When Hermione returns to the table, her beaded bag is gone, and so are the wizards.

Her eyes dart around, then she sees them just outside the cafe, Theo gesturing animatedly, and Aster is somehow languid and annoyed at the same time.

Hermione steps out onto the stone patio and spots them immediately clocking Blaise as noticeably missing.

"Where’s Blaise?" she asks, brushing a strand of hair from her face.

Aster stands, extending her bag toward her. “Took Livia home.”

Hermione takes it but lifts a brow. “Not sure that’s going to help.”

He shrugs, casually smug. “Would you rather the bickering continue? Public dueling next? Cat’s claws and Septumseccra?”

She chuckles, tipping her head up to correct, “Sectumsempra.”

Just then, Allegra pushes through the door behind her, looking marginally less furious and perfectly retouched.

Theo straightens and gives her a once-over, none of his usual smirk, no sarcasm to deflect. Just a simple, “You look good.”

Allegra narrows her eyes, suspicious. “Are you drunk?”

Theo holds up both hands. “Half sober and complimentary. It’s a new thing I’m trying.”

Allegra lets out a small scoff, but there’s color in her cheeks and a flicker of amusement in her expression.

Aster leans close to Hermione, murmuring under his breath, “She’s all right again thanks to you.”

Chapter Text

Draco leans back in his seat, swirling the last of his wine as Livia laughs at something Theo says always a little too showy, and Blaise doesn’t even pretend to be amused. He keeps glancing at Draco like he’s waiting for sentencing.

Draco clears his throat. “Blaise, maybe it’s time you took Livia home.”

Livia perks up like she’s just won something. “Finally, someone with sense.”

Blaise’s jaw tightens, his usual mask of indifference in place but faltering, and he glances at Draco with the vaguest flicker of contrition, but it’s there. “Right,” he mutters. “Come on, Liv.”

She rises with theatrical grace, tossing her hair like it’s a curtain call. Theo watches her go with mild interest, then turns to Draco, mock whispering, “Think she’ll finally get what she pretends she doesn’t want?”

Sloane leans back. “She never had loyalty.”

Draco doesn’t answer. He’s already watching Sloane and carefully focused on fixing the Potter remark. Blaise had fumbled it bad. Most of their screwups could be brushed off, “Theo told Aster,” They’d say, or “He put it together, it’s obvious.” And explain it with a claim of the Trio being so famous, But this one? This one had a legacy, literally etched in the skin between his ribs where Hermione’s fingers had once paused. Potter’s curse wasn’t something easily rewritten and she’ll be looking for a glamour. Draco needs a fix, a permanent one.

He needed to act before the cracks spread. Hermione was clever. And unlike the others, Sloane had never liked lying to her.

And just like fate tipping its hand, Sloane suddenly stands, muttering something and is stalking off toward where Livia had disappeared.

Draco doesn’t hesitate. “come on,” he says, rising smoothly, grabbing Hermione’s bag in the process.

Theo lifts a brow. “What are you doing?”

“Damage control,” Draco says, already moving. “Unless you’d rather Hermione do it first.”

Theo sits on the patio railing, elbows perched on his knees and holding up his head interested, watching Draco dig through Hermione’s bag with mounting frustration, too proud to admit he’s losing. “You know,” Theo drawls, “for a man with a secret identity and questionable motives, you’re awfully comfortable rooting through a lady’s things.”

Draco doesn’t even glance up. “I’m looking for the parchment. The spell she asked for.”

“Uh-huh.” Theo peers into the bag, eyebrows lifting. “Merlin’s bollocks, is that a full tea set? And a portable library? I think that’s a pair of shoes try to bite you.”

“This godsdamned extension charm is impossible,” Draco mutters, dodging what might be a stray toothbrush. “Of course she needs everything everywhere all the bloody time.”

Theo’s face lights up like Christmas morning. “Let me climb in. Just once. I want to see if there’s a ladder.”

“No.”

“You’re no fun.” Theo sighs dramatically, then leans in conspiratorially. “Did I ever tell you about my father's school rival? Total prat. Hufflepuff. Wore his Prefect badge like it was the Order of Merlin. He hated my father, maybe because the man used to hex the bloke's eyebrows off, maybe because he was a Hufflepuff, who can say.”

Draco doesn’t answer, rifling deeper.

“So, this guy gets his revenge. Shows up years later at some gala with this case, a bit bigger case than this one, but stuffed with rabid beasts. Like, actual monsters. Bit of a half wig.”

Draco deadpans, “So he was a magizoologist.”

Theo grins. “Probably. Or insane. Hard to tell with the puffs.”

Draco finally gives up, snapping the clasp shut with an annoyed flick after the tenth summoning spell failed. “I give up, I’m doomed.”

Theo’s keeps on going, something about the Nundu that flattened three city blocks in New York being traced back to that same case, when the sound of sandals on stone cuts him off.

Hermione and Allegra walk out, mid-laugh.

“Oh look,” Theo says, straightening with mock innocence, then gives Allegra a once-over, none of his usual smirk, no sarcasm to deflect. Just a simple, “You look good.”

Allegra narrows her eyes, suspicious. “Are you drunk?”

Theo holds up both hands. “Half sober and complimentary. It’s a new thing I’m trying.”

Aster leans close to Hermione, murmuring under his breath, “She’s all right again thanks to you.”

He’s hoping flattery will buy him time.

Allegra crosses her arms with a dramatic huff and mock menace. “Right, let’s watch one of these telenovelas you keep going on about. From the sound of them, I might get a few ideas for handling a certain crude witch.”

Theo snorts, hopping off his perch, “Oh, we’re weaponizing drama now? Excellent. Just promise me if you slap anyone, you pause for the close-up.”

Hermione rolls her eyes with a grin, grabs Allegra’s hand, and they all Apparate to her flat in a whirl of jovial magic and half-contained amusement.

As soon as they arrive, Hermione heads straight for the telly and flicks it on with the remote. No tapes, no shiny new enchanted discs, just a live channel mid-scene, someone yelling dramatically in Spanish, a slap looming, violins swelling in the background.

“There we are,” she says, settling onto the couch like it’s a lecture hall chair. “Pure, unfiltered chaos.”

Draco lingers near the entryway, his gaze drifting past the telly scanning the shelves, the books, the table surfaces with a quiet, tight-lipped detachment. Everything feels too neat, too orderly, and it unsettles him. Because soon enough, they'll be alone, and she’ll find some clever excuse to undo the buttons on his shirt and see the wretched scars, faint, but undeniably from Potter. He knows her rhythm, the way she circles before moving in. And up until now, he’s been quick enough to stay a step ahead.

Theo, however, has zero such qualms. “Is this Corner’s stereo?” he asks, already fiddling with a knob. “He’s tuned it to magical frequencies, look at this, Muggle bass, enchanted treble. This is the kind of overachieving madness I expect from a Ravenclaw.”

“Naturally,” Hermione says, with a smirk.

“Naturally,” Theo echoes, mock-formal.

But Hermione’s gaze shifts to Draco. “You don’t look well.”

Perfect. Just what he needs, his face giving him away. “I’m fine,” he says quickly, but his voice is thin. “Just… tired. Need the loo.”

Allegra raises a brow. “You’re missing a slap scene.”

“Tragic,” he mutters, already walking off.

The moment the bathroom door shuts behind him, Draco exhales hard. His hands go to the hamper first. He flits through the laundry, checks the pockets of a pair of trousers with mild guilt. Nothing. He opens the medicine cabinet, nothing there either except hair potions, a pain salve, and a vial of dreamless sleep he recognizes by brand, expensive, same one he uses.

She wouldn’t leave a spell, that spell, in her jeans pocket. Not Hermione. Not where it could be laundered out of existence.

And yet he turns on the sink and looks through the hamper again. Because he’s desperate, and desperate men do stupid things.

Back in the living room, someone gets slapped and Allegra cheers.

“Ten points to Team Petty,” Theo says.

He shuts off the water, resigns himself to failure here, and opens the door, only to find Hermione already waiting, leaning against the wall like she’s been there a while. Her brow lifts with mild concern, but her voice is teasing. “You alright? You’ve been off all day. Didn’t even pretend to try to beat me to the last wave. Very suspicious behavior.”

Draco runs a hand through his hair, dragging it down the back of his neck, stalling. “Just tired.”

She steps closer, the kind of closeness that always threatens to undo him. “You can lie down if you want. I’ll play nurse,” gesturing to her room.

He raises a brow at that, intrigued despite himself. “Tempting.”

She smirks, victorious. “Knew you’d like that.”

But then he adds a groan, dramatic enough to sell it, and lets her coax him toward the bed. It’s absurd, being nearly tucked in like some fevered invalid, but he endures it, smirking faintly, eyes half-lidded, as she fusses with the pillow. She calls it caretaking, but he knows she’s really slipping into comfort, into trust.

And gods, it’s embarrassing, because it almost works on him too.

He plays along. Every minute buys him more time to scan her room discreetly. Because somewhere in here is the healing spell. The one that could tip everything back into uncertainty. The one that could convince her, again, that he’s just Aster.

He just needs a little longer.

Blaise is a fucking idiot. One stupid comment, and now everything is hanging by a thread.

She moves toward the door but before she leaves, she flicks her wand, casting a fan charm overhead, the soft breeze immediately cooling the room. Then another charm darkens the windows, the late-afternoon sun giving way to a calming dusk.

He peeks one eye open, says half-muttered. “Look at us. Being domestic.”

Without missing a beat, she smirks over her shoulder. “I’m being domestic. You’re just pathetic.”

He hums lazily, rolling onto his side, lips curling into a faint grin. “I don’t mind.”

He waits for the door to click shut, counts to five, then sits up fast, composure gone, calm discarded. The softness disappears, replaced by a calculating edge as he scans the room. He’s efficient but frantic, checking drawers, the wardrobe, even the lining of her bag again, nothing. His frustration builds, dragging a hand through his hair like it’ll help.

Then it hits him.

Of course. The nightstand. The bloody nightstand. The most obvious spot.

And there it is. Nestled like a bookmark in a healers text is the folded parchment, the spell. He exhales sharply through his nose, not quite a laugh, not quite relief. For a witch as brilliant as Hermione Granger, she can really be predictable.

Draco reads the spell, scanning each line like it might blink off the page if he hesitates. It’s older than he'd expected, the archaic phrasing, unfiltered power, and Hermione’s precise notes in the margins. She’s annotated it like a potion recipe, and there’s even a warning scribbled at the bottom: May not restore what was never whole to begin with. Merlin. Even her cautionary footnotes sound poetic.

He adjusts the incantation just slightly. Not enough to botch it, just… redirect it.

When he casts it, he doesn’t flinch. It burns sharp and fast, but he channels it where he wants, lets it stitch and smooth and erase until only the scars she asked about remain. She’d traced two of them with her fingertips once, asking what curse did this?

He'd told her a half-truth. Duel gone wrong. Childish mistake.

Madam Pomfrey hadn't been thrilled when his mother brought in outside healers. Prideful witch, thought she knew everything. She didn’t. The cuts, the splinters, the burns, those were easy. But the curse Potter threw in that lavatory? It was healed near perfectly, almost invisible but, like Hermione’s scar, the curse was removed, but it left behind its mark if you looked for it. Except to Hermione, nothing was ever truly invisible. She’d see it. Especially now that she was looking.

Theo will ask again, probably tonight, probably with a drink in his hand and that half-smirk that always means trouble: What’s the holdup, mate?

Draco won't answer, just like last time. Because it’s not just hesitation, it’s betrayal.

And gods, it was supposed to be just the summer. Just distraction.

But sex was the mistake. He didn’t catch feelings. He’s bloody drowning in them.

Now, he’s not even sure what he fears more: Hermione finding out and being hurt…
Or Hermione finding out and hating him.

And worst of all, he can’t quite decide which would hurt him more.

-

The enchanted bludger slams into the stone wall with a thunk that vibrates all the way through the ground. Small dust clouds bloom from the impact. Draco barely ducks the rebound of Blaise’s last hit in time, hair ruffled, wand flicking to slow its return. He grits his teeth and murmurs another repelling charm as Blaise, already nursing a bruise on his shoulder from the last miss.

“Handled the Potter slip,” Draco mutters, hurling another bludger into the air. It snarls as it spins, a nasty piece of work with chipped iron and a dent that probably came from Theo's overenthusiastic last match.

Blaise winces as it ricochets off the wall and nearly clips his ear. “Flawlessly, I might add,” breathless. “I mean, since she didn’t hex your bollocks into next summer?”

Draco smirks, tired, tense. “She traced the same scars as before but didn’t say anything. That’s as far as it went.”

Another bludger slams the stone and careens back wildly. Blaise swats it lazily, catching it just enough to send it spinning upward. “Still,” he mutters. “Kind of takes the fun out of this whole operation, doesn’t it? All this work to keep up pretense. Theo said Aster is about to have a family crisis.”

Draco snorts. “Ah, yes. The conveniently timed tragedy.”

Blaise lowers the bat. “Kind of dark, isn’t it? Pretending your mum might die? Aren’t you basically begging for the universe to smite her? Or you?”

Draco shrugs, rolls his neck. “Let it. What’s one more tragedy in an already tragic existence? And, we’ve moved the finish line. I’ve landed every hurdle so far. What’s a few more meters before the finish line?”

Blaise stares at him.

“What?” Draco says, flicking another bludger with unnecessary force.

Blaise arches a brow. “You know what.”

Draco turns his back to him, but Blaise is relentless. “You fucked her, didn’t you?”

Draco stills.

“All this effort, all the gold, all the threading of needles to keep the act together, and you couldn’t keep it in your trousers?” Blaise scoffs. “You actually fucked her.”

Draco doesn’t say anything.

The bludger rebounds hard, smacks Draco square in the side and he staggers, grunting. He doesn't curse, doesn’t retaliate, just mutters, “Protego,” and catches his breath, jaw clenched.

Blaise watches him, arms crossed now, bat resting on his shoulder. “You’re not just in it now, mate. You’re buried.”

Draco closes his eyes, exhales like the weight of the world’s hanging from his cheekbones. “Yeah,” he mutters. “I know.”

And right then, a bludger Blaise definitely didn’t miss by accident slams into Draco’s stomach, knocking the rest of the self-awareness straight out of him.

“Brilliant,” he wheezes, doubling over. “Truly thriving.”

-

The vineyard stretches in golden rows under the sweltering Italian sun, the group gathers around a polished oak barrel turned table, sipping and laughing, their glasses perpetually half-full and already a few tastings deep at the tasting event.

Theo is unusually composed, swirling his glass with restrained flair while chatting up Chiara, the poised junior diplomat with a sharp smile and killer tailoring Hermione invited to keep Theo focused with flirting instead of folly. They all watch with amusement as he leans in just enough to show interest but not desperation, a practiced balance for Theo.

“I’ve never tried so many different wines at once,” Hermione says, setting her empty glass down and reaching for the next. “It’s like casting Revelio on your tastebuds, comparing, dissecting... understanding their full personalities.”

“Only you could turn wine into a thesis,” Allegra says buoyant.

Hermione grins, lifting her glass to the sunlight. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

As she walks off to speak to the vintner about bottling methods, Allegra leans in toward Blaise, glinting. “It’s like watching a cub walk for the first time,” she says under her breath.

Blaise snorts softly, watching Hermione’s curls bounce as she gestures animatedly. “Yeah. It was entertaining.”

Allegra turns sharply. “Was?”

Blaise doesn’t even blink. “The tosser slept with her.”

Allegra’s face barely changes. She takes a sip of her wine instead.

Blaise narrows his eyes. “You knew?”

“Surprised it took you this long,” Allegra replies breezily. “It’s obvious.”

“Right,” Blaise says with a dry twist of his mouth. “Because she told you. Because she thinks you’re her friend.”

“Why can’t I be her friend?” Allegra shoots back with a sweet, deadly smile.

Blaise doesn’t state the obvious fact, too busy watching Draco, who’s pretending to be utterly fascinated with the aroma of a rich Merlot.

“Does Theo know you botched it all?” Blaise asks quiet.

“I didn’t botch anything,” Draco replies flatly. “And if he knew, there would be a trail of wreckage as wide as the vineyard.”

Allegra and Blaise share a look before saying in perfect unison, “True.”

Right on cue, Theo saunters over, one hand still lazily twirling his wine glass, the other gesturing back toward Chiara. “Obviously. That’s my style,” he says, flashing a grin. “But what are you lot whispering about?”

Without missing a beat, Allegra smiles brightly. “We were debating which wine pairs best with scandal.”

Theo raises an eyebrow, intrigued. “Scandal would have a flavor, wouldn’t it?”

Draco mutters, “Apparently it’s dry with a hint of regret.”

Blaise chokes on his sip.

Later that evening, Hermione is unmistakably passed tipsy, her laughter a bit rowdy, her footsteps too light as Draco guides her through the door of her flat. She leans into him with that heady zeal wine can stir, cheeks flushed, curls wild from the vineyard breeze. Her fingers embraced in the fabric of his shirt like she needs the grounding.

“I really liked that last one,” she says, toeing off her sandals and nearly tripping. He catches her elbow with a steady hand. “It tasted like you.”

He raises an eyebrow, charmed and aroused. “Did it.”

“I always wondered,” she hums, swaying a little closer, “how you tasted, before we kissed.”

She doesn’t give him time to answer. Her mouth finds his, pleading and hot, and he doesn’t stop her, not when she’s pressed against him like this, all wine-sweet breath and reckless hands. He’s drowning in her, again, and it’s easier to let himself be taken under than to resist.

They stumble toward her bedroom in a tangle of limbs and heat, shedding clothes between gasping kisses and broken laughter. It’s not smooth or elegant, it’s messy, rushed, the drunk that makes you feel everything too much and too fast. Her hands are in his hair, tugging, nails dragging against his scalp. His lips are on her neck, and she mutters something unintelligible that makes his stomach flip.

Just as he’s about to lose himself in her completely, her breath hitching, their bodies aligning, she moans a name against his mouth, soft and sultry and soaked in desire.

“Draco.”

Everything stills.

For a moment, he convinces himself he misheard it. But no, she said it. Not Aster. Not a drunken blur. She moaned his name. The real one.

His heart pounds so hard it hurts.

His body, still unmoving, suspended in the heat of the moment, is eons away from his mind that’s spiraling, stalling mid-motion as the name she just breathed crashes over him.

Draco.

His hesitation is just long enough, just sharp enough, for her to realize what she’s said. She draws back slightly, her brows lifting in panic before she lets out a small, awkward laugh. “Sorry,” she says quickly, too quickly. “Oh my gods.”

He pulls away entirely, dragging the heels of his palms over his eyes, pressing hard like he can scrub the sound out of his head. But it’s already etched in, her voice, weak and wanting, moaning his name like it was always meant for her mouth.

She’s saying sorry again and again, but he doesn’t really hear it. Not over the echo of her voice from just moments ago. Not over the rush of blood and the impossible ache building in his chest. He wants her to know him, he wants it so badly it maims, and she said his name. His real name.

And he hesitated.

He knows why. She thinks she knows why.

She thinks she’s ruined the moment, but worse, he’s ruined in the moment.

“Say something,” she whispers, her voice shaking now with something dangerously close to tears. “Please.”

He looks at her, bare, eyes wide, lips kissed raw, and all he can say is, “It’s too bloody much. It’s too much.”

Her face folds, devastated. “I know,” she breathes. “It was just a mistake. I’m drunk, I didn’t mean,”

“So am I,” he snaps, but not cruelly, just brokenly, like he’s trying to hold onto something he knows is already slipping through his hands. “And, fuck, I’ll never be Draco.”

“You don’t have to be,” she says, moving closer, desperate. “Just… stay. Please. It was a mistake.”

He kisses her before he can stop himself. Driven by desire, desperation, he pours everything into it, the lie, the longing, the truth they’re both dancing around.

And when he lays back with her, letting the pull of wine and heat and her drown out everything else, he knows it’s not just lust that tightens in his chest. It’s her voice saying his name. It’s the sting of her regret. It’s the taste of his scandal on her lips, sweet and dry like the wine she loves, and it’s the haunting certainty that this won’t be the last time they ruin each other.

She rounds the corner into the kitchenette, hair tangled, one of his shirts slipping off one shoulder. Draco’s been up awhile, mug in hand, reading a Quidditch magazine. She squints at the sleek silver tray of breakfast, croissants, fruit, and jam, obviously plated by magic.

She raises a brow. “I think you just use Blaise’s elves to irritate me.”

He grins without looking up from his coffee. “I use Blaise’s elves because Aster doesn’t have any of his own.”

She huffs and walks past him to snatch a grape from the tray. “Are you going to talk in the third person all day?”

He finally turns to her, lips quirking affectionately. She’s radiant, even barefoot, tired, still wine-soft. “I said sorry about a hundred times,” she continues, dropping her argument half a notch, “and you fucked me like you were trying to prove a point, not that I’m complaining, if that was punishment.”

He had. For far too long after. But not to prove the point she’s thinking. Not the point she should be worried about.

Instead of answering, he plucks a grape from the stem and holds it up. She raises her chin, and he feeds it to her with smug nonchalance very aware he’s winning.

“Maybe tomorrow I’ll make you breakfast instead,” he murmurs.

“Tomorrow?” her brows lift. “Will you? I’ll help.”

“No, love,” he says, brushing her hip with his free hand as he takes another sip. “It involves flour, and we both know about the rivalry.”

She snorts, nearly chokes on her grape. “That was one time.”

“But you have a gas stove, and flour is flammable.”

She laughs again, tender and true, and he can’t help leaning down to feel the curve of her bare shoulder on his lips. Ruined or not, moments like this make it feel almost real.

-

Theo spins a tale about a wizard in Madrid who sold counterfeit love charms to actual centaurs. The conversation on the terrace inevitably veers, as it always does, to the approaching end-of-summer party Livia’s parents host in Tuscany.

Allegra takes a sip of her wine and says, lightly, “I’m actually looking forward to it this year.”

Theo snorts. “Because you’ve been bingeing telenovelas and you think you can out-dramatic Livia in her own vineyard?”

Blaise hums into his glass. “Maybe just let it go. I mean, it was your fault.”

Allegra doesn’t flinch, just tilts her head and gives a blasé little shrug. “It was a misunderstanding. And honestly, all my guilt evaporated once she decided to become a power-hungry Auror with a vendetta against the world.”

Draco speaks without much interest, watching the sun die over the olive trees. “It wasn’t even your potion, was it?”

Allegra points a finger at him in a mock toast. “Thank you.”

But Blaise’s jaw tightens slightly, barely visible unless you know him, and Draco does. He’s clearly not saying what he knows.

Theo lounges deeper into his chair. “Let the claws come out, I beg you. It’s better than this Granger plotline. Honestly, Draco, you’re too good at playing Aster. The whole thing’s become boring.”

Draco doesn’t dignify that with a response. He just flicks ash off the end of his cigar and watches Allegra, who doesn’t rise to Theo’s bait either.

Instead, she sighs theatrically. “Maybe I’m just bored.”

“Better bored than hexed,” Blaise says casual but eyes her sharper than usual. “Just because she took some oath doesn't mean she doesn't hold a grudge. I don’t want her to do anything to you.”

It’s a little affectionate, said too fast to be fully thought out, and it works. Allegra softens.

Draco clocks it all. The flinch in Blaise’s tone, the unspoken apology, the way Allegra lets herself be soothed. He makes a mental note of it, the same way he catalogs potion reactions.

He says nothing, just takes another long drag of woody spice. The end-of-summer party is the last time Aster will see Hermione and he’s not at all looking forward to it.

Chapter Text

The sun has already dipped low over Ravello by the time Hermione and Aster step into the Art Walk at the public garden. The light’s gone golden, straining through citrus leaves and gilding the white linen of the gallery canopies. The paintings hanging along the stone path are airy and strange, flashes of dreamlike brushstrokes, very seafoam, shadow, and implied movement.

Hermione tilts her head at a canvas that looks like someone spilled moonlight down a navy sheet.

“It’s a memory,” she murmurs, stepping closer. “Or the impression of one.”

Aster squints at it like it might blink first. “It’s a puddle.”

She laughs. “You have no poetry in you.”

“I have plenty,” he says. “I’m just not wasting it on an unconscious ink stain.”

Still, he doesn’t move for a while. Then, quieter, finally says, “This one reminds me of you.”

Hermione turns, startled. He’s staring at a canvas with long, blurred strokes in warm ochres and slate blue. There’s something restless about it, like it’s shifting beneath a surface.

He doesn’t say more, so she nudges him lightly with her elbow, “Well you can’t not say why, go on then.”

Aster stares at the painting a beat too long still meditative before answering, as if he’s surprised by his own reaction. Then, with that dry tilt of a smirk,

“It looks like someone tried to trap a storm in a frame and failed beautifully.”

His gaze finds hers, and Hermione can only blink at him.

He nods toward it, still half-casual, but the approach is quieter now. “It’s messy. Controlled in parts, but not really.” He pauses and his eyes don’t leave hers. Then he continues slowly, “Like it wanted to be something calm, something neat, and then it remembered it was never meant to be that.”

Hermione tilts her head, trying not to completely crash out in the romance of it all, “That’s surprisingly insightful for someone who thought the last one was a puddle.”

He lifts a shoulder. “Even puddles reflect something.” Then, without quite looking at her: “This one just happens to reflect you.”

Her breath catches, because he sounds like he really means it.

Two cellists playing near the overlook, the sound is earthy and slow. He offers a hand without looking at her, already pulling her toward the sound where a few other couples have started swaying in the summer sounds.

They dance on uneven stones. Her feet nearly twist more than once, but he steadies her, one hand at her waist, the other loosely holding hers like they’ve done this a thousand times. He doesn’t lead, but follows the mood.

Theo and Chiara pass by, both flushed from wine and the heat of near-constant bickering that apparently counts as flirting.

“You shouldn’t have introduced her to Theo,” Aster says low in Hermione’s ear. “She’s just going to get her heart broken.”

Hermione hums. “Chiara knows exactly what she’s doing.”

“You think it means more to her than whatever it is Theo’s offering?”

“I don’t know,” Hermione says as if she’s unsure, but she’s not. Then truthfully she admits, “But she’s been warned.”

Aster nods, slow, eyes fixed at Theo over her shoulder. There's a slight twitch in his mouth.

She wants to ask. Why he’s been asking questions like that lately. Whether it means sex, and if sex means more to him than he lets on. Whether all his heat and cleverness and restraint are hiding something deeper. Whether it meant something, that night she said the wrong name, and he still did it to her like he’d combust if he didn’t prove he was better than Draco.

But she doesn’t. Not with the music encompassing them and his hand still pressed at her back.

Instead, she just says, “You’re better at dancing than you are at art interpretation.”

He smirks. “You haven’t seen me interpret performance pieces. It’s very kinetic. Lots of disdain.”

-

The days begin to blur, sun, wine, laughter, and heat that settles into Hermione’s bones like a spell she doesn’t want lifted. Aster moves through them at her side, beneath her skin, in every flicker of a glance or teasing brush of his fingers as they walk too close. The days sweep them up, the nights sweep them under. Blissful, dizzying nights that seem to end faster than she can catch her breath. And maybe it’s just the season, or the drink, or the way his mouth moves when he says her name like it’s only ever been his, but she’s starting to forget how not to want this.

Their next little getaway is a tangle of bad timing and excellent instincts, at a bookshop where shelves stretch unevenly up to a timbered ceiling, leaning with age and magic. Hermione is already three shelves deep, clutching a gilded volume on “Runic Compression Theories in Arithmantic Constructs” when Theo pokes the bear.

“I’m just saying,” he drawls as he eyes a book on enchanted motion, “if magical propulsion followed Muggle physics, half of wizarding transport would be illegal by momentum alone.”

Hermione whirls around, eyes bright. “That’s because it doesn’t. Magic bends physical law, it doesn’t obey it. That’s the point.”

“Then how do you explain conservation of energy during Apparition?” he challenges, stepping into the argument like a kneazle testing a hot stone. “You can’t destroy energy, Granger. So where does the kinetic transfer go?”

“Into the magical field,” she says, matter-of-fact. “It's redistributed. Absorbed into the caster’s trace signature, there are entire theories on magical recoil,”

“None of which have been empirically proven outside of Hogwarts propaganda and the 14th-century equivalent of a gut feeling.”

“That’s because wizarding science doesn’t operate under Muggle scrutiny. If it did, we’d never leave the lab.”

They’re nearly nose to nose now, Hermione flushed with fury and Theo smirking like this is foreplay.

That’s when Blaise cuts through the tension, smooth and amused from the front of the shop,

“Dare I interrupt the magical nerd-off before the shopkeeper hexes us all? He’s starting to look nervous about his first edition collection, and honestly, so am I.”

Aster appears just behind him, lazy-eyed and smiling faintly. “Are we dueling now? I missed all the excitement?”

Theo, without looking away from Hermione, mutters, “We’re discussing particle theory in transfiguration.”

Hermione snorts. “No, you’re being deliberately obtuse about particle theory in transfiguration.”

Blaise raises his brows at Aster. “Five galleons on her stunning him into a bookshelf.”

Aster slides a hand into his pocket, glancing at Theo’s smug expression and Hermione’s lightning-quick riposte. “Make it ten. And throw in a silencing charm if they start quoting Merlin’s Laws again.”

They spill out of the bookshop into the narrow alley. Blaise stretches, hands behind his head, then says, “So, according to our charming shopkeeper, we’re a gathering of grandi menti… great minds. Naturally, he meant me.”

Theo scoffs immediately. “Please. He was clearly talking about me. I was the one discussing the metaphysical implications of magical transfer through temporal anchoring.”

“You were just loudly arguing with Hermione about whether magic respects gravity,” Blaise mutters.

“Which it doesn’t,” Hermione pipes in her enlightened matter of fact melody, not looking up from the spell book she’s already skimming through.

Aster, hands in his pockets and a faint at his lips, adds dryly, “Actually, strega was the word he used after that. If I’m not mistaken, that means ‘witch.’” He side-eyes Hermione, then grins faintly. “Not that he’s wrong.”

Theo hums thoughtfully. “Hmm. Strega. Could’ve sworn he said stratega, you know, like strategist. Because of my intellectual superiority. Makes sense.”

“You misheard,” Blaise says flatly. “And frankly, he looked most impressed with me after I correctly identified that rare Dacian warding tome.”

“Oh yeah?” Theo replies, eyes narrowing as they hit the open beach, soft golden sand stretching to the surf. “Then let’s see how well you identify this,” He whirls, wand in hand, and fires a non-lethal jinx at Blaise’s feet, kicking up a burst of sand.

Blaise dodges, laughing. “Oh, it’s on now!”

Hermione yells, “Absolutely not!” right as Aster casually casts a silent disarming spell, prying Theo’s wand from his hand mid-spin.

“I win,” Aster says with infuriating calm. “Strategist, remember?”

Theo scowls, but it doesn’t last. The wind carries the sound of waves and laughter as Hermione snatches her wand back from her braid and turns toward Aster with a glint in her eye. “I don’t know. I think I’d like to test that theory.”

Sand flies. Sparks crackle.

Soon the duel ends in a burst of sparks and a dramatic swirl of sand as Hermione’s last spell knocks Aster off balance, barely. He stumbles a step, then grins through the calamity, brushing grit off his shirt.

“I told you I wasn’t letting you win,” he says, breathless but smug.

Hermione arches a brow, panting lightly. “Right, because you’re just naturally that dramatic when you lose.”

Theo jogs toward them, flipping his wand and whistling. “Well, that was wildly stimulating. Almost makes me wish I knew how to care.”

“Or how to duel,” Blaise adds dryly, dusting off his shoes. “You’re still banned from using sand spells after last summer.”

“Not my fault you didn’t duck.”

That’s when Allegra’s voice cuts through the mirth. “Try not to kill each other before dinner,” she calls, confidently as she approaches across the boardwalk.

Theo waves lazily, charm already dialed up. “Allegra, darling. You’re just in time to applaud my comeback.”

“You were hiding behind a rock,” Blaise mutters.

Allegra ignores him and smiles sweetly at Theo, brushing a lock of hair over her shoulder. “Actually, I came to tell you,” But then her gaze lands on Hermione and Aster, and her expression flickers.

Aster straightens slightly, wand slipping back into his sleeve.

She hesitates, then shrugs too casually. “Never mind. It wasn’t that exciting.”

Theo narrows his eyes. “You never walk that fast unless it’s very exciting.”

Allegra waves it off. “There’s just some art for sale from that thing you lot went to the other day.”

Aster watches her closely, pulse ticking behind his jaw. Hermione, brushes sand from her arm, glances between them, sensing the sudden shift.

“You’re a terrible liar,” Blaise says to Allegra, amused.

She winks. “Only when I want to be.” Then to Theo, “You owe me an aperitif for making me climb that ridiculous hill.”

“Fine,” Theo says, linking arms with her. “But you’re telling me about this piece before I’m two sips in.”

As they walk toward the seaside cafés, Aster lingers back just a step, eyes still on Allegra’s tight smile.

Hermione nudges his shoulder. “She never like that,” she murmurs. “Glittering and cagey.”

He hums in reply, but Hermione doesn’t take her eyes off Allegra. She knows a retreat when she sees one. And she just made one, fast.

-

He apparates them to the edge of the cliffs and scrambles down a steep, bramble-lined path that seems like it should lead nowhere, until it opens onto a cove so hidden it feels like they’ve discovered it, claimed it. The sea here glows faintly with lingering traces of magic in the rocks and sea glass, and the tide is low enough that glimmering shells and water-smoothed stones scatter across the sand like treasure.

Hermione crouches almost immediately, sleeves pushed up, eyes bright as she inspects a particularly spiraled shell. “This one looks like it’s hoarding secrets.”

Aster leans over her shoulder. “It probably is. You don’t want to know what kinds of things wash up in magical coves.”

She grins, brushing her hair back. “So that’s why you brought me here. Hoping I get cursed by a crab.”

He shrugs. “You like puzzles.”

But he doesn’t look away, not even when she catches him watching her, hands dusted with sand, eyes alight. He kneels beside her and picks up a shell himself, flipping it over, brushing the grains out of its hollow. He doesn’t pretend he’s not enjoying it. And he doesn’t bother making some smirking comment when she reaches over and adds his find to her growing collection.

It’s quiet, the way places untouched by people can be. And after a long moment, Hermione says softly, “I like being alone with you.”

He glances at her.

“Like this could be our own island,” she adds, brushing his fingers with hers as she takes another shell.

“No outside world,” he murmurs, and when she leans in and hums against his lips in agreement, he kisses her, slow, soft, a point suspended in time.

They eat under an enchanted parasol he conjures, chilled pasta salad, crusty bread, ripe peaches that drip juice down their wrists. Hermione feeds him a forkful, laughing when he nearly chokes pretending to hate olives.

“Unbelievable,” she says. “You duel like a war god, but one tiny olive,”

“Olives are treacherous,” he mutters.

Later, he charms a shell so it hums faintly when she holds it to her ear, a wavering note like a lullaby. His smile when she hears it is worth more than any spell in his arsenal.

Their hands are sandy and damp from the sea, fingers intertwined as they stroll barefoot along the fading surf. The tide’s turned gentle now, brushing the shore in lazy sighs. Aster keeps pace with her, quiet for once, letting the hush of evening settle between them. The sky is drenched in watercolor pinks and molten orange, the sun a coin slipping behind the sea.

The tide is lazy and a gentle hush that slips between conversations rather than interrupts them. Their bare feet press into the damp sand, salt clinging to their ankles, and the sun is low enough that the whole beach glows like old parchment.

Hermione nudges a bit of driftwood out of her path and says, “It’s funny, how I used to hate flying. Hated it with my whole being. But after the dragon…”

Aster turns his head slightly, brows raised. “You rode a dragon?”

She smirks. “Gringotts vault escape. Long story. Ask me when we’re drunk.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“But after that… I mean, honestly, a broom was nothing.” She glances at him, amused at his expression. “At first, it was for Ron. I wanted to prove I wasn’t scared. That I could do it. That he didn’t always have to be the brave one.”

Aster hums, thoughtful. “Did he care? I mean… did he notice?”

Hermione’s mouth twists. “I don’t think so. Not really. He didn’t think it was a big deal. Harry did, though. He,” She exhales, her tone softening. “Harry always notices the things that scare me. And somehow makes it feel like it’s okay that they do.”

Aster watches the sea for a beat before murmuring, “I’ve always wanted a friend like Harry.”

Hermione tilts her head toward him, a little frown forming. “What about Theo? Blaise?”

He snorts. “We’re friends because of our fathers.” He kicks a bit of seaweed aside. “Convenience.”

She lets the silence stretch. Doesn’t push.

He doesn’t fill it.

Instead, the wind picks up a little, tugging at her curls and the edge of his rolled-up sleeve, and the two of them walk on, the hush of the tide settling like a pact between them, neither of them saying what they’re really afraid of, but hearing it all the same.

Hermione bumps her shoulder lightly into his. “You’re quiet. That usually means you’re plotting.”

“Plotting, sure,” he murmurs. “Come on.”

He tugs her gently up a winding path that cuts into a grove of trees, soft pine needles underfoot. The scent of salt fades into earth and citrus, and just as she opens her mouth to ask where they’re going, they reach a clearing.

A tent stands there, tucked between olive trees and bathed in golden charm-light, modest, but beautifully prepared. Blankets, lanterns, two glasses already clinking faintly with charm-cooled wine.

Hermione halts. “Oh.”

Aster watches her face, smug but quiet.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” she says finally. “It’s been one adventure after another with you.”

He steps in closer, brushing her still-damp hair back from her cheek. “You deserve only adventures that don’t come with war.” This, between them has become natural, but she’ll never get used to the intensity.

“You’ve seen far too much dread. Death. Despair,” he says, his fingers ghosting over her temple, like he could soothe it all away. “For anyone’s lifetime.”

She stares up at him, the last streaks of light catching in his eyes. Her breath catches, but she doesn’t speak. She only thinks, in a fragile way, the thought creeps into the quiet: that more time with Aster might mean more than just stolen days and soft nights. That this, whatever this is, could be something real.

But the sun is setting and the adventure, she knows, is nearly over.

The inside of the tent is deceptively spacious, charmed, but not in that showy, gold-threaded, Zabini way. It’s inviting and lived-in, with woven rugs over cool stone, soft lighting, and shelves of books. This is thoughtful, practical, just slightly romantic. It feels like him, though she doesn’t say that out loud.

“This isn’t Blaise’s,” she says, brushing her fingers along the edge of a small table set with two candles and a chilled bottle of Italy’s never ending supply of wine.

Aster shrugs, toeing off his shoes. “He offered his extravagant circus monstrosity. I declined.”

“Mmm. Mercifully.”

But her attention flicks away as soon as she sees the lavatory. More specifically, the shower. The charm is humming faintly, misting the air with pleasant condensation. Her whole face lights up.

“Sweet merlin, I have been dreaming of a shower since we left the beach,” she says, already making her way toward it. “I’m still crusted in salt. My scalp itches.”

He watches her, jaw ticking slightly, like he’s trying very hard not to react too much.

She doesn’t rush. She walks slowly, languidly, fingers teasing the hem of her top. It’s not overt, not at first. Just a shift in her hips. The stretch of her arms overhead. Then her shirt drops to the rug behind her, then her wrap. She pulls the strings of her bikini top, then the strings on the side of the bottoms. Her sandals are left just inside the tiled threshold. And when she reaches the opening of the lavatory, she pauses.

Looks over her shoulder.

“Are you just going to stand there?” she asks in a velvet tease.

He’s frozen.

Then stumbles forward, nearly tripping over his own feet like some lovesick idiot out of one of her romance novels.

“I, yes. No. I’m, bloody hell, I’m coming,” he mutters, tugging his shirt over his head with such urgency it gets stuck.

She laughs, light, pleased, and disappears into the steam.

The steam insulates and the water falling in her ears drown out the wind and waves outside, a storm looming to the east, but will miss them. Hermione presses her back closer as he meets her, the water cascades in gentle rivulets down her breasts. Aster’s hands move across her slick body, holding her tighter against him.

“You’re beautiful like this,” He says in her ear.

She hums a quiet laugh, “You mean naked and wet?”

He turns her, lifts her chin with a finger and replies solemnly, “In my arms.”

His fingers graze her sides, as a quiet breath catches in her throat, looking at her as if he's seeing her for the first time. It’s kind like that ever time, and it never gets old. His lips find hers in a deep, passionate kiss, his tongue exploring her mouth.

She can feel the firm planes of his chest, the ripples of his abs, and the hard length of him pressing against her stomach. She knows he's already hard and erect, his body responding to her seductive saunter as it always does. Her hands explore his body, tracing the lines of his muscles, feeling the strength beneath his skin.

She takes his cock in her hand, fisting it gently, feeling the wet velvety smoothness of his skin, the hardness. He backs away slightly, his breath hitching as she strokes him, her touch turns firm. She knows he's already close by her touch alone, his body trembling slightly with the effort of holding back.

Aster kneels on the shower floor, the water pooling around him as he looks up at her, his eyes dark with desire. "You're beautiful like this," she says a bit commanding, it’s almost humorous.

"I know.” He laughs, a gruff sound that sends shudders down her spine. “You like me begging."

"Sometimes it's like you know me too well."

He runs a finger along her slit, feeling her wetness, her readiness. She moves instinctively into his touch, her hips bucking slightly as he teases her entrance. "I know what you want, Hermione," he says.

And then his mouth is on her, his tongue delving deep, tasting, exploring. He sucks and licks, his hands gripping her ass, holding her against him as he brings her to the brink. She can feel the pressure building, the pleasure coiling in her belly, ready to explode.

"Don't stop, Aster," she pants, hoarse. "Please, don't stop."

He doesn't stop his tongue and fingers, drawing out her pleasure until she's a godsdamned, boneless mess. She comes with a panting whimper, her inner muscles clenching around his fingers.

“Fuckin hell, you’re so good, gods, you know what a woman wants.”

But he's not done. He stands, his cock hard and ready, no doubt weeping, but the water is relentless. He casts a wandless lubrication charm as he picks her up by her arse. She wraps her legs around his waist, the slick tile behind her back. His hands anchor her safely, as if she weighs nothing at all.

He enters her with a single, smooth thrust. She gasps, her nails digging into his shoulders as he fills her completely They move together with an ease and a new wonder, water sluicing over them, drowning out everything but the sound of their breaths and the quiet, broken gasps that escape between kisses.

The water continues to rain down on them, the steam rising around them, creating a cocoon of intimacy that's just for them. Hermione can feel the tension building in Aster's body, the strain in his muscles, the desperation in his movements. She knows he's close, and she urges him on, with a desperate plea.

"Come with me, Aster," she whispers.

And he does, his body shuddering, with a shaky, but audible, “Fuck.” He comes in her as he says her name into her wet hair. The sound is part pleasure, part claim. They stay like that for a moment like he doesn’t want their bodies to untwined, their breaths mingling, their hearts beating in sync.

Eventually, they pull apart, their bodies wrinkled from the water, their skin pruned. They step out of the shower, drying each other off with soft towels, their touches gentle. They climb into the bed, the sound of the storm outside lulling them in the tranguil stillness, their bodies spent.

The bed is warm, but the air charmed cool. Rain taps the enchanted canvas above them, steady, rhythmic, and the occasional low grumble of thunder rolls in from the cliffs.

Aster pulls the blankets up and murmurs, “So much for the storm missing us.”

Hermione sighs, curling into him. “I told you it would hit.”

“You also told me we’d be fine at that opera all’aperto even though the clouds looked like wrath incarnate.”

She laughs, soft against his shoulder. “I didn’t hear you complaining during the second act.”

“No, I was too distracted trying to translate all the handkerchief waving.”

“Tradition,” she says, grinning. “You just don’t appreciate dramatic foreshadowing.”

“Please. I’m in a tent in the middle of a thunderstorm with a woman who makes weather predictions and inside jokes.” He turns his head to look at her. “When did that happen?”

She goes quiet a second, smile still faint. “I can’t believe it’s been long enough to have inside jokes.”

His eyes don’t leave hers. “And what happens to those jokes after the summer?”

The question hangs between them because she knows what he means. It’s her hesitation because it’s not about jokes.

She turns to face him more fully, brushing a damp strand of hair behind her ear. “I go to Oxford. You pursue your studies in Albania. Like you said.”

He swallows. “So we just… go our separate ways?”

“No,” Her fingers trail absentmindedly along his forearm. “But you have to know what this is.”

He waits.

“It’s the illusion of us,” she says finally. “What could be, if we didn’t have to be honest with ourselves.”

“What does that mean?” he asks, not upset, just with more behind it than a question.

Hermione closes her eyes and listens for a moment, to the patter of rain, to the storm that was supposed to pass them by, and didn’t. Because life is unpredictable. Because they were never going to be untouched by it.

“It means,” she says, “we’re young. There’s a lot ahead of us. And we’re both too damn stubborn, we’ll chase our ambitions before we follow someone else just to be a supporting character in their life.”

He huffs a laugh, but there’s no real humor in it. “We’re both main characters.”

“Exactly,” she says. “And if either of us pretended to be anything else, we’d end up resenting each other.”

She says it like she’s decided. Like she’s already made peace with the ending.

“So…” he says slowly, “we don’t promise anything beyond the summer?”

She nods, softly. “No promises.”

He hums like he agrees. But she can feel the way his fingers linger on her hip, the way his eyes don’t drift away. She’s not sure he really means it.

But she doesn’t press. Because she’s decided.

Chapter Text

The sound she makes is barely human, a strangled, pleading cry,

Draco is up before he's even awake, tangled in the sheets beside her. The lantern's still off. The tent’s gone cold.

“Nothing!” Her body trembles, like she can’t physically move if she wanted, then “I, we found,” Her voice cuts off and she shakes before letting out another strangled cry, “Draco!” Through gritted teeth she bawls, then screams, “help me…"

“Hermione,” he says, quiet, firmly brushing the sweat-damp curls from her cheek. “It’s a dream. You need to wake up.”

She jerks, body twisting away from his touch. “Draco!” she sobs again, louder this time, breath hitching like it hurts to inhale. Her hand flails blindly, like she's reaching for someone who isn't there.

He grips her shoulder lightly but with enough pressure to ground her. “Hermione. It’s me.”

Her eyes snap open and for a second, less than that, he sees recognition. Then it shatters.

She recoils like he’s struck her. One hand flies to her arm, clutching it as if she’s still feeling the phantom burn of the carved letters,

“You just stood there,” she gasps. “You let her, you let her torture me,”

Draco’s stomach drops so fast it feels like the air’s been knocked out of him. He knows exactly which dream she had. That day. The drawing room. The chandelier. The screaming. The echo of Bellatrix’s laugh, and Draco fucking standing still.

He leans in urgently, desperate, voice cracking. “Hermione, please. Look at me. You’re not there. You’re in a tent. It’s just us. You’re safe.”

She won’t look at him. She’s shaking too hard.

“It’s me.” He swallows thickly. Hates the sound of his own name as it comes out, “Aster.”

But she’d said Draco again, and he wants her to know him.

Even if it was a dream, even if in it she was begging him and he was the villain, he was still the one she thought could save her and he didn’t. But here he was now, flesh and bone and still bloody useless, because he can’t be Draco.

He flicks the lantern on. The soft golden light spills across his face. Hazel eyes. The gold-tinged hair. The careful, crafted camouflage.

Her eyes find his. Focus. Then she lunges forward, crashing into him, arms around his neck, sobs breaking loose in waves. He catches her, holds her so tightly it almost hurts, pressing his cheek to her temple.

“I’m here,” he murmurs, over and over again. “I’m here, I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Hermione.”

She clings to him like she’s still somewhere else, like if she lets go, she’ll fall right back into that drawing room. So, he holds her tighter. One arm around her waist, the other slowly brushing through her hair, thumb catching the occasional tear that slips down her cheek. He doesn’t speak, just breathes with her until her breathing starts to match his.

She whispers against his collarbone. “I thought the dream would go away after the scar did.”

His hand stills for a second, then keeps moving gently.

“I think it’s the tent,” she says, inhaling sharply like the realization is a fresh cut. “Before. Before I got the, I was in a tent. For a long time we lived in a tent, on the run. I haven’t been in one since. I guess… I guess it just brought it back.”

She lets out a shaky breath, and her next words are barely audible.

“I’m so sorry.”

He pulls back just enough to look at her. “Don’t be sorry.”

“I know,” she says, and he can feel her forcing calm into her voice. “But I’m sorry because I thought, you just look like him.”

“I know,” he says softly. “It’s okay.”

She still won’t meet his eyes. There’s a long pause where it feels like maybe she’ll settle, maybe she’ll stay. But then she shifts in his arms.

“I think I’m going to go.”

“No, Hermione, wait,”

But she’s already slipping out of the bed, pulling on a tank top and shorts. When her bare feet hit the tent floor, she’s pulling on her shoes, eyes flicking everywhere but him.

He doesn’t argue, just moves toward her bag and hands it to her quietly when she starts looking for it. His fingers brush hers, and she takes it without a word and pulls out an entire godsdamned cloak.

He tries, gently, “You don’t have to go. Stay. Just till morning,”

She shakes her head, fastening the clasp on the cloak with slightly trembling fingers. “It’s just the tent, is all. I guess I can fly now, but I can’t sleep in a tent.” There’s a strained little laugh. A half-joke she doesn’t even believe. “I guess,” she repeats. But it sounds more like goodbye than agreement.

She still won’t look at him, and before he can think of something else to say, something to keep her there, she’s stepping outside.

He follows fast, calling her name, ducking through the flap, and he’s met with nothing but wind and canvas as it swings back in his face. The sharp crack of her Apparition, echoing off the cliffs, tells him she’s already gone.

-

Draco’s pacing the length of the balcony, jaw tight, hand wrapped around his wand like it might help the signal travel faster. The tenth attempt in two days, his tenth attempt, and still nothing.

“Hermione Granger,” he mutters under his breath, holding his wand up again. “Mirror, Hermione Granger.”

The enchanted glass in his hand stays stubbornly blank. No flicker of her face. No voice snapping at him to stop calling. Not even static.

He exhales sharply through his nose, lowering the mirror with a quiet curse, because he’s not leaving another ruddy message. He runs a hand through his hair, already mussed from stress, and mutters to himself, “Maybe she hexed the fucking frequency.”

But that doesn’t explain the door.

He’d shown up yesterday. Stood right there on her step. Knocked like a proper gentleman. Then not-so-properly muttered Revelio three different ways before giving up and pretending he was just out for a stroll. Either she wasn’t home… or she was outmatching his spellwork, and lately, both were equally likely.

He grips the railing, knuckles white against the aged Italian stone, before turning on his heel and heading inside.

Blaise is stretched out on a chaise lounge, barefoot and shirtless, a silk robe hanging open like he’s starring in some decadent opera. He’s freshly awake, blinking blearily at a coffee cup he hasn’t touched yet.

“She’s with Livia,” Blaise says before Draco can speak. He doesn’t even look up.

Draco stops. “How the hell do you…” then it dawns on him, “You’re still tracking her.”

Blaise just shrugs with a shrug that contains far too much information and exactly zero explanation. “She hasn’t left Italy. That’s the crucial part isn’t it?”

Draco frowns, his jaw still tight. “Livia’s getting her party ready. With her parents, I assume.”

“That’s what I assume too,” Blaise says, lazily flicking his wand to cast another sealing charm on the door to the guest villa. “And don’t go out there. I mean it.”

Draco eyes the door. “To Hermione?”

Blaise doesn’t answer. Just seals the door again, this time with a sharp snap of his wrist and a look that says don’t push it.

Draco swears under his breath. “Is Theo still brewing with Allegra?”

“Still stinks,” Blaise says without hesitation. “Still bubbling like a third-year trying to impress Snape.”

Draco grimaces. “Are they still hooking up?”

Blaise shudders theatrically. “No, thank the gods. I think she’s done tormenting me. Or at least bored.”

Draco folds his arms. “You should stop stringing her along.”

“I’m not stringing anyone,” Blaise says, now offended. “I’m simply tolerating her company at a polite, increasingly distant remove.”

Draco rolls his eyes. “Your entire romantic history could be summed up as ‘politely distant removals.’”

“And yours could be carved into a cautionary plaque for obsessive tendencies and romantic self-sabotage.” Blaise finally sips his coffee, grimacing. “Cold.”

Draco doesn’t respond. Just looks down at the mirror again. Blank.

Still blank.

And he doesn’t know what’s worse, her ignoring him, or the fact that he deserves it.

“I don’t think this is going to end as smoothly as you think it will.”

Draco doesn’t even look up from the small pile of neatly stacked invitations he’s pretending not to be invested in. “It’ll be fine.”

“‘Fine,’” Blaise repeats, dry. “You say that like you haven’t been strategically manipulating her for the better part of, what, months now? Two, Draco”

Draco sighs. “Yes. I know. I’ve been there. I’m still there.”

Blaise waves his wand to reheat his coffee and takes a long sip, then sets it down with a click. “She’s been fun to have around, though. Challenges us. Challenges you especially.”

Draco’s expression softens just a fraction, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes.

Blaise chuckles, low and musing. “Can you imagine if she’d grown up around us instead of Potter and the Weasel?”

Draco snorts, shaking his head. “Don’t start rewriting history. That was an entire other time.”

“Yeah,” Blaise agrees more quietly now, eyes distant. “She wouldn’t be such a hard-ass.”

There’s a beat of quiet.

Draco exhales slowly, gaze dropping to the paper in his hands, but not reading. “She’d need that.”

“Yeah,” Blaise says again, this time almost reluctantly. “She would.”

Later that evening, there’s a knock at Blaise’s floo, not the polite sort of knock either, but the firm, unmistakable rap.

Draco opens the grate to LiviaBut then Hermione comes through. To Blaise’s, of all places.

His mouth opens automatically, somewhere between complaint and relief, but she gets there first.

“Can we talk?”

Before he can respond, she wrinkles her nose. “And what is that smell?”

“Don’t ask,” Draco mutters, already casting a sealing charm on the outside door before the breeze can bring in more of the acrid stink.

Livia wrinkles her elegant nose. “Where’s Blaise?”

“Out,” he says shortly. “All but ran for his life the moment Theo brought out the fifth cauldron.”

Hermione raises an eyebrow.

Draco jerks his head toward the hallway. “Come on.”

He leads her to the guest room, because his room is entirely Draco Malfoy but he blames it on Theo’s delusions of potion-making grandeur.

She follows sounding a bit suspicious.

“Why are we going in here?” she asks.

“Because my room is next to the one that has been overrun by cauldrons,” he says, deadpan. “Theo and Allegra are nesting in there like some sort of unholy alchemical couple. Hence. The stench.”

Hermione hesitates. Then nods, apparently satisfied with the explanation.

He closes the door behind them, the spell humming softly as it seals, and for a moment, she just looks around the room, like it’s safer to examine the duvet than to meet his eyes.

Then finally she looks at him, “I’m sorry I’ve been distant.”

Draco waits, letting her find the words without rushing.

She exhales. “It was just… jarring. Being out there in the, the,”

“The tent,” he finishes for her, quietly.

She huffs a soft, embarrassed laugh. “Yeah. The tent.”

But she’s looking at him now and it settles something deep in his chest.

He doesn’t push. He doesn’t press. He just nods, like yes, I know, and that’s enough.

They sit side by side now on the edge of the guest bed, their knees almost touching. Though silence hangs heavy, it seems full of possibility with a hundred things unsaid. Until Hermione breaks it.

“I hunted Horcruxes,” she says suddenly, like she’s saying she once ran away from home, or broke a bone. But her voice is too level, too even. Practiced.

Draco turns his head slowly, blinking. “What?”

“Before the war really peaked,” she continues, not looking at him now, picking at a thread in the bedspread. “We lived in that tent for nearly a year. Always on the run. Always alone.”

She breathes in through her nose like she might steady herself, then glances at him, just briefly.

“Horcruxes are, well, they’re dark objects. Someone has to split their soul to make one, and that,”

“I know,” Draco says, too fast. Too easily.

She stops. Eyes narrow faintly. “You know?”

There’s a pause. He exhales, because he hadn’t meant to say it. “Yeah. I mean, not the specifics, but... we were told things. My school was… open about the Dark Arts. Less mystery, more deterrence. If we knew the theory, we were less likely to dive into it. Alone, at least.”

Hermione snorts. “That’s… I heard they were progressive.”

He gives her a sideways glance. “We’re nothing if not a cautionary tale factory.”

She almost smiles. “Our headmaster was…”

But she trails off. Her mouth twists, and she looks away again.

“Anyway,” she says quickly, waving a hand like she’s brushing the past off the table.

Draco doesn’t press, never pressing. He could. But instead, he just nods once, slow.

When his hand brushes lightly against her arm, she doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t flinch or tense. She just stays there, breathing evenly, eyes on him, her usual quiet bravery beneath the quiet.

“I’m just glad you’re here now,” he says gently, like if he says it too loud it’ll scare her off.

She smiles faintly. “Yeah. Seems a shame I wasted the few days we have left.”

He shakes his head immediately, fingers grazing hers now unhurriedly. “Nothing you need is a waste.”

The look she gives him at that wry, warm, a little guilty, makes his chest ache. This, this moment, is the kind of closeness he’d tried to offer her in the tent, and she hadn’t been ready. And he hadn’t blamed her. But this… this feels like maybe now she is.

“The party planning helped,” she says, brushing a loose curl behind her ear. “It was a great distraction. Honestly, I got a little lost in it.”

He gives her a small smile. “It’s always the big end-of-summer bash.” Then, with a raised brow, he adds dryly, “That’s what Blaise says.”

She laughs quietly, the sound like summer glass. “Will you be going?”

He opens his mouth to answer, but she steamrolls him with, “You should come. Livia insists you all come. Even Allegra. She told me about the misunderstanding between them.”

Draco’s brow lifts. “The misunderstanding?”

Hermione nods. “That’s what she said.”

He tilts his head slightly, “Misunderstanding,” he echoes, letting the word hang for a second too long. “Is that all she said?”

Hermione gives him a look. “Aster.”

“What?” he says innocently, folding his arms. “I’m just surprised ‘misunderstanding’ covered that many broken laws and one extremely public exit.”

She bites her lip, trying not to laugh. “I mean, Allegra does have a flair for dramatics.”

“And Livia has a flair for hexing doors she forgets she doesn’t own,” he mutters.

“Well, if nothing else, it’ll be entertaining,” Hermione says, and when she leans just slightly toward him, barely enough to notice, he mirrors the motion like instinct.

“Only if you’re there,” he says, quieter now, approaching her a little closer.

And this time, she doesn’t look away, responds in kind, just a bit closer.

“Of course I’ll be there,” Hermione says, subdued but sure, and somehow it cracks something in his heart.

He nods, like he expected it, like it’s nothing.

They brush lips, soft and uncertain at first, like they’re both trying to relearn the identity of them after she left Aster in the tent.

“I’ll miss you,” she says, pulling back just far enough to look him in the eye. “Miss all of this.”

He swallows. That ache already flourishing behind his ribs. “We’ll always have this summer.”

He means it. He means it so much it terrifies him.

“Yeah,” she whispers, almost smiling, before her lips find his again, less tentative now, more real, more present, like she’s pressing the whole season into that kiss.

The shift is slow but inevitable, their mouths deeper, more certain, hands drifting, not with claim but with real devotion. They’re both trying to hold onto something that won’t last, and trying to let it go at the same time.

They don’t rush. Every piece of clothing is shed with genuine resolve, fingers lingering over warm skin with a tangible adoration. There’s nothing frantic about it, no edge of desperation, just tenderness. Just trust with a quiet kind of awe.

It’s not about proving anything anymore or chasing some fleeting lust. It’s about being here, in this moment, in a season where skin is against skin, breath is shared completely, and time is slowing just for them.

They move together like the pace lives between their bones. It’s soft. Intimate in a way Draco has never known. She keeps her eyes on his, even when she arches into him, and it nearly unravels him.

Afterward, when she’s pressed against him, breathing steadily, her fingers tracing idle shapes against his chest, he kisses her hair and closes his eyes.

He could say something. Should say something.

But the truth continues to sit behind his teeth, kept a secret he knows would change everything.

He’s considered not going to the party. Just not showing up. It would be easier than standing there watching her leave again, easier than pretending this wasn’t more than sunshine, heat, and a summer of deception.

Because if he’s there, he might blurt it out.

That he’s not Aster

That he doesn’t want it to end.

That he loves her.

But he just holds her, and finally admits to himself that all the lies, all the careful manipulation, were only ever meant to fool himself. Because he wants this to be real. With all his heart. And since it has to end, he’d rather break his own heart than ever risk breaking hers again.

-

Blaise leans against the doorframe, freshly showered, sunglasses perched needlessly on his head, sipping from a bottle of water like it's a cocktail. “We should go,” he says casually, like they’re deciding between restaurants. “It’s tradition. And Livia seems, what’s the word, disturbingly animated about us being there.”

Draco doesn’t look up from the chair where he’s been pretending to read the same page for ten minutes. “She’s also enthusiastic about Auror training drills and recreational dueling. I’m not convinced her judgment’s ever been sound.”

Blaise shrugs. “I want a closing night that feels... normal.”

Draco glances at him, brow raised.

Blaise’s tone shifts, just slightly. “You know. Before. Before the robes and the masks and the bloody mark. When normal meant parties and late-night swims and someone trying to hex the music because they couldn’t get their ex to leave.”

Draco exhales through his nose, closing the book. “It won’t be normal.”

“It’ll be close enough.”

“You don’t think someone will recognize me?” Draco mutters, jaw tight. “All it takes is one glance too long, one witch with too good a memory.”

Blaise rolls his eyes. “We’ve mastered this ruse. Honestly, you’re better at being not you than I am.”

Draco sighs, “That’s not exactly comforting.”

“I mean it,” Blaise says, stepping fully into the room now. “You’ve vanished into this role. New hair, new wand, new bloody laugh, honestly, it’s unnerving how charming you are now.”

“I’ve always been charming.”

“You’ve always been sharp,” Blaise corrects. “This new version is sun-drenched melancholy and soft shirts. It’s disarming.”

Draco smirks despite himself. “Soft shirts?”

“You wear linen now, mate. Linen.”

Draco sighs. “Fine. We’ll go.”

Blaise claps once. “Excellent. Let’s pretend we’re sixteen again and the world didn’t burn.”

Draco stands, adjusting his collar. “It’s not the pretending I’m worried about.”

Blaise meets his eyes, more serious now. “Then don’t pretend. Just live in it. One more night. That’s all.”

Twenty minutes later Draco is adjusting the cuff of his shirt with a bit too much focus, wanting the snitch cufflink to sit just right. The nerves are starting to creep in now that they’re actually doing this. “Hermione’s meeting us there,” he says, voice casual, though Blaise can see the tell from a mile away.

Blaise hums as he fiddles with his watch, not even pretending to be surprised. “Of course she is. Any idea what dress Livia’s forced her into like a show pony?”

Draco allows a smirk. “I’m hoping something dramatic. Silk. Scandalous neckline. Her discomfort radiating through every thread.”

Blaise snorts. “So the usual, then.”

Draco tilts his head. “Are Theo and Allegra actually coming? Or is this going to be another grand entrance two hours late with potion fumes still clinging to them?”

Blaise shrugs. “Theo invited Chiara, for whatever reason. And Sloane said she’d show if Allegra was going, but they’ve both been out all afternoon. Radio silence. So, expect chaos.”

Draco exhales. “I just want to know what I’m walking into. Lately, I feel like I’m five steps behind whatever mad opera this group has become.”

“Same,” Blaise says dryly. “Except I prefer the opera. At least it ends.”

Draco gives him a sidelong glance. “You’re very cheerful today.”

“I’m dressed, hydrated, and haven’t been cursed yet. That’s my bar.”

Draco runs a hand through his hair, but he can’t keep the smile off his face. “Honestly, I’m just looking forward to seeing her.”

Blaise smirks knowingly. “Yeah. You and every poor sod at this party once Livia unveils her like her latest exhibit.”

Draco sighs, dreading, longing. “Merlin help us if there’s a spotlight involved.”

Blaise lifts a brow. “You want there to be.”

They arrive just as the sky turns the color of spilled champagne, gilded in the soft hints of dusk, and already the lights are roaring.

“Subtle,” Draco mutters, stepping out of the car and shielding his eyes as several enchanted beams shoot straight into the clouds like they’re trying to flag down the International Space Station.

Blaise takes in the sweeping villa, the string quartet playing from a floating balcony, and the soft buzz of chatter, clinking glasses, and probably ten minor gossip columns already at work. “They’ve gone full theatrics this year.”

“They’re trying to alert every broomstick, thestral, and Muggle airplane within a hundred-kilometer radius,” Draco says, mouth twisting. “God forbid anyone miss the end-of-summer statement.”

Blaise grins. “It’s a diplomatic declaration.”

But then Draco’s eyes find her, and everything else recedes.

There, in the middle of it all, is Hermione.

She isn’t under a spotlight, but she may as well be. The crowd shifts naturally around her, like the atmosphere makes space. She’s not ostentatious, not glittering for the sake of it, but she’s glowing with her quiet confidence that makes silk and posture and purpose all work together like magic, real magic, the kind that sparks instinctively and cannot be contained.

Draco breathes out like it caught him in the chest. “There she is.”

Blaise follows his gaze and lets out a low whistle. “She cleans up nice.”

“She never needed to.”

“No,” Blaise agrees, watching her lift a glass from a passing tray and nod politely to some Ministry lordling. “But now she looks like she could run this entire soirée and draft legislation about magical secrecy in airspace before dessert.”

Draco smirks, half in awe. “She probably already has.”

“She fits,” Blaise says, almost surprised. “Not just here, but... among us.”

“And still manages to be the only one in the room who believes in elf rights and wand reform,” Draco murmurs.

“Power move,” Blaise mutters, then claps a hand on Draco’s shoulder. “Well? Go say something charming before some heir to a vault empire beats you to it.”

Draco straightens his jacket, stealing one more glance before stepping forward. “Wish me luck.”

“You’re going to need a bloody treaty, Aster, not luck.”

He finally weaves through the golden-lit garden, past floating hors d’oeuvres trays and his heart doing something entirely unreasonable with every step closer to her.

She turns before he can speak and her smile is amused restraint, the way she looks at him like she sees straight through the disguise.

“You’re late,” she says.

“You’re stunning,” he counters, not even pretending to deflect.

She tilts her head. “And you’re wearing the cufflinks I gave you.”

Draco glances down, a flicker of smile. “They matched the… crippling emotional investment.”

She snorts, softly. “Don’t be sentimental, Aster.”

His eyes flicker to where she wears her bracelet from him, it hasn’t left her wrist since he gave it to her.

But before they can say anything else, the laughter behind them dips. A few heads turn. Then more.

A ripple, like the energy in the air has changed, like their bubble charm’s been broken.

“What,” Hermione begins, scanning the crowd, already tense.

Then someone’s whispering too loudly, just close enough for them to catch the words.

“Nott and that Lipazi girl, what’s her name? Arrested.”

“happened in Trastevere, Ministry got involved,”

“the two of them, and not the only ones, caught red-handed,”

Hermione’s face goes blank in a terrifying, calculating as her brain shifts into emergency gear.

Draco freezes. His stomach drops. “What?”

She’s already reaching into her clutch, her glamoured beaded bag, pulling out a small enchanted mirror, tapping it hard.

“I just saw Allegra this morning,” she says tightly. “She said they’d be back in time for the party.”

“He wouldn’t be that careless,” Draco mutters, though his jaw is tight, and panic is starting to rise like bile. “And Allegra, Merlin, she’s brilliant, but,”

“But reckless,” Hermione finishes.

They exchange a glance, no repartee about cufflinks or champagne.

Just that awful, shared feeling that their friends are in trouble.

Chapter Text

Aster is practically vibrating with impatience by the time the records witch finally calls his name.

“Mr. Selwyn,” she says without looking up, clearly unimpressed. “You’ve been cleared to enter. Bail’s been processed.”

He mutters, “Through his bloody vault. Idiot can pay for himself.”

Hermione arches a brow beside him. “Generosity looks good on you.”

“It’s not generosity,” he grumbles. “It’s spite in advance.”

The records witch finally lifts her eyes, expression flat. “One visitor. One inmate. No exceptions.”

Aster glances to Hermione. “She’s with me.”

“I’m sure she is,” the witch deadpans. “Still. One.”

Aster leans forward slightly, like perhaps she just hadn’t heard him the first time. “There are two of them. Nott and Lipazi. So, two of us.”

The witch doesn’t blink. “One visitor. One inmate. They’re being processed separately. You can’t see them together unless one of you is legal council or family.”

Hermione, sensing the slow burn behind Aster’s jaw, touches his arm lightly. “It’s alright. Go ahead.”

He glances at her, clearly torn. “Are you sure?”

She nods. “You’ll handle it better anyway. He’s more scared of you.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” he mutters as the witch waves her wand and the door clicks open.

Hermione smirks. “Don’t make him cry, they might need him lucid.”

“No promises.”

The door swings inward, and as Aster disappears beyond it, Hermione crosses her arms and mutters to herself, “One visitor, one inmate. Honestly, who made that a rule? Kafka?”

The waiting area is somehow colder than the rest of the holding center, all government chill and emotional frost. Hermione sinks back into her seat, flipping half-heartedly through a stack of discarded magical magazines. Witch Weekly, Enchanted Interiors, Cauldron Quarterly, all glossy pages and oblivious headlines.

"Summer’s Best Stun-Proof Setting Sprays!"
"Inside the Love Life of a Wandmaker!"
"Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Thestrals (Number 5 Will Haunt You)"

She sighs and tosses one aside, standing up and smoothing her dress before approaching the records witch behind the desk again. She musters the politest voice she can manage.

“Excuse me, I was wondering if, I know you said no details, but could you tell me why they were arrested?”

The witch doesn’t even look up from her quill. “Illegal Polyjuice club. Dispersed tonight. They were caught up in it.”

Hermione freezes. “Polyjuice club?”

“Kids these days,” the witch mutters. “Everyone wants to be someone else. No one wants to fill out the bloody paperwork.”

“Right,” Hermione says quickly, “thank you.”

She turns fast enough to hide her face, dread flooding her in a nauseating wave. Her fingers twitch at her sides.

She forces her face neutral, sits back down slowly, and crosses her legs like she’s perfectly calm. The magazine on her lap flips open to “Top Ten Elopement Spots With Magical Privacy Wards.”

Polyjuice. Of course that’s what they were brewing.

She'd played dumb when Theo was sniffing around for boomslang skin, offering favors for just a few lacewing flies. She'd pretended not to notice. Pretended harder when Blaise’s villa started smelling like boiled compost and regret.

She’d laughed it off as a bad batch of something, but she knew the scent. Under the telltale rot of improperly stabilized Polyjuice, there’d been another potion’s signature: Perception Drift Elixir, recognizable by the sharp, coppery sweetness. Used to blur magical auras. Not standard, not safe, and absolutely something you’d add if you were disguising someone who might be recognized anyway.

Her stomach twists.

She can’t be here.

She can’t let him know she knows. Not yet.

Not when the lies are now plain, brewed in cauldrons, steeped in identity theft and secrecy.

Hermione doesn’t wait for the processing door to open again. Doesn’t wait to see if Aster emerges fuming or triumphant. She’s already halfway down the main corridor, conjuring excuses on instinct like she used to conjure defensive spells, fluid, automatic.

She could go anywhere. Apparate to Paris. Say there was an emergency owl from Harry. Or just call it, time of death, Summer, officially expired.

They’d had their goodbyes, anyone could call the moment in Blaise’s guest room a proper farewell. Bit of fire, bit of aching tenderness, but now poorly timed drama seemed to enter their orbit them like a curse.

She’s almost at the exit when,

“Hermione!”

She turns and there she is, Livia, in all her party regalia, heels slung from one hand, curls only slightly tousled, perfect makeup like war paint. Looking radiant and not the least bit concerned she’s just left her own soirée to chase someone down a detention corridor.

Hermione forces a smile. “Livia, what are you doing here?”

Livia grins like it’s her name that will be on the front page of Witch Weekly, not Theo’s and Allegra’s. “I could ask you the same. Running out of your own climax, cara mia?”

“I thought I’d make a discreet exit,” Hermione says, already half-turned.

“Discreet is boring,” Livia says, looping her arm through hers and physically steering her back in the direction she came. “Come. You’re about to miss my finest work.”

“Your party?” Hermione deadpans. “I’m sure it will survive without me.”

“Not the party,” Livia says with a wicked smile. “The drama. This was my revenge summer. All roads led here. The trap? Set. Baited. And they walked right into it like flies to, what’s the British saying?”

“Flypaper?” Hermione offers weakly.

“Please, that’s too grimy. More like, honey soaked in amortentia with a trace of phoenix feather. Irresistible and just a little illegal.”

“I can’t go back in there,” Hermione says, resisting the gentle drag on her arm.

“Why not?”

Hermione exhales. “Because he’ll know, I know the truth now. About the potion. About the disguises. About, him.”

Livia tilts her head, eyes harsher and sparkling. “So, You said it could be a lie, by a beautiful man with an agenda.”

Hermione laughs, short and incredulous. “You are absolutely deranged, but I.”

“Thank you,” Livia beams. “Now come. You look too good to disappear like a mirage.”

She wanted to disappear, and more poetically, like a bloody mirage. Because she’d past the point of barbed cruelty and cutting revenge.

Hermione barely registers the clerk’s sharp protest as Livia sweeps her past the records desk, flashing her badge with all the self-importance of a peacekeeper and the chaos of a Belladonna. The double doors open on a whoosh of enchantment and tension, and Hermione braces herself, for more bureaucracy, for the faint stench of sour holding cells, for anything other than what’s actually waiting for her.

Because there, in the first room, glass-walled in the most unforgiving way, sits Draco Malfoy. Or rather, two of them.

One is younger. Not just in posture, but in essence. He’s paler, tighter around the mouth, hair slicked in a style she’d almost forgotten, except for the night at the opera piazza, and here at the Italian ministry all those weeks ago. That younger version now crumples forward, burying his face in his hands like he’s already failed the exam.

But it’s the other one, the real Draco, the one pretending to be her Aster, that snatches her breath.

He looks up.

Not startled. Not indignant.

Just caught.

Really caught.

And it hurts to see that flicker of devastation in his face, not because his deception has finally unraveled, but because she’s the one standing there to witness it. Because somewhere along the way, it stopped being a ruse. Maybe it was the day he kissed her, after too many missed moments had stacked up like kindling. Or maybe it was when he looked at her in the tent and didn’t touch her, even when she’d tested every inch of his restraint, trembling with the need to know when, if, he’d finally break and tell her the truth.

She doesn’t say anything, doesn't need to.

Livia, blessedly, keeps moving, unfazed. “This way,” she says lightly, like they’ve just wandered into the wrong gallery at a museum. “All of this is a bit above my clearance at this point.”

Hermione follows, her limbs uncooperative, her heart punching behind her ribs.

The next room is just as glass-bound, transparent walls, no secrets, and in the center of it sits Allegra, very much herself. No borrowed features. No Polyjuice artifice. Just legs crossed elegantly and hands folded, like she’s the one doing the interrogating.

She doesn’t look up when they enter.

But Livia announces their arrival anyway with a wicked smirk and a sing-song,
“Oh, how the tables have turned.”

Allegra lifts one perfectly arched brow but still doesn’t meet their eyes, and Hermione stands silently as Livia begins to circle Allegra like a predator with something personal to settle.

“Oh, how poetic,” Livia drawls, arms crossed as she walks a slow loop around the seated girl. “You’ll finally face the same consequences I nearly did. Only difference is, no one’s fighting for you. Not even your best friend.” She sneers. “Funny, isn’t it? Because she left didn’t she? All that loyalty, and in the end, you were just abandoned.”

Allegra’s expression barely shifts. Just a scoff, her voice cool as marble, “You had the same warning everyone else did.”

The words fall, but Hermione’s not really listening anymore. She’s not following the full rhythm of the bickering, just the shape of it. Just the ugly symmetry, twisting inside her chest like a fist.

Because all she feels now is rage.

Rage for what Livia endured, yes, but more so for what Livia became. Rage for the betrayal she claims to have survived only to mirror it perfectly in return instead of letting it shape her for the better. Hermione steps forward, shaking slightly,

“At least what happened to you was just bad luck.”

Livia turns, the surprise flickering only briefly before she recovers with a scowl.

“No,” Livia says, stepping closer, her words speeding. “No, Allegra didn’t speak up. And she should have. She was dealing in illegal potions, and I got caught. And I survived. So don’t pretend to know how dangerous it was. I was her friend, and she left me behind, so I flipped the script.”

“Hermione,” Livia continues, but she cuts her off.

“You think you’ve had it worse than anyone? You think no one understands? I told you the hell I went through because of Draco Malfoy. I let you in. And you,” her voice breaks, “you dragged me back here not to protect me, but to brag, and.”

Livia recoils, stunned.

“What you really did,” Hermione says, breath catching, “was show what a shitty friend you are. Because, delusion or not, my golden, amazing, impossible summer is shattered. Because he’s been caught.”

Allegra stares, frozen. Livia’s expression hardens again.

“It was bound to happen eventually,” she says, arms crossed like armor.

“But why not just let it end the way it started?” Hermione asks in a whisper, desperate, ruined.

Livia tilts her head. “What, as a lie?”

“Yes!” Hermione yells, sudden and raw. Her eyes burn and she hates that she’s crying, hates that Livia sees it. “I would’ve taken the lie over this.”

But Livia doesn’t flinch. “I was torn to pieces,” she says, quietly now, venom behind every syllable. “And I picked myself up. I rebuilt myself. No one did that for me. I did. And now I win.”

Hermione wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, trembling.

“Well, not with me.”

Hermione walks out, steadily, like if she just keeps moving none of this will catch up to her. But it already has.

Malfoy catches her before she reaches the doors, his hand clasping gently around her arm. No force, just presence.

She doesn’t jerk away, but she doesn’t stop either. Only when he speaks, soft, nearly breathless, does she turn.

He doesn’t try to explain. There’s nothing left to spin.

Her voice is hollow, but calm. “It is what it is.” She looks down at the floor, then up, but not all the way, avoiding his gaze, just looks straight ahead.

His throat tightens.

“We’re over,” she continues, and the words are so clean they almost sound rehearsed. “What we had, it was great. While it lasted.”

He blinks like she’s slapped him. “You’re not, mad?”

Hermione’s mouth twitches, like she might smile. She doesn’t. “I don’t have the energy to rage at a phantom. That wasn’t your name, and I don’t even know who I should be angry at.”

Malfoy stares at her, stunned. Speechless. It’s not the heartbreak, it’s the mercy that undoes him.

She still won’t look him in the eye.

He tries, stupidly, to lift her chin, just like Aster would, the way he did a dozen times that summer to pull a smile from her when she didn’t want to give one.

But her breath stutters, and she recoils from the touch like it burns.

“Don’t,” she says, raw and full of feelings she should contain. “Don’t touch me like he would.”

Her voice breaks as she backs away.

Because now the tears escape freely, because she’s trying to hold on, just barely, to the illusion of what it was. Of who he was. And the moment his hand reaches for her like it still has that right, it all cracks open.

He doesn’t follow at first. He just watches her go, every footstep echoing with what might’ve been if only he’d told her sooner.

If only he’d been real, not as Aster, but as Draco.

Malfoy finally chases after her, chases the words, stumbling over sincerity like it might soften of all the wrongs he’s done.

“I’m sorry, couldn’t really be Aster,” he says, nearly choking on it. “I’m sorry for the lies, for waiting too long, for every second I didn’t just say it, say who I was, until it was too late.”

They reach the mouth of the atrium, that vast echoing space, full of marble and mirrored judgment. Her heels halt sharp on the stone just before it opens up around them, catching the moment by the throat. She doesn’t turn to him right away, just speaks with venom so quiet it hisses.

“When was it too late, then?” she asks. “The second date? The fifth? When you kissed me and made it feel like the air might never come back?”

She finally looks at him, eyes shining, red-rimmed, mouth trembling. “Or when you acted like a fucking virgin when I pushed to see when you’d cross that line? Was that you being noble, or just cowardly?”

Her hand flies up to her mouth like she didn’t mean to say that last part, but the damage is done. Her eyes screw shut, and tears spill hot down her cheeks, catching in the spaces between her fingers.

Malfoy’s voice is barely audible. “You… knew?”

That makes her laugh, a broken, bitter thing that cracks in the middle. She stares at him like he’s something small and shrinking.

“Of course I knew Aster was a farce. You really thought you could rewrite who you are just because it’s been a year since anyone’s seen you?” Her voice climbs, seething with disbelief. “You’re really that obtuse? I used to think Hogwarts left students in the lurch, but Durmstrang must’ve given you an entire complex.”

She turns again, fast now, heading for the atrium, but he moves quicker, catches her wrist, spins her around,

And he kisses her.

Desperate, searing, like maybe it can pull them both back into something that wasn’t a lie.

But she tears away, breathing like she’s drowning. Her voice cuts sharper than any hex.

“You don’t get to kiss me anymore, Malfoy.”

She presses two fingers to her temple, trembling. “Aster is staying at the party, that’s where he ends. In here.”

And she turns, leaving him behind in the marbled silence, with nothing but his real name echoing in his ears like a punishment.

She draws a deep breath, one that stutters through her ribs, trying, trying, to tether herself to something other than fury, something not shaped by Livia’s betrayal or the humiliation twisting like a blade in her chest that she’s not innocent either.

Her voice, when it comes, is calmer. Not cold. Worse, measured. Wounded, but accusatory.

“I knew it was a game to you,” she says, eyes glancing to his like she might find some version of the truth still worth saving. “But why couldn’t it be a game for me too?”

He looks like he wants to interrupt, but she doesn’t let him.

“We’re both attractive. Smart. Charismatic, when it suits us.” Her smile is sad, sarcastic at its edges. “But now I’m questioning your complete intellect, honestly. I didn’t want it to end like this. Because Draco Malfoy, the Draco Malfoy had never once been kind to me. And then he shows up as Aster.”

Her throat tightens, and she doesn’t bother to hide it. “This alternate version of reality in an impossibly beautiful setting. If you hadn’t been raised by people who believed in blood purity and domination and cruelty, if those philosophies hadn’t sunk so deep they bled into your adulthood.”

Malfoy flinches, “But I was good to you, I, can be good.”

“You were given every chance to be decent. To be good. And instead of owning that, instead of building a future you could be proud of, you…” Her voice falters, but she doesn’t stop. “You chose to pretend. To rebrand. A new name, a different haircut, just long enough to have a summer of peace.”

She finally looks at him fully, and the hurt is clearer now, shining past the anger.

“You didn’t reinvent yourself for something better. You did it just to escape who you are.”

“Hermione, please,”

But she’s already shaking her head, already turning.

“No, and it’s Granger,” she says even more frayed now. “So save it. Aster was the one I let in. But you’re the one who was always going to ruin it.”

She turns on her heel, eyes piercing, heart pounding, and that’s when she hears it. That trademark Malfoy sneer.

“You never did try to hear the other side,” he says, voice cold and clipped, like he’s pulling on an old school uniform and mask all over again.

She exhales through her nose, and actual smoke curls in the air, soft but visible, laced with the heat of suppressed magic. Her magic hums beneath her skin like a live wire. It's a sensation she hasn't felt since she was a girl in a war, in a tent, surviving on half-spoken spells and whole truths buried under silence. But she’s older now. Stronger. She controls it.

Mostly.

The lights above them flicker.

Malfoy sees it, the shimmer in the air, the ozone taste of a spell barely restrained. His expression shifts, but he doesn’t speak again.

An auror in full dress robes approaches, sharp-eyed and clearly uninterested in the history radiating off them like smoke from a battlefield.

“That’s enough,” the auror says in broken English, nodding to the badge. “You need to leave. Now.”

Hermione doesn’t miss a beat. “Gladly.”

And then she’s gone in one final act of control.

-

Her flat is silent when she lands. She wards the door before the adrenaline even fades. One flick, two locks, three layers of protection. Then, she breathes.

At first, her breathing is fast, shallow. But as the silence presses in and the echo of Malfoy’s voice fades, something deeper begins to rise.

She wants to cry.

But she can’t.

Because she knows what will happen when she does.

When she cries, it’s never about just that one thing. Not just about being lied to, again. Not just about the betrayal that bloomed the moment she saw Malfoy's mask slip.

No. When she cries, it’s the dam breaking. It’s years of keeping it together when she had every reason to fall apart. It’s every unsent letter, every word bitten back, every time she’s said “I’m fine” when she wasn’t. It’s the heartbreaks she never claimed, the disappointments she buried under competence and success. It’s all of it. Waiting. Lurking just under her skin.

So when it finally comes, when it hits, it's not graceful.

It's messy. It's loud.

She unravels.

Her body remembers all of it at once. Every ache. Every scar. Every time she felt invisible. Not enough. Too much. Every time someone asked too much of her, and she gave it anyway. It all pours out, not in tears but in a storm. A torrential, full-body sob that crashes down her like a wave she’d held back with nothing but stubborn will.

It scares people, her crying. It always has.

And Hermione Granger has built her life around being fine, helpful, capable, composed, the one who always has a plan, always finds the fix.

Angry tears, she can rationalize. They’re productive. They have momentum. They keep her moving, pushing forward, staying sharp.

But real crying? The kind that shatters you?

That isn’t tactical. That’s surrender and she’s not ready to surrender her memories of Aster.

She doesn’t know how long it’s been. Time stretches strangely when grief sits just under the surface, and all Hermione has is a cold cup of tea gripped in her hands like a lifeline. So when the knock comes, severe, she sets it down carefully, and crosses the flat. She doesn’t ask who it is. She already assumes.

But it’s not him. Hermione blinks, momentarily stunned. Zoe, who had moved on, who had pulled away before things could get messy. She wasn’t expecting her. And for a second, Hermione can’t even place why, until her mind clicks over to Theo. Right. He was detained, too. It just hadn’t registered, because it wasn’t his face that undid everything.

“I’m here to check on you,” Zoe says, steady and calm in a way Hermione doesn’t feel.

“For Malfoy?” Hermione asks, voice tight.

“No.”

“For Theo then?”

But Zoe’s answer is quick. Too quick.

“For you. I’m here for you, Hermione.”

Hermione exhales, flat and skeptical. But Zoe continues.

“I know what you’re thinking. That I left. And I did. Because it stopped being a joke. It started off as something funny and wild and dumb, sneaking around, watching the whole thing play out. But then you… you were real. You were funny and thoughtful and clever and you made me want to be better, and that terrified me.” Zoe swallows. “So I ran before I had to see it all fall apart.”

Hermione stands there, rubbing a spot on the door frame absently, absorbing it. There’s bitterness tangled up with understanding, a hundred things she could say, but doesn’t.

“I know it doesn’t fix anything,” Zoe says, softer now. “I’m not here for a second chance. I just, needed you to hear, I’m sorry. For watching it all happen and not stopping it. And then leaving before saying anything. It was selfish. And unkind. But I meant it, the part where we were friends. Even if it was brief.”

Hermione doesn’t answer right away. She just steps forward and hugs her.

It surprises both of them.

It’s stiff at first, tentative, strange, but something in Hermione gives. Somewhere, deep inside the wreckage of what the day has been, she needs to forgive someone. She needs to fix one crack in the dam that doesn’t flood her whole life. And Zoe, imperfect, selfish Zoe, is the first one who came to her to sincerely apologize.

So she gets Hermione’s forgiveness.

Maybe it won’t bring them back to friendship. Maybe it never should.

-

Hermione wakes to a ruffle of feathers and a thud against the window box.

Two owls, both equally indignant, jostle for space on the narrow ledge, one sleek and dark with arrogant posture she immediately recognizes as Blaise’s, the other grey and familiar in a way that tugs at something long-forgotten. A Hogwarts-era creature. Malfoy’s.

She opens the window with a muttered charm before one of them claws the other into oblivion.

“Alright, alright,” she mutters. “You’re both very dramatic.”

They fluff up in protest but settle enough for her to take the post. She exchanges two neat scrolls for owl treats, Blaise’s owl snatches its bit greedily, while Malfoy’s takes his with a disdainful sort of nod before launching off with one powerful beat of his wings.

She watches them disappear into the horizon, one letter sealed with the Malfoy family emblem, the other simply marked with a handwritten A.

She doesn’t hesitate.

Her thumb slides under the edge of the unassuming envelope and unfolds the note, already bracing for the quiet ache of something ending.

Hermione,

This summer, you were more than I ever imagined.

When I first saw you on the beach, I didn’t think you'd notice me. Blaise had already questioned my sanity for being there, said I was playing with fire. He never quite got over his bias at the time, I think. But even he respected you, for reasons I know you don’t give yourself enough credit for.

You and your lot saved his life in ways I didn’t understand until this summer.

Something in me changed because of you. Or maybe something finally woke up.

I’ve never had to lie to myself so carefully just to be near someone. But if ever we find ourselves in a place where we don’t have to lie, not to each other, not to ourselves, I hope we can be more than what this summer let us pretend to be.

Until then, I wish you everything, truly.

Oxford will be lucky to have you.

Aster

Hermione lets out a breath, long and cathartic.

The other letter, the one still sealed with the Malfoy crest, sits quietly beside her on the desk. She touches the corner. Doesn’t open it.

Instead, she folds Aster’s letter open back along its original crease and reads it again.

Chapter Text

Draco doesn’t give up.

Even when she pulls away, when she says she’s fine, that she doesn’t want to talk, that she just wants to preserve the illusion, their illusion, he follows. Not forceful, not cruel, just... relentless.

“Please,” he says low, eyes on her like he’s memorizing everything for the last time. “Just hear me out.”

She sighs and crosses her arms, chin tilting up with practiced indifference. “Fine. Go ahead and justify yourself.”

“That’s impossible,” he says immediately, stepping closer. “But I can be fucking honest for once.”

She rolls her eyes, but he doesn’t stop. His voice grows rougher. Truer.

“You’re perfect,” he says. “You’re serene, you’re right all the fucking time, and even when you’re not, you’re humble enough to admit it. I was stupid, so stupid, to ever follow the ideologies of my parents, to believe for even a second that magical pedigree meant anything. And when I finally realized that, it was too late.”

She doesn’t interrupt. She doesn’t soften. And still, he keeps going.

“The brain’s like a muscle, right? And mine, mine had muscle memory for deception. For pretending. So I created this version of me, this ‘Aster,’ thinking maybe I could try out the idea of being someone better. Someone who might be worthy of you.”

He laughs bitterly. “But the trick is, I couldn’t stop pretending. I trained my mind to become him. To feel like him. To want what he wanted. And now that I’ve learned to be the man I think you could love... now that I’ve practiced it, my head, it doesn’t know how to stop.”

He steps forward again. His voice is raw.

“Aster is gone, but my mind is still reaching for you. Muscle memory.”

There’s a long silence. The kind that stretches so tight it hums.

He tests this silence like someone prodding the edge of unknown magic, cautious, but drawn in anyway.

Draco takes a step closer. She doesn’t retreat. Doesn’t slap him. At least, not yet.

But she doesn’t speak, either. Doesn’t blink, even when her eyes are lock on his like a challenge, or maybe a confession, glinting with something that might’ve once been hesitation for Aster, now buried once more under layers of practiced indifference for Draco.

She isn’t looking away. That’s all the invitation he needs.

He lifts a hand, slow, deliberate, until his fingers graze her shoulder. She tenses, but only slightly. And when he trails up, brushing the side of her neck, she still doesn’t stop him.

“Hermione,” he says, supplicated, unguarded.

Her eyes flutter closed.

With his other hand, he lifts and cradles her face, the way someone holds something fragile not because it’s weak, but because it matters.

A tear slips free, down the curve of her cheek, but she doesn’t move. She stays there, in his hands, in his breath.

“Hermione,” he murmurs again. “Please see me. Like I know you have this whole time.”

He leans in.

The kiss is soft. Barely there. A question. Her lips part, not in protest, but as if to let him in. Accept him.

But he pulls back.

Not because he doesn’t want more. But because he has to know.

He really looks at her now. Waiting in pure anguish. Hoping she’ll connect it now, Aster and Draco. The illusion and the truth. That she’ll see it wasn’t all a lie, that some parts of him, maybe the most important parts, were always real.

And then she speaks.

Her voice is soft, heartbreakingly so. And somehow sharper than any curse he’s ever known.

“Malfoy,” she whispers, eyes wide and wet. “Please don’t put me in a position where I have to show you how cold my heart can get.”

It guts him. Because she means it.

They’re at her doorway, caught between the end of something and the impossible hope that it might not be. Hermione’s closing the door like a shield, a wall in posture. Her voice cuts through the stale tension like a blade.

“You were a wolf in sheep’s clothes.”

Draco doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look away.

“Because I was tired of being feared,” he says, quiet.

Her eyes flash. “I never feared you, Malfoy.”

And then the door shuts. A soft resolute punctuation mark to a chapter he’d prayed wasn’t finished.

He stands there for a second, palm flat on the wood like it might open under just his touch. It doesn’t.

The holiday is over. The fantasy unraveled. Reality has bloomed, thorned and biting.

But his reality hasn’t changed.

He still wants her.

He wants her like he wants a full night of sleep, deep, undisturbed, the kind that makes you believe you’re someone better when you wake up.

He wants her like he wants safety, not just the absence of threat, but the feeling of being seen in all his battered, unkind parts.

He wants her to love those parts. To take the jagged wreckage inside him and say, he can be repurposed into something worthwhile.

He wants her like someone begging for a vacation from their own mind. Because his thoughts? They’re never quiet and rarely kind.

His head is no sanctuary. His relationships, if they were metal, would be rusted to ruin from neglect and bad weather.

But she... she makes him want to scrub it all clean. To fix what’s corroded. To start again.

He wants her to believe he can.

But the worst betrayals are always the ones that come from people you met long ago.

From people like him.

-

FOUR YEARS LATER

They’re at a narrow little wizarding café tucked between a chimney repair shop and a wand polishing kiosk in Knockturn-Adjacent, just shady enough for Theo to feel at home, and posh enough for Blaise to not complain about the chairs.

Blaise raises his glass first, smirking. “To law-abiding adults,” his words soaked in irony.

Theo scoffs, already mid-pour of his firewhisky from a flask into his coffee. “Speak for yourself. I got suspended for the third time this year.”

Zoe arches a brow as she stirs a drink that shimmers between indigo and silver. “What was it this time, Nott? Let me guess, unauthorized use of a memory charm?”

Theo grins like it’s a compliment. “Unapproved use of truth serum, actually. Technically I asked if he wanted to confess.”

“Technically,” Draco mutters, settling in late but immaculate in regulation Ministry robes, with that ever-present edge of exhaustion he hides behind clipped efficiency.

“Draco,” Blaise drawls, “here to recite another policy at us? Or just pretending you’re not still trying to fix the world one bureaucratic memo at a time?”

Draco shrugs off his cloak, gives Blaise a look. “I’m not pretending anything. You lot just aren’t trying hard enough.”

Zoe snorts. “You mean you’re still trying for her.”

Theo whistles. “And we’ve said that out loud.”

Draco doesn’t rise to it. Just takes a sip of the coffee Zoe ordered for him, black, no sugar, just how he drinks it when he’s trying to feel less.

Blaise leans back. “Well, now that we’re all reunited, shall we pretend to be friends again?”

“Don’t be dramatic,” Zoe says. “We are friends. Just professionally distanced.”

Theo snorts. “Except for Allegra. She’s about as distant as the Isle of the Dead.”

Zoe shifts. “She wanted space. We gave her space.”

“Four years is a lot of space,” Blaise says, not cruel, just honest. “Not sure she’s looking to close that gap.”

Theo shrugs but says nothing.

Draco watches them all, the easy banter, the cracks still showing from what they don’t say. He knows too well, not all wounds need to be loud.

“I don’t blame her,” Zoe says finally. “I wouldn’t want to sit around and make nice with people who let me fall.”

“She didn’t fall,” Theo says, voice flat now. “She walked away. She needed to.”

“And we needed to grow up,” Blaise adds.

Draco takes a sip. “Well, here we are grown. Lawful. Rehabilitated. Occasionally suspended.”

Zoe tips hers slightly to punctuate, “And only slightly less dysfunctional.”

Theo raises his flask, coffee abandoned, “And using our real names.”

Theo’s chair slams back to earth with a thunderous crack, drawing startled glances from every table in the café.

Theo winces, clutching his ribs. “Merlin’s left bollock, Malfoy,”

“You were leaning too far,” Draco says, calm as ever, sipping his coffee like he didn’t just assault a government menace.

Blaise tries to stifle a grin behind his napkin. “Ah yes, violence, the timeless rebuttal to unflattering truths.”

Theo sits up straighter, brushing imaginary dust from his shoulder. “You can’t handle the idea that maybe I’m her intellectual equal now.”

“Oh, now,” Zoe says, swirling her drink lazily. “You’re feeling brave today.”

“Braver than Draco,” Theo mutters. “At least I don’t need a fake identity to make a move.”

Draco doesn’t rise to the bait. Just narrows his eyes. “She made her choice. I made mine.”

“That’s not an answer,” Blaise says.

Zoe hums thoughtfully. “You should be thanking Hermione. If she hadn’t ghosted you post-Italy, you’d still be playing ‘Aster the dreamboat’ in some sun-kissed fantasy,”

“She didn’t ghost me,” Draco snaps, sharper than intended.

Everyone pauses.

Zoe blinks. “Right. You ghosted her.”

Draco clenches his jaw, but Blaise steps in, smoothly pivoting. “Speaking of ghosts, when does she start? I heard she finished Oxford top of her class. Again.”

“Next Monday,” Draco answers quietly.

Theo lets out a long whistle. “Not a moment’s rest. Bet she’s already reorganized her entire office.”

“Rewrote the entire code of magical ethics by lunch,” Blaise adds.

Draco raises a brow. “She did pick ethics over Magiphysics.”

“Of course she did,” Theo says. “Obviously I’m the only idiot still doing spellcraft and theoretical enchantments for fun.”

Blaise snorts. “It’s not for fun. You’re trying to reverse-engineer a time turner, and I’d like to remind you for the record, that’s highly illegal.”

Theo leans across the table. “Lower your fucking voice, will you?”

Zoe leans toward him with a smirk. “Relax,” she says in a sultry purr, “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

Theo rolls his eyes and shrugs her off. “Careful, Zoe. Your fiancé might be watching.”

“Adrian does have a possessive streak,” she replies, flicking her hair.

Draco mutters without looking up, “More like a murderous streak.”

Zoe turns to him with a grin. “You’re one to talk. How is McLaggen, by the way?”

Draco doesn’t blink. “No idea.”

Blaise hums. “Mmm. Cryptic. I like it.” Then he smirks and leans back. “Anyway, with Granger working close with the Wizengamot again… I expect a flame to rekindle?”

Draco lifts his cup. “The flame was fleeting.”

Theo grins. “Or at least with Aster it was. Draco never had a chance.”

That’s when Draco flicks his wandless hand, and Theo’s chair slams back down, cutting off his smirk.

The café collectively turns to stare again.

Theo groans dramatically from his place half-slumped on the table. “You are a right bastard.”

Draco finally smirks. “Nice to know I’m still capable of making an impression.”

-

The first time he sees her again, it’s like the breath of summer in a draughty, cold autumn corridor.

Four years. Nearly four years since thier farewell, since the salt air and wine-stained lies, since Aster unraveled and Draco was all that remained. And now, here she is, Hermione Granger, making Ministry robes look like something Zoe would hang in a boutique window under flattering lighting and a "sold out" sign within the hour.

Her hair is down. Soft curls grazing her shoulders, wild at the edges, untamed like the sea. The way he likes it best. The way she always hated in the humidity.

She’s speaking to a court reporter, light, professional chatter, her hand gesturing slightly as she emphasizes some quip, her smile half-formed but real. She looks comfortable, competent, every bit the woman the world always expected her to become. And more.

The lift dings, he hesitates.

It’s stupid, childish, even. All this time, all this quiet pining, and he doesn’t know whether to step into the lift or hang back and pretend he didn’t see her.

He decides to move. Just one step forward.

Their eyes meet in a moment suspended and breathless.

But he falters. Just one heartbeat too long. Enough for another wizard to shift in front of him, enough for the lift doors to close.

And she doesn’t look away. Doesn’t blink.

He sees the recognition in her gaze. Clear. Focused. Not confused. Not surprised.

But not dread. Not exactly at least.

It’s nothing like he planned.

Draco had imagined it differently, their first real conversation after nearly four years. Something quiet, maybe, passing her in a corridor, saying her name just right, giving her a reason to pause. Maybe she’d smile. Maybe he’d mention coffee. Maybe they’d speak like adults who shared a summer instead of impressions who barely survived it.

But instead, the first time they speak is in a closed session, behind thick oak doors and under the cold scrutiny of the Wizengamot chamber.

They’re reviewing a proposal to introduce compulsory wand registration updates, purportedly for tracking illegal cores, but to Draco, it reeks of bureaucratic overreach. The “Magical Instrument Transparency Act,” they’ve dubbed it, bureaucratic poetry at its finest. Hermione is backing the bill. He’s very much not.

He spots her before the debate begins, seated two benches over, sleeves rolled, quill poised, brow creased in that hyper-focused way that once made him stupid with lust. Now, it only sets his spine straighter.

The debate begins, and it’s swift and brutal. She delivers points intense, precise, defensible. He counters with the same.

It’s not personal. It is personal.

They interrupt each other once. Then again. The mediator’s knuckles go white around his gavel. Theo, who sits in as a visiting member, doesn’t even hide his smirk. The energy between Hermione and Draco is electric, undeniable, but it’s not flirtation, it’s intellectual warfare.

Still, Draco holds his ground. Even as part of him wants to soften, to let her win just to see her smile, to remind her that Aster had agreed with her more often than not, he doesn’t.

Because Aster was the illusion. Draco is genuine now.

He’s true to himself. Brutally. And he watches her expression carefully, waits for the flash of disappointment, of contempt, of the fury she’s directed at him before.

But when the session is adjourned and the members begin to stand, she doesn’t look mad.

She looks invigorated.

Her eyes glitter, her cheeks are flushed. She’s holding a stack of notes against her hip, already gathering herself for whatever meeting she’s due at next.

And then she looks at him. Not over him. Not through him. At him.

She walks toward him, chin high, gaze pointed, impassive except for the glint of smug satisfaction he’s missed more than sleep.

“Malfoy,” she greets, crisp, cool, no different than old times.

He matches her tone with ease. “Granger.”

Because names matter. They always have with her. The way she said Draco, soft, thoughtful, sparingly, even accidentally, felt like transfiguration, like he was being rewritten into someone healthier each time. But now? Now Malfoy feels like a wall between them again. And still, she uses it. Because he hasn’t earned the other.

But then she lifts her hand to clutch the stack of parchment she’s holding, and he sees it only then, because he’d been fixated on her face, reacquainting himself with every look, every chuckle even if it was derisive.

The ring.

A simple, elegant thing. Nothing flashy. Nothing to call attention. But it glints in the overhead sconces and punches the air from his lungs.

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. Just forces his mouth into that well-worn, well-practiced smirk. The same one he used to wear when he’d already lost the argument but refused to concede.

“It was like Hogwarts all over again,” she says, a smile in her voice now, eyes alight. “The debates.”

He nods, arms crossed. “Challenging each other.”

“Precisely.”

Her smile grows, and it’s warm. Unburdened. But her fingers absently tap against the edge of the parchment, right by the ring, and the sound scrapes down his spine.

Before he can ask anything, before he can ruin it or reveal too much, a clerk calls his name. An emergency memo.

He nods once at Hermione, turns to go, but glances back just in time to see her waving genially at Theo down the corridor, her body angled casually like she belongs here, because she does, she always has.

-

Draco tosses a quill down hard enough it snaps.

Blaise, lounging, doesn’t even look up from the cursed necklace hovering between his fingers. “That poor quill didn’t ask to be involved in your spiral, mate.”

“I’m not spiraling,” Draco mutters, though he’s glaring at the splinters like they owe him money for a replacement.

Blaise finally looks over. “You sent her how many notes?”

Draco shifts in his chair, defensive. “Two.”

Blaise raises a brow.

“Fine. Four.”

“Four,” Blaise repeats. “And she’s responded...?”

Draco’s jaw clenches. “She’s busy.”

“She’s ignoring you.” Blaise leans back with a smug sigh. “You’re pining. It’s pathetic, and deeply predictable.”

Draco doesn’t answer. Mostly because there’s nothing to say. Instead, he rubs at the inside of his wrist, where Blaise’s so called gift almost burned still lingers like phantom ink.

Blaise goes on, ever helpful. “Meanwhile, Astoria Greengrass is single, sane, and actually wants to have dinner with you.”

Draco snorts. “You’ve spoken to her once.”

“She told me she likes your voice.”

“That’s not a reason to marry someone.”

“No, but it’s a reason to distract yourself from the woman who’s wearing another wizard’s ring and refusing to read your mail.”

Draco shoots him a look. “She’s engaged. Not married.”

“And still not talking to you outside of chambers. That’s... encouraging.”

Draco sighs, temples tight. “I thought, briefly, that maybe she’d just needed time. That after everything,”

“After you pretended to be someone else all summer? For months? While falling in love with her under an alias?” Blaise clicks his tongue. “Yes, how dare she need space.”

Draco slumps back in his chair, defeated. “Astoria doesn’t have a catch, does she?”

“No contract. No scheme. No parental strings.” Blaise smirks. “It’s almost suspiciously boring.”

Draco exhales. “Maybe that’s exactly what I need.”

Blaise shrugs. “Maybe. Or maybe you just need to stop chasing her and start answering your own godsdamn social invitations.”

Draco lifts a brow. “You sent me a cursed bracelet that bites. That was your last ‘social invitation.’”

“And you still opened the box. That’s on you.”

Draco manages a weak laugh, but it dies quickly. Hermione’s name never comes up again, not aloud, anyway.

-

FEELS LIKE THREE MONTHS LATER

The fire crackles softly behind them, the dining room aglow with candlelight and Narcissa’s quiet expectations.

She lifts her wine glass, delicately, like everything she touches, and gives Draco a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “So. Progress with Astoria Greengrass?”

Draco, ever the diplomat in his own home, dabs his mouth with a napkin before replying. “It’s going well.”

From the other side of the table, Theo snorts, swirling his wine. “They still haven’t sealed the deal, so to speak.”

Draco shoots him a look. “Theo.”

“Oh come on,” Theo grins. “Your mother’s not fragile.”

“I’m not,” Narcissa confirms with a gentle arch of one brow. “And frankly, why haven’t you?”

Draco blinks. “Mother,”

Theo cuts in, hands spread like he’s simply stating facts. “Why wait?”

“Because,” Draco says through gritted teeth, “we’re still getting to know each other.”

“It’s been three months,” Theo points out.

Draco corrects, “Two.”

Theo shrugs. “Feels like three.”

“She’s been away,” Draco says, trying to end it there.

Narcissa sips her wine again, placid as the surface of a poisoned lake. “I heard she’s moving back to London full-time.”

Draco straightens slightly. “She, did mention that.”

Narcissa sets her glass down with a quiet clink. “Then I expect progress. It’s time to make the beast with two backs.”

Theo bites back a grin and stage-whispers, “So many euphemisms for sex at this table. Remarkable.”

Draco kicks him under the table.

Narcissa ignores them both, cool and poised. “I simply think, darling, it’s time you take steps toward your future. Astoria is well-bred, intelligent, and entirely unproblematic. That’s rare.”

Theo leans toward her, conspiratorial. “You mean unlike other ones?”

Draco nearly chokes on his drink.

Narcissa offers a thin smile. “I didn’t say that.”

“But you meant it.”

Draco pinches the bridge of his nose. “I regret inviting either of you.”

Theo leans back, smug. “Happy birthday, mate.”

Draco tilts his glass lazily, watching the deep red swirl while daring to ask, “Will you be coming back to London anytime soon, Mother?”

Narcissa dabs delicately at her mouth with her linen napkin, then replies, “No. I’ve just sealed the deal on my own endeavor, actually. I won’t be returning full-time.”

Draco chokes on air.

Theo chokes on his bite of roasted lamb, coughing into his napkin. “I’m sorry, you,”

Narcissa arches a brow, ever composed. “Indeed.”

Theo throws his hands up. “Brilliant. Everyone’s bumping uglies except me. This seems cosmically unjust.”

“You just need more time to age,” Narcissa says smoothly, gesturing to her wineglass. “Like this Barolo.”

Theo sputters. “I’m a bloody Auror, not a bottle of Nebbiolo!”

“And nearly not an Auror,” she replies, without missing a beat. “If you don’t clean up your conduct. I hear things.”

Theo falls utterly silent, stunned for once, blinking at her like she’s suddenly started speaking Parseltongue.

Draco takes a long, leisurely sip, enjoying the rare moment someone else is being skewered at the dinner table. “She always knows more than she lets on,” he says almost cheerfully.

“And always has,” Narcissa confirms, eyes glittering. “It’s how I’ve survived this long.”

Theo recovers just enough to mutter, “Mental image of you sealing anything is truly not what I needed tonight.”

Draco grimaces. “Agreed. Ruined the wine.”

Narcissa merely sips her own, looking deeply unbothered. “Then pour something stronger, boys. You’re not finished.”

Narcissa sets down her wineglass with elegant finality and rises. “Follow me.”

Draco blinks. “Follow you where?”

She gives him that look, the one that means don’t ask foolish questions, darling. “It’s your birthday, dear. Try to keep up.”

Theo glances between them, intrigued. “If this leads to a wine cellar or an underground fight club, I’m in.”

But Narcissa leads them through the manor, and stops at the ballroom doors. With a casual flick of her wand, they open, and music blares out, cheerful and modern and loud enough to make Draco wince.

He steps in, stunned.

The ballroom is full. Dozens of witches and wizards, people he recognizes from the Ministry, from school, from this bizarre, post-war social web. Notably absent? His mother’s usual entourage of society matriarchs and pureblood relics.

Also notably and predictably absent, Hermione Granger.

She loops back around, gives him a quick side hug and a kiss to the cheek. “Happy birthday. Be on your best behavior. No one goes beyond the wards.”

Draco frowns. “They couldn’t if they tried.”

“Exactly,” she says with a smile that’s far too satisfied. “You’re welcome.”

He’s still processing when the music swells, an upbeat remix of a Celestina classic, and Theo leans in, yelling over the beat, “Mate, your mother just threw you a rave.”

“She hates this music,” Draco mutters.

“Which makes it even better,” Theo grins.

Draco turns as Narcissa starts to glide away, graceful as ever despite the pounding bass. She pauses just once to call over her shoulder, “I’m leaving now. Enjoy the evening. And for Merlin’s sake, don’t disembowel anyone.”

Draco watches her disappear, the crowd swallowing her. He exhales, overwhelmed.

Theo claps a hand on his shoulder. “You’re getting soft. That woman just weaponized affection.”

Draco sighs. “I’m afraid to ask who she invited.”

Theo scans the room. “Judging by the variety of haircuts and questionable facial piercings, everyone but Granger.”

Draco hides his disappointment behind a smirk. “She’s too clever to fall into a trap this obvious.”

Theo chuckles. “Yeah. But you’re hoping came along with someone anyway.”

Draco doesn’t deny it.

-

TWO YEARS LATER

The corridor is quiet when Draco catches up to her, his robes still half-swishing with the irritation he’s trying not to show.

“Granger.”

She turns at the clipped tone, brows lifting as if he’s a puzzle she didn’t expect to be solving just now. “Malfoy.”

“There’s something I’d like to discuss,” he says, short, snappy. “That bill we’ve been moving through, regarding restricted spells?”

Her expression tightens ever so slightly. “Yes?”

“You were supposed to support it.” He steps closer, not threatening, but insistent. “You co-authored it. Then the last committee vote, you abstained. And now I hear you’ve submitted amendments that’ll gut the entire thing.”

She crosses her arms, professional and poised. “I revised my position.”

“You reversed it,” he snaps, and then forces himself calm. “What happened? Or is this one of those moments where we pretend you didn’t sway half the Wizengamot by walking into the room?”

Her mouth twitches. “Don’t flatter me, Malfoy. It’s not me they follow. It’s logic.”

He exhales through his nose, amused despite himself. “Right. Of course. Logic in a Ministry full of egos.”

She shrugs, unapologetic. “The bill, your version of it, compromises too much access for too little oversight. I don’t care how efficient it sounds. If the last six years have taught us anything, it’s that efficiency unchecked turns into something worse.”

His jaw works. “It would’ve passed.”

“Maybe. Until I stopped supporting it.”

There’s a silence, charged and recognizable. They've done this countless times, opposite ends of the same spectrum, equal parts respect and resistance. But something’s off today. It’s the slight edge in her voice. The fact she’s not wearing a ring she was wearing longer than the span of two bloody years.

He stares at her hand before he can stop himself.

She notices, she usually does.

“Was there something else?” she asks, pointed.

“Yes, actually.” His tone sharpens. “That engagement. The one everyone knows about. The one I couldn’t go a single bloody week without having to hear compared to mine, for the better part of a year.”

She doesn’t flinch. “It ended.”

He narrows his eyes. “So the rumors are true.”

She nods once, clipped. “If the rumor is that I was engaged to someone who doesn’t exist outside a Felix Connections profile and few supposed outings, yes. True.”

His lips part slightly. “Why?”

“Why does anyone lie?” she says. “Because it was easier. Because people stop asking questions when you give them a box to fit you in.”

His voice is low, incredulous. “And you call me manipulative.”

“I never said you were the only one.” Her tone cools. “Don’t pretend you’ve been honest about everything either. You’ve been engaged for some time, haven’t you?”

His mouth presses into a thin line.

She studies him, and for a second the tension drops, not hostile, not exactly friendly either, but something older. Wiser. Tired.

“You don’t owe me anything,” she says, more softly. “But don’t act like I owe you a confession, either.”

“You owe yourself one,” he murmurs.

She blinks but doesn’t respond. Just lifts her chin and walks past him, leaving the scent of ink, her lotion, and memories he’s tried by the nine hells to forget.

Chapter Text

The flat smells faintly of cinnamon tea, and Zoe’s kicked off her heels at the door, while Ginny is sprawled sideways across Hermione’s couch like she’s halfway into a nap and halfway into a rant.

“I swear I’m still spitting out cat hair,” Ginny says, brushing at her jumper. “It’s like it’s cursed. Found it in my bloody Quidditch bag yesterday.”

Hermione groans, long and dramatic. “Don’t remind me. I miss him. He’s been at St. Farrimond’s all week. They’re monitoring his digestive tolerance.”

Zoe lifts an elegant brow. “St. Farrimond’s? That’s a real place?”

Hermione sighs, deadpan. “Yes. The receptionist is a kneazle animagus. It’s all very serious.”

Ginny blinks. “Wait, Crookshanks is still alive?”

Hermione narrows her eyes.

“No, I mean that sincerely,” Ginny says quickly. “He’s like, part cat, part sofa. Immortal.”

Zoe clutches a throw pillow. “Sorry, that was honestly touching, in a feral sort of way. Is that what ended your engagement with… Crispin Hawks? Crookshanks’ looming demise?”

Hermione rolls her eyes and leans back against the kitchen counter. “Everyone knows now, don’t they?”

“Not everyone,” Ginny says with mock sympathy. “Just everyone who knows you. To everyone else it’s all so tragic.”

Hermione scoffs. “I lied to protect myself. The minute Malfoy found out I was single again, he would’ve launched a full-scale romantic siege.”

Zoe eyes her suspiciously. “You sound awfully confident about that. How do you know he would?”

Hermione shrugs, too casually. “I had an inside source.”

Zoe narrows her eyes. “I knew you were still talking to Theo.”

“We were barely talking,” Hermione huffs. “It was more like…trading. Bartering. When I needed intel.”

“Friends with benefits,” Zoe says dryly.

Hermione quickly interjects, “Friends with benefits I don’t have. Like Theo’s information. Or,” she points at Zoe, “a boat. I don’t have a boat.”

Zoe grins, tossing a piece of popcorn into her mouth. “So you’ve been using me for my boat this whole time?”

“Obviously,” Hermione says. “Strategic friendship. And your taste in wine.”

They all laugh. Hermione turns to Ginny. “Except you. You’re just classic Hogwarts legacy.”

Ginny sighs dramatically. “Right? No perks. No benefits. Just best friends with my husband.”

Hermione smirks. “Please, you know it’s impossible to get Holyhead Harpies tickets with your massive family hoarding every seat.”

Ginny snorts. “Don’t hate the dynasty.”

Ginny refills her wineglass with the practiced hand of a woman who’s done so mid-argument with toddlers, and Aurors. “So,” she says lightly, “Draco’s wedding is this weekend.”

Hermione doesn’t flinch. Barely. “Good for him,” she says, swirling her own glass. “He needed to move on. They’ll make the cutest aristocrat babies. Blonde. Blinking. Bored out of their minds.”

Ginny smirks. “Probably own a pony by age two. Wand by three. Attitude by four.”

Zoe stretches out her legs and sighs. “Well, I’ll lose at least a hundred galleons now. My money was on you two reconciling.”

Hermione raises an eyebrow. “I bet it was. And how much is Theo in for?”

Zoe waves a hand. “Oh, Theo isn’t in it. He’s the bookie.”

Ginny nearly chokes on her drink. “Of course he is. Prides himself on being ‘unbiased,’ I’m sure.”

“Unbiased,” Hermione echoes, “but also probably the one fixing the odds.”

Ginny laughs. “Always plays both sides. That’s why he wins.”

Hermione leans her head back against the cushions with a sigh. “Well, now I can really move on. I don’t have to keep up a fake engagement anymore. Though honestly? It’s easier to lie about being in a relationship than to actually be in one.”

Zoe points at her with her wine glass. “So don’t be in one. Play the field.”

Hermione scoffs. “What field? Where is this magical field?”

Ginny grins. “You’ll find it. Probably hexed and full of weeds, but you’ll find it.”

“And if not,” Zoe adds, “you can always borrow my boat.”

Hermione raises her glass in salute. “To playing the field. And to borrowing boats.”

-

There’s a banging on the door, severe, urgent, and totally relentless.

Hermione startles awake, heart pounding, wand already halfway to her fingers. It’s some ungodly hour, and whoever’s on the other side is either in danger or about to be. She feels for the disillusioned bracelet, the one she always wears, just not seen by anyone.

She cracks the door open.

“Malfoy?” she breathes, stunned.

But he’s shadowed from the faint streetlight. He’s disheveled. Hair tousled. Cravat undone. A smudge on his cheek like he’s rubbed away at for hours with one hand. And gods, he’s beautiful like this, like something conjured from the recesses of a sex dream she’s half-sure she was still having. The kind where she’s back in Italy, and Aster is in her, saying things he never says aloud.

But this shadowed version of him, this real version, is unrelenting.

Before she can ask what he’s doing there, his mouth is on hers.

It’s not gentle. It’s wild and hungry and half-maddening, and she forgets how to stand. He walks her backward, blindly, hands in her hair, breathing her in like she’s the only oxygen left. He kicks the door closed and it slams, making her jump, and they both laugh against each other’s lips in a breathless, dangerous way.

Neither of them are looking where they’re going. She’s backed into a wall, biting and sudden in the best way, and now every inch of him is pressed against her, solid and desperate.

He lifts her like it’s instinct and anchors her to the wall. Her legs wrap around him, and her head tilts back as his mouth finds her neck, her collarbone, every inch that’s ever belonged to him.

It’s erotic. It’s euphoric. It’s everything they’ve been pretending they don’t still want.

She moans, “Oh, Aster,”

And that’s when he freezes.

His mouth stills. His hands falter. Slowly, he lifts his head to look at her. His expression breaks first, then his voice into flat, hurt, obvious,

“Draco.”

It’s more than a correction for him. It’s truth.

Hermione blinks, suddenly breathless for another reason entirely. Her hair is wild. Her lips are swollen. Her pulse is a drumbeat echoing off plaster. She looks around like the walls might give her answers, as if the dream might still reclaim her.

Hermione blinks at him, stunned, breathless, not quite awake. The space between them is charged, vibrating with every unsaid word, every unfinished moment. Her hand flattens against his chest, trying to catch up to the moment.

“I, I thought it was a dream,” she whispers.

Then, blinking again, sharper now, more lucid, she squints at the clock behind him.

“It’s three in the bloody morning,” she says, stepping back half a pace, just enough to breathe. And then the rest of the facts line up like dominoes. “And you’re getting married, in what, hours?” Her voice lifts incredulously, cracking on the question. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

He looks wrecked. Not just hungover from Theo’s catastrophic stag night, but hollowed-out from anguish, like he’s been dragging grief around by the collar. He’s not in his right mind. And, Merlin help her, neither is she.

“I want you,” he says.

It’s not slick or calculated or delivered with that signature smirk she knows so well. It’s raw and enflamed, the confession carved out of the very marrow of him.

Hermione laughs, but it’s a thin, disbelieving sound. “Two months, Malfoy. It was two months.”

He doesn’t flinch. “It was much longer for me.”

And gods, he steps closer. She knows she should move, should throw up a wall, a ward, something. But her feet betray her.

“You hated me,” she says, quietly.

“The rivalry was desire,” he murmurs. “The teasing was denial. Hermione…” His fingers find her wrist, light and desperate, “I love you.”

He says it like it costs him his entirety. Like it’s burned a hole straight through his soul to get it out.

His breath brushes her lips, close enough to siphon the air from her lungs, and this time it’s her, she kisses him, like muscle memory, like punishment. She grips the collar of his shirt and tugs him in and he answers, with everything he has.

But it only lasts a moment, because she remembers.

She remembers.

“No,” she gasps, breaking the kiss with a push, her hand against his chest again, harder this time. “Malfoy, stop.”

He does. He stops kissing her, but his hands linger, like they’re pleading. One cupping her waist, the other brushing her shoulder, like he could drown in her again just by touch.

And gods, it’s completeness. It's warmth and intimacy and danger and longing and everything she’s been pretending she doesn’t miss.

But it’s also wrong.

Because he’s getting married. And she was doing so well convincing herself it didn’t still matter.

Draco breathes heavily, ragged from more than the intensity of their embrace or the whiskey on his breath, it’s all of it, pressing against his ribs. His hands hover at her waist, unsteady.

"You lied about the engagement," he says suddenly. No preamble. Just that. "You lied to keep me away."

Hermione lets out a sound of a kind of laugh, a kind of scoff, but it's too brittle to carry weight. “You’re wrong.”

He doesn’t move at first. Just watches her, eyes narrowing slightly, like he’s watching a potion curdle. His hand shifts, slow, from her shoulder to her neck, not threatening but certain, lifting her chin with his thumb until their eyes meet. She tries not to blink. Tries not to breathe too fast.

“No,” he says, quieter now. “I’m not. I knew before Theo said anything.”

She tries to swat his hands away, sharp and sudden, because they aren’t hers anymore. They’re Astoria Greengrass’s and he has no right.

“I did it to protect myself,” she snaps. “From you.”

The words hit. He flinches, not with theatrics, but real hurt. And when he speaks again, it’s lower, smaller.

“You never read my letter. Did you?”

She freezes, the air hitching in her throat. He takes a step back like maybe distance will dull the blow. But then he steps forward again, unwilling to let her retreat inside her walls.

Hermione licks her lips, replies tightly, “I read Aster’s letter,” she says. “It was beautiful. Honest. It said… if there was ever a time we didn’t have to lie to one another…”

She trails off, and his gaze refines like he thinks she’s changed her mind. But then she draws in a breath, steady and clear.

“But that’s the thing, isn’t it?” she finishes, firm. “There won’t ever be a time. Because Aster was the lie, and that’s where it ends.”

His jaw flexes. He takes another step forward anyway.

“Hermione,”

She lifts her wrist. The magical bracelet now revealed glints under the dim light. The one Aster gave her with an emergency charm woven into its core.

“I’ll activate it,” she says. Her voice doesn’t shake.

And for the first time that night, he does stop.

He looks at her like she’s already pressed it. Like the spell has already gone off and left something scorched and silent behind.

He takes a slow step back, eyes searching for any sign she’s bluffing. But there’s nothing, just Hermione, standing tall and untouchable, exactly as she needs to be.

Hermione’s breath is uneven, but her hand doesn’t waver from the bracelet, fingers hovering over the charm like she means it. Because she does.

“You’re getting married,” she repeats tightly. “You made that choice.”

Draco steps forward again, hands open at his sides. “But this, what we have, it could be more. So much more.”

She laughs under her breath, incredulous. “And I’m supposed to believe you because of some romantic, reckless words and your rather obtuse gesture of showing up like this?” She gestures at the door behind him. “At a time, like this, literal hours before you marry a witch you've already promised yourself to?”

“I haven’t promised,” he starts, but she cuts him off, her voice rising over his, her hand shaking, trying so hard not to follow through on her threat, but he makes it so godsdamned difficult.

“That's what an engagement is!!”

That hits. He stops. She knows it hits, because he made the fucking bracelet. Knows the magic behind it. That’s why he doesn’t try to touch her.

He backs up slightly, jaw working, and asks, quieter now, “Then what was yours?”

She blinks. Her shoulders shift but she answers clearly.

“It was a promise to myself,” she says. “That your lies, your deceit, and all the hurtful things you did to protect your secrets, they can be forgiven.” Her eyes meet his, unflinching. “But not forgotten.”

He looks like she’s slapped him. Because she has, in her way.

“So go,” she finishes. “Marry Astoria. Or don’t. But don’t come here starting something with me under another lie.”

Draco doesn’t move at first. Just takes in the woman standing in front of him, wild-haired, sharp-eyed, wearing exhaustion and defiance like armor. And love, she thinks, buried deep and protected like something sacred.

He turns toward the door, and this time, he doesn't look back.

Hermione wakes with a gasp, her sheets tangled around her legs, her pillow damp beneath her cheek. The soft lull of morning has already passed. Sunlight stretches warm and indifferent across the floorboards. Her hand reaches for the clock before she even knows why.

10:00 a.m.

The exact time The Daily Prophet declared Draco Malfoy and Astoria Greengrass would be wed. In a garden. Under enchanted clouds. A tasteful, reserved affair.

Her breath catches. Then speeds. Then breaks.

She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes like she can undo it all, can push the potion-laced sleep away and go back, stop herself from dreaming nothing, from waking to everything.

And then she cries.

Not dainty, not quiet. Ugly crying. Loud and wrenching, with sobs that take root in her chest and claw their way out, each one more cutting than the last.

She cries for who she is, for being someone who tried to do the right thing. Someone who always has. Someone who gave up the boy she wanted because she couldn’t bear to be the kind of girl who wrecked another woman’s life. Even if it was only by inches.

She could’ve let it happen. Could’ve kissed him like he asked, could’ve collapsed under the weight of his real name on her skin and the need in his voice. Could’ve chalked it up to sleep, to whiskey, and pretended it wasn’t what it would have been.

She cries because she chose the harder truth over the easier lie. And it didn’t make her feel noble. It made her feel alone.

She cries because she never opened his letter. The one with the Malfoy crest, the one she set down unread, choosing Aster’s words because they were safer narrative. She cries because it’s gone now, tucked into some book, or lost with the last warmth of that summer. She’ll never know what it said. And it kills her.

And she cries because she's not even sure what she's mourning most, him, or the possibility of him. Because maybe they really were just the illusion of something. Something almost real.

It's a long, aching grief. For every time she was too much or not enough. For every scar she can name and every ache she can’t. Her sobs echo off the walls of her too-quiet flat, her hands clutching the sheets like they’re the only things keeping her from coming completely undone.

And when it ends, when her voice is gone and her tears are dried and her body is exhausted, she surrenders.

Surrenders that summer.

Surrenders Aster.

Surrenders the soft illusion.

And she lies there, shattered and breathless, wondering if doing the right thing will ever feel right.

The morning sun the following day is just as unkind, if not more.

Hermione pads across her flat, bleary-eyed and silent, still sore in places grief shouldn't reach. Her hands move on instinct, boiling the kettle, stirring the tea, ignoring the ache in her chest like it's just another part of waking.

The Daily Prophet lands on her windowsill with a sharp thwack.

She doesn’t want to look. But she does.

Front page, of course. “Newly Married: Mr. and Mrs. Draco Malfoy”

A tasteful headline. A smiling bride, blushing beneath lace and heirloom magic. And next to her, Draco.

He’s smiling. But he isn’t smiling.

Not really. Not in the eyes. Not in the way he did, when he meant it.

Her fingers tighten. She should have charmed it straight to the bin. But her gaze lingers. Latches. Some stupid part of her is looking for proof. That he’s fine. That she’s fine. That it’s all fine.

Then she sees it. Near his wrist, half-hidden under the sleeve of his ceremonial dress robes, a flicker when his arm moves. Something faint and recognizable.

Hermione’s breath catches. She lifts her wand with a sharp flick and casts a quiet magnification charm.

The photograph responds instantly, sharpening. His cuff. His left wrist. And there, just there, a tiny flutter of golden wings.

The cufflinks. The ones made from the 1980 World Cup Snitch. The one she gave him.

A wedding day. And he wore those.

Her skin prickles. Her chest pulls tight, traitorous heart pounding too loud in the quiet. It shouldn't matter.

She stares for one more second, just one, then tears the paper in half.

Then again. And again.

The fire eats the remnants in jagged pieces, twisting the edge of the photograph first, charring the lace of Astoria’s veil, blurring Draco’s face into smoke.

Hermione watches until there’s nothing but ash.

But even as she thinks it, she knows. It isn’t really goodbye.

-

The years pass the way years always do, quietly, then all at once.

As predicted, Hermione Granger didn’t remain single long. She was courted, quite publicly, by several eligible bachelors, scholars, diplomats, Ministry officials who knew her reputation as a war heroine and a visionary. But it was Evan Prewett, a gifted St. Mungo’s healer with an old name and an easy laugh, who won her heart. He met her during a rare accident involving cursed books in the Department of Records, and they never really stopped talking after that.

After a steady, sensible three-year engagement, Hermione married Evan in a sun-dappled ceremony on the Scottish coast. She looked radiant, but grounded, like a woman who’d chosen peace and long since stopped chasing ghosts.

Meanwhile, across the pages of The Prophet, the Malfoys welcomed their heir.
Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy was born nearly a year to the day after Draco’s wedding. He was pale and sharp-featured and loved without condition. Hermione sent a gift, an enchanted lullaby globe of the Italian coast, unsigned.

But time, as ever, was both cruel and kind.

Astoria Greengrass-Malfoy passed away quietly one winter, the obituary clipped and vague. “Following a prolonged illness,” it said. But even the most well-connected whispered that the true cause remained sealed in records no one could access, not even with the Malfoy name. Draco didn’t give a statement. He didn’t need to. His silence was louder than grief.

Hermione had three children. A daughter first, then two sons. She named them without comment or explanation, but their middle names were meaningful to those who knew where to look.

And after her third child was born, Hermione left the Ministry.

Not in disgrace. Not in scandal. Simply… done. She said she'd given enough, and now it was time to give to herself, and to them. She still consulted on occasion, lectured at Oxford when she felt like it, and appeared in front of the Wizengamot exactly twice a year. But the Hermione Granger who once worked late into the night arguing law and ethics in legislation had vanished into motherhood, into something softer, steadier, quieter.

Not weaker.
Just… whole.

Until one day, years later, Hermione was packing.

Evan’s death wasn’t sudden, but it still felt like a betrayal of time. A quiet illness, one he hid from the children for months, perhaps even from Hermione, though she suspected he knew before he told her. He was a healer, after all. He knew the signs.

It started with fatigue he brushed off, chalked up to overwork at St. Mungo’s. Then came the moments he’d pause mid-sentence, like a thought got lost somewhere inside him. A lingering cough. A thinning frame. Tests revealed a magical degenerative condition, rare, incurable, and most cruelly, slow.

By the time their youngest son, Rowan, was set to leave for Hogwarts, Evan’s wand hand trembled too much to write in the train station guestbook.

He passed away three weeks later.

Not with dramatics, not with a grand farewell. Just quietly. He fell asleep on the worn green sofa near the hearth, a book half-read in his lap, the last photograph they’d all taken at King’s Cross tucked between its pages. Hermione found him there that morning, the fire burned low, the morning light catching on the few greys in his hair. Her heart broke like it hadn’t in years. Not all at once, but in pieces, mother, wife, widow.

With all three children at school, there was no one home to ask her if she was okay. So she put on robes, pulled her hair back, and went back to work. Full-time. At the Ministry. Not just for them, but for herself.

The house is too big now. Too many rooms. Too many shelves lined with memories no one needs tending anymore. The quiet doesn’t feel lonely, exactly, but it echoes.

Boxes line the floor, half-labeled in her tidy script. Old robes folded with care. She’s in the study, sorting through books she hasn’t opened in years, when her daughter finds it.

“What’s this?”

Her voice is curious, innocent, thoughtful. Just like Hermione’s had been once.

Hermione looks up and sees Isla, her eldest, holding a slim envelope dusted in time. The wax is dark green, gleaming even through the years, and stamped with a crisp, ornate M.

Her breath catches.

“Oh.” Hermione’s hand flies up, trembling slightly as she crosses the room. “That’s just,” but she can’t quite lie. Not to her. Her fingers brush the parchment's edge as she takes it, carefully, like it might vanish at any moment.

The seal is still unbroken.

Tears sting her eyes, not from pain, exactly, but from the ache of memory unearthed without warning. A summer. A man. A lie. A truth. And everything tangled between.

Isla, bright-eyed and sharp-tongued like her mother, tilts her head. “Who’s it from?”

Hermione doesn’t answer right away.

She only stares at the letter in her hands, her thumb ghosting across the wax. Her silence says more than any explanation.

Isla doesn’t press. She only asks, softer this time, “Was it a good story, Mum?”

Hermione’s voice is throaty, but she manages a faint, wistful smile. “It was the kind you’d really regret not reading.”

Chapter Text

Hermione stands near the dock, arms crossed loosely, linen pants fluttering in the sea breeze, pretending not to watch her kids, Isla, always the leader, bossing her younger brothers toward Zoe’s sleek boat like they hadn’t all just voted her into this holiday against her will.

The sound of leather sandals on wood reaches her, and before she can turn, she hears,

“I heard you’ve always had a thing for friends with benefits.”

She jolts and spins, already halfway to a retort, but stops short when she sees Theo, smug as ever, grinning like he never aged a day past thirty.

Her mouth opens, scandalized, but then she laughs. “Theodore Nott, always a menace.”

He pulls her into a hug, strong and warm and just a little too long, then leans back to look her over.

“You look good,” he says with mock-seriousness, “for possibly planning to emotionally manipulate back at the scene of the crime.”

“Three to one vote,” she mutters, watching Isla make her brothers fix their life jackets again. “I was outnumbered.”

Theo points across the dock to a flashy, somewhat obnoxiously large boat. “That one’s mine.”

Hermione squints. “Of course it is.”

He shrugs. “What can I say? I enjoy tormenting Adrian. He’s still terrified I’ll steal his wife.”

She snorts. “You’re still chasing her?”

“Can’t forget your first love.”

She raises a brow. “You mean Zoe?”

“I meant me,” Theo says, “Obviously.”

Hermione laughs again, for real this time. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

He says with a wink, “I still look better than everyone else.”

Hermione’s laughter is still lingering in the air when she catches the flicker of movement behind Theo, small, curious, and very much alive. A tiny head peeks out from behind Theo’s trousers, short chocolate locks bouncing in the breeze, green eyes wide beneath long lashes.

The boy’s sucking his thumb, watchful as he clings to Theo’s leg like a barnacle.

Hermione straightens her posture, then crouches slightly, gently says. “Well, hello there.”

But the boy immediately ducks back, burying his face in the fabric of Theo’s linen trousers.

Theo smirks, ruffling the boy’s curls with practiced affection. “That’s Fin. He’s my, erm, magical sidekick. Specializes in thumb-based distraction magic.”

Hermione’s brows lift in surprise. “Yours?”

“The resemblance is subtle, I know,”

“He’s beautiful,” Hermione says sincerely, glancing between Theo and the boy. “How’s Allegra?”

Theo’s expression flattens slightly. “Perpetually miffed at me.”

Hermione blinks. “Why?”

He spreads his hands. “Why not?”

She rolls her eyes. “You didn’t quit the Aurors, did you?”

“Course not.” He puffs out his chest like she’s insulted him. “Just last month, I narrowly escaped a particularly vicious puddle of doom while investigating a, uh, grumpy necklace that made three Unspeakables dance themselves unconscious. There may have been a very stern disagreement involving an enchanted slice of toast and a potentially inconveniently aggressive hedgehog.”

Hermione’s smile twitches. “So, bloodbath, cursed amulet, duel, and exploding magical creature?”

He grins. “Oh, for Merlin’s sakes, would you watch it around the kid?”

She tilts her head, warm and amused, eyes flicking to Fin, who now peers up at her from behind Theo’s leg like she’s the most interesting thing in all of Italy.

“Well,” she says softly, “at least he inherited your charm.”

Theo pats the boy’s head proudly. “Much more than that unfortunately, but he’s already better at talking to women than I ever was.”

Theo squints at her over the sun-soaked glimmer of the water, hands on his hips, Fin still half-latched to his leg. “So,” he says casually, “how long are you here?”

Hermione hesitates, brushing a strand of hair off her cheek. The Mediterranean breeze tugs it right back. “Not sure yet.”

Theo smirks, catching her hesitation. “Afraid I’ll tell someone?”

She narrows her eyes. “Depends who you’d tell.”

His grin widens, all mock innocence. “Aster?”

Her look sharpens, but he lifts both palms in surrender.

“I haven’t heard from that tosser in years. Swear on the kid.” He glances down at Fin. “Though I wouldn’t swear to the kid. Alle will hold it against you like a Gringotts contract.”

Hermione relaxes slightly but still doesn’t answer.

“So how long are you here?” he presses again.

She arches a brow. “How long are you here?”

He hoists Fin up with a grunt. “Just have him for the week. Back from recreating a few key scenes of Jaws.”

Hermione laughs, but Fin perks up, gleaming. “Sharks!”

“See?” Theo points dramatically. “Hence the coded language. The kid’s nuts. Loves a massacre. Thinks every bath is a shark ambush. I’ve created a monster.”

Hermione snorts. “He’s just like you.”

Theo sighs, mock tragic. “That’s what Alle said. Right before she left me a list of food allergies, and a hex warning if I so much as taught him how to charm his cereal to scream.”

Rowen comes sprinting down the dock, all knees and elbows. “Mum! Can we go now? Do I have to wear that bulky life jacket? I look like a potion experiment gone very wrong!”

Hermione doesn’t even look up from securing the bags into Zoe’s boat. “Yes, you do.”

Rowen groans. “But I can just use magic! I ace my water-stabilization charms.”

Hermione straightens and gives him the Look. “Not outside of school, remember?”

He throws his arms in the air dramatically. “That is the dumbest rule. We cannot actually apply it in the real world? How does that make sense?”

Theo, leaning lazily against a dock post with Fin curled into his shoulder, smirks. “Clever, practical. Just like his mum.”

Hermione rolls her eyes but grins anyway. “Gotta be back before dinner.”

Theo adjusts Fin gently, the little boy still sucking his thumb, eyelids fluttering from the excitement of the morning and his very serious shark reconnaissance. “No rush,” Theo says, stepping back. “We’ve got plans to storm a beach and probably violate a few international codes of magical decency.”

Hermione raises a brow. “Please tell me that’s pretend.”

He smirks. “Sure.”

“Bye, Theo,” she says with narrowed eyes. “always predictably unpredictable.”

“Always,” he tosses over his shoulder, already turning, and Fin lifts one sleepy hand in a wave.

Hermione waves back, warm and cautious, watching them go. With Theo, it’s always a bit of both.

-

It’s early, pink and gold still stretch low across the sky, the waves murmuring softly in the quiet hush before the beach wakes fully. Hermione jogs steadily along the shoreline, her trainers splashing at the surf’s edge. The air is warm already, sea-salted and clean, her ponytail damp with sweat. Harry’s playlist is thumping in her ears, something upbeat and heroic that doesn’t quite match her mood but keeps her legs moving anyway.

She’s grateful for the solitude. Her kids won’t stir for another two hours unless the villa catches fire. She rounds a bend in the shore, catching sight of two surfers emerging from the water, boards tucked under arms. Both silver-haired, broad-shouldered. One is unmistakably older, salt weathered and grinning. The other, leaner, sharper in movement.

She keeps running, eyes flicking briefly their way as habit more than interest. Until,

Her feet stutter on the sand.

Her breath hitches, not from the run.

The older one’s face turns toward the rising sun and her stomach drops through her sneakers.

“Oh, bloody hell,” she mutters through panting breaths, not slowing down but absolutely losing the rhythm of her stride. “Damn you, Theo.”

Because of course it’s Draco Malfoy, unmistakable, looking like some sort of tragic Greek god in a wetsuit. His hair, still damp, flutters silver against his forehead. His board under one arm, and that maddening, easy smile she used to know far too well.

She pushes forward, faster, past them, without looking again. Earbuds firmly in place. Harry’s playlist surging into the chorus of something unhelpfully dramatic.

Hermione stops.

Not because she wants to, not exactly, but because she’s tired of running. From people. From moments. From memories that resurface like driftwood, inevitable and water-worn. If she saw him, he saw her, and if by some miracle he hadn’t, well… she’s done hiding. Even if this is some beautifully orchestrated ambush with Theo’s fingerprints all over it, or Zoe’s. Probably both.

She pivots in the sand, jogs back, brushing loose strands of hair off her sweaty forehead. Her breath is still shallow from the run, but steadies with each step toward them.

Draco looks up mid-sentence, wetsuit half-unzipped, surfboard now leaning against his hip. The expression on his face is the sort of stunned that doesn’t bother to hide itself.

She slows to a stop a few feet away. Her eyes flick briefly to the boy next to him, tall and a smirk that has pureblood written all over it, only softened by something freer. Lighter.

Malfoy’s voice comes first, hoarse from salt and morning. “Granger.”

“Malfoy,” she replies, just as even, like nothing ever cracked between them.

He gestures toward the boy. “This is Scorpius.”

Scorpius gives a polite wave, easygoing and warm in a way that surprises her.

“You must be, what, seventeen by now?” she guesses, though it doesn’t seem real.

“Eighteen, actually,” Scorpius corrects, good-natured and unbothered. “Just finished school.”

“That’s wonderful,” she says, meaning it.

Draco doesn’t brag. Doesn’t offer grades or House or future plans. Just lets the statement hang in the salty air like a fact.

Scorpius adjusts his board under one arm. “I’m going to head back out. Old man hasn’t been able to catch up all week.”

Draco squints at him. “Who are you calling old?”

And with a quick flick of his hand, no wand in sight, a playful hex zings through the air, missing Scorpius on purpose as the boy takes off running toward the surf, laughing.

Hermione watches him disappear into the waves, blond hair glinting, already paddling out.

Draco exhales a soft laugh and shakes his head. “There’s no keeping him out of the ocean.”

They stand side by side in the soft indent of tide-warmed sand, their shoulders angled just enough to suggest comfort. Scorpius cuts through the surf with remarkable grace, his form sure and focused, a boy with balance in his veins. Hermione watches with open admiration.

“He’s determined,” she says, shielding her eyes against the glare. “And actually quite good.”

Draco doesn’t take his eyes off the water. “He is. Picked it up in a week. Nearly killed himself trying to impress a girl once. Still says it was worth it.”

She smiles. “Sounds familiar.”

He quirks an eyebrow. “I don’t recall ever trying to impress girls. Intimidate, maybe.”

She laughs softly and glances at him. He’s older, creased in places he wasn’t before, silver threaded into his hair more heavily than she remembers. But it suits him. She hasn’t looked at a man this way in over a year. Not since Evan.

“How many do you have?” he asks, nodding toward a patch of rocks where they move to sit.

“Three,” she says. “Rowen, Isla, and Jude.”

He nods, approving. “Strong names.”

“Strong kids.” She shifts her weight and eyes the waves. “They voted me into this holiday. Three to one.”

He chuckles. “A democratic matriarchy.”

“Something like that.” She pauses.

Draco is quiet a beat too long. Then, “I’m sorry about Evan.”

That stills her. Those words settle between them like something heavy but shared. Not a wound, but a weight.

“It’s just been you and Scorpius?” she asks.

“Since he was ten.” He says even. “We made do.”

She nods, staring at the horizon. “He seems… well-loved.”

“He is.”

Silence again, but it isn’t awkward. Just steeped in history. Grief. Whatever existed between them for those two short months and what never came after.

He glances sideways. “Funny. All this time. And here you are.”

She smiles faintly. “Coincidence.”

“Still.”

Hermione looks at him and there’s a flutter in her chest, not from the sea breeze.

Maybe it’s the sun, or maybe it’s the years, but she feels a little brave.

“Would you like to get dinner?”

His eyes meet hers.

A breath. A heartbeat. Then, “I’d like that.”

-

Draco

Draco’s mirror flickers to life with Blaise’s perpetually smug face taking up far too much of the frame.

“I heard the great news,” Blaise says without so much as a hello. “Dinner with Granger. It’s about bloody time.”

Draco sighs, already rubbing at his temple. “Is there some sort of newsletter I’m not subscribed to?”

“It’s called Theo,” Blaise replies. “He’s been narrating your love life like it’s a miniseries with a limited budget and too much sexual tension.”

“Lovely,” Draco deadpans. “Well, tell Theo to find a new hobby. He’s been unbearable all week.”

“About that,” Blaise says, leaning in like he’s about to deliver state secrets. “I want in on the dinner too.”

Draco blinks. “Absolutely not. It’s already going to be crowded.”

“If Zoe and Adrian can invite themselves, I don’t see why I can’t.”

“They didn’t invite themselves, they, wait. How do you even know that?”

“See previous answer: Theo.”

Draco scowls. “Theo called the restaurant and expanded the reservation.”

“Resourceful man,” Blaise says, nodding approvingly. “I’ll just tag along.”

“Fine,” Draco mutters. “You call and make the reservation for ten.”

Blaise raises a brow. “Make it twelve. I’m coming with Allegra. We’re picking up Fin.”

Draco pauses. “Congratulations. That’s… happening?”

A grin spreads slowly across Blaise’s face, and, for once, it’s not all sarcasm. “Yeah,” he says. “No really going back now.”

Draco stares at him a moment longer, then huffs a dry laugh. “Well. That’s one reunion no one bet on.”

“Least of all me,” Blaise says with a shrug. “But maybe it’s the season for lost causes and comebacks.”

Draco eyes his reflection, straightens his collar, and mutters, “Here’s hoping.”

-

The table is a controlled storm of laughter, side conversations, and the clinking of too many glasses. It’s the kind of reunion that happens when enough time has passed for everyone to pretend like they’ve matured.

Hermione and Draco sit side by side, separating children and chaos, barely able to exchange more than a glance or the occasional amused sigh.

Across from them, Isla is doing a poor job of hiding her fascination with Scorpius, who, true to form, remains effortlessly oblivious.

Rowan elbows Jude, whispering not-so-quietly, “She’s staring again.”

Jude smirks. “Should we ask if they want us to swap seats?”

Isla kicks them both under the table. “You’re embarrassing yourselves.”

“Oh, we’re the ones embarrassing ourselves?” Rowan grins. “Tell that to your diary,”

“Don’t you dare!”

Meanwhile, Fin has abandoned his chair entirely and is now half on Scorpius’s lap like a particularly affectionate Kneazle.

Scorpius offers him a sugar-dusted lemon drop. “Don’t tell your mum.”

“I won’t!” Fin says gleefully, licking the sugar from his fingers.

Theo, overhearing from down the table, raises his wine glass. “Finally! So it’s okay for him to spoil the tiny overlord!”

“That’s not funny,” Allegra says, casting him a sharp look.

Blaise, clinks his glass with a spoon. “If I may interrupt the madness, Fin’s going to be a big brother.”

Silence.

Theo blinks. “From who? It’s not me this time. I’ve been saving myself for Adrian.”

Zoe, without looking up, hurls a roll at him with deadly precision.

Fin gasps delightedly and launches a piece of bread like it’s a Quaffle. It hits Draco, who barely blinks, only flicks his wand to bounce it harmlessly into Theo’s wine.

“Finnick,” Allegra warns calm and deadly.

Fin freezes mid-chew and mumbles, “Shite.”

Everyone pauses.

Another roll hits Theo square in the chest, this one clearly from Allegra.

Hermione leans toward Draco, her voice barely above the din. “So. Dinner.”

“Another night?” he murmurs, lips close to her ear, half smiling.

“Definitely another night.”

They clink their glasses quietly.

-

The following night, after some slightly stealthy maneuvers, dinner take two commences, with just them. No kids, no reunions, but theirs.

The cobbled street glows amber under the setting sun, the scent of lemon trees and roasted garlic drifting on the breeze. Hermione and Draco walk side by side, arms brushing. They pass a street performer, not the usual knife-juggler or fire-breather Draco used to be so inexplicably fascinated by.

This man plays a cello, and the deep, mellow tones pour into the air like liquid memory.

Draco slows, fishing in his pocket. He tosses a worn ten-pound muggle note into the open case. “Well, that’s hardly enough for your talent,” he mutters half to himself, and then offers Hermione his hand.

She arches a brow. “What are you doing?”

“Dancing,” he replies easily. “Unless you’re going to make me do it alone and embarrass us both.”

She huffs a laugh, slipping her hand into his. “I can’t remember the last time I danced in the street.”

“I can,” Draco says, guiding her in a slow sway. “You were sunburned, barefoot, and swore I had two left feet.”

“Not entirely accurate.”

Hermione smiles, eyes catching his in the fading light. “We’ve already talked about the kids,” she says softly. “Mine are navigating life. Yours is halfway to being Headmaster.”

“He’d do it for the drama alone.”

“And we’ve talked about work, your move to the private sector, me still plugging away at the Ministry. Can’t believe we never crossed paths in all that time.”

“You say that like it wasn’t on purpose,” Draco says with a crooked smile.

She laughs. “Was it?”

He shrugs. “Not entirely.”

They fall quiet again, letting the cello fill the silence.

Then he leans in, dry as ever: “We’ve also covered the weather, which I think is where all great reconnections peak.”

Hermione lets out a breathy laugh. “I really did go on about it like it was a matter of national importance, didn’t I?”

Draco smirks. “You were quite passionate about rain patterns. I half-expected you to pull out your petition to the Italian Ministry for a ban on summer humidity.”

She groans, face flushed. “In my defense, it has been an unusually stormy summer in Italy.”

He surprises her by not teasing further. Instead, his voice softens. “It has,” he says. “Stormier than usual. But… maybe it’s clear skies from now on.”

She looks up at him, startled by a sincerity that could mean more than the weather. Their steps falter slightly, but only to realign, closer this time. Her eyes are luminous, wide with something like hope, and he doesn’t look away. Doesn’t retreat behind a smirk or sarcasm or the prickling fear that he’s misreading everything.

He lets it show. The truth, the wanting.

They’re still moving, barely more than a rock back and forth now, the music long since faded, the cellist taking a break. She glances around and then back up at him, eyes twinkling.

“Draco,” she says, “the music stopped.”

It hits him like a ripple beneath the surface, subtle but undeniable. She called him Draco.

Not Malfoy. Not Aster. Not some careful, deliberate mask. Just Draco.

His breath hitches, but he doesn’t let it show. He doesn’t point it out or make a joke, doesn’t even let a smirk curl too far into his lips. Instead, he absorbs it like warmth from the sun after too many overcast years. He tells himself that they’re older now, more mature. That names don’t carry the same weight they used to.

But his heart knows better.

His gaze lingers on her mouth, soft, parted in thought, then her eyes.

“Maybe,” he murmurs, “I don’t want the dance to end this time.”

She doesn’t answer for a moment, his heart trips in his chest, but then her fingers tighten around his, wordlessly.

He watches her face in the quiet between words, that Italian golden-hour glow softening every edge of the years they've lost. His voice is low, his words deliberate.

“I never should’ve pretended,” Draco says, thumb brushing over her knuckles. “The name was a lie. But who I was with you… that was me. Maybe the best me I’ve ever been.” He swallows. “And I wanted nothing more than your happiness. Even if it meant you’d find it without me.”

His hand lowers, tentative, and finds her wrist, fingertips brushing against her skin until they find it. The bracelet. Disillusioned, but still humming faintly with the charm he had anchored there himself, long ago. He exhales in something between awe and disbelief.

“You still wear it?” he asks softly.

Hermione lets out the tiniest laugh, barely more than breath. “You still wear the cufflinks.”

He smirks faintly, lowering her hand with reverence. “Only for special occasions.”

She arches an eyebrow, amused, “Why, after all this time?”

He doesn’t dodge the question. “Because it was the second-best gift I’ve ever received.”

That stills her. “And the first?”

Draco’s mouth twitches, not quite a smile. “A cake I never even got to taste,” he says, voice quiet, “but obviously made with love.”

They both pause. A memory resurfaces, sweet, messy, fleeting.

Hermione blinks slowly, “It was,” she says simply.

And before he can think, before either of them can retreat behind reason or regret, Draco leans forward, just barely. A question more than a move.

Cautiously, hesitantly, his lips touch hers.

And when she parts her lips, inviting him in, not Aster, but as Draco. He follows, and now, he doesn’t pretend.

Chapter Text

Hermione,

I owe you truth, though I gave you deception first. I cannot dress it as anything other than it was: a coward’s attempt to be someone else, to step outside the shadow of my past. Yes, I changed my name. Yes, I let that falsehood linger between us. But what began in pretense became the one thing I have ever known with absolute certainty: you.

What was meant to be a borrowed season, a fragile illusion I convinced myself I could have for just a moment. Yet you made it real. Every word, every glance, every time you laughed as though the world could not hold you, you pulled me in, and I find myself unwilling, unable, to let go.

You have altered me, Hermione, in ways I cannot undo, nor would I ever wish to. Where I was resigned to shadows, you taught me how to stand in the light without flinching. Where I carried the cold weight of the past, you gave me the warmth of the present. You are unforgettable, not for what you did, but for who you are, and for how you saw me.

I want the summer to be more than memory. I need it to be more than illusion. I need it to be real, to last, to continue beyond the shifting days. However you would have me in your life, in friendship, in companionship, or in something I scarcely dare name, I will take it. For it is not enough to remember you. I want to remain.

With all that I am, changed and unchanging,

Draco