Hermione Granger sighed for what felt like the five hundredth time, shaking the stack of catalogue cards in her hand.
She knew she was not a melancholic person by nature — it simply wasn't like her — but Draco had been so despondent lately that she had grown somewhat despondent as well.
He seemed not to have laughed genuinely in a very long time.
He seemed to be retreating back into that false shell of his, behind that indifferent mask, as though hoping to conceal himself and his thoughts so that no one could get close to him.
You never truly know what Draco Malfoy's mind is doing when he's working through something, Hermione thought helplessly.
One day, during a break between Arithmancy and Divination, he asked her, "What's going on with that Muggle Studies professor? Why does she always seem to want to talk to you?"
"Oh, we were just discussing some interesting ideas. You know I've taken her classes before," Hermione said happily. "I've always liked her. She has a wonderful perspective on things — very witty."
"Try not to talk to her too much, all right? A lot of people will notice." He frowned. "Keep your distance. I think she sometimes doesn't fully grasp what she's saying or doing. She's completely academic and has no political sense whatsoever. Honestly, she acts rather recklessly."
"I don't understand what you mean. Why should we keep our distance from her?" Hermione replied, bewildered by his harsh assessment of Professor Bubbaggie. "She's a Hogwarts professor — a scholar with a distinguished career in Muggle Studies! Isn't an exploratory spirit perfectly natural for someone in her field? Who expects a professor to think like a politician?"
"You don't understand," he said sadly, as if trapped in some private dilemma.
"Then tell me," Hermione said, eager to debate him as usual — but no response came for a long time.
She looked over and realised he was lost in thought, gazing at the lush green grounds beyond the window, seemingly oblivious to everything she'd said.
He was always drifting like that. Sometimes, mid-conversation, he would stop smiling and let his gaze wander to some distant point in the crowd.
He had even grown hesitant to kiss her. Several times she had sat beside him, leaning against his chest, looking up at him with the same warmth as always — and he would simply ruffle her hair with one hand and turn over a catalogue card with the other, lost in thought and silent.
"Draco, are you all right?" She tried her best to keep her voice cheerful.
"It's fine," he said sadly, offering her a faint smile.
Anyone could see the strain in him — and Hermione was no exception.
"I'm starting to wonder if something's wrong between us," Hermione confided to Ginny, a hint of melancholy in her voice. "He's not as warm as he used to be, and whenever he looks at me there's something evasive in his expression — like he's tired."
"It's barely been two months!" Ginny said, surprised. "Have you already hit a rough patch?"
"A rough patch?" Hermione repeated. "That's a bit unsettling."
"It's normal. Couples who get together on the back of a ball tend to come to their senses around this time — realise their values don't quite align and part ways sensibly." Ginny said it plainly. "Several couples in our year have already split. Relationships built on a moment's infatuation rarely last."
"Ginny, I'm not that shallow! And neither is he!" Hermione said vehemently. "Yes, I think he's handsome — I'll admit that freely — but neither of us are the sort to make reckless decisions on a whim!"
"Then what are you so worried about?" Ginny said, her gaze drifting to Harry's retreating figure across the common room.
Hermione followed her line of sight — and her breath caught.
Harry. Slumped. Dejected.
In an instant, she understood.
Harry's scar.
It had all begun after Draco learned that Harry's scar was hurting again. This had nothing to do with any rough patch — it never had. It was always about that wretched, painful scar.
"The scar," she whispered. "I think I know what's been troubling him."
She remembered: the moment Draco had first heard about Harry's scar, his very first words to her had been — "Oh, Hermione, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry to have dragged you into all of this."
What had she said back?
"What has this got to do with me, you fool? We should be worried about Harry," she'd told him, confident and unflinching. "We need to keep him on his guard, don't we?"
"Yes, yes," he'd murmured quietly, and that was the end of it.
Revisiting the memory now, Hermione rummaged through her pile of catalogue cards, puzzled and uneasy.
She could understand his worry — she felt it too. But why in Merlin's name would he feel sorry for her?
That same afternoon, after her Defence Against the Dark Arts class, she'd wanted to have a proper conversation with him — but Sirius Black had appeared and called him away before she could.
"Wait for me in the card catalogue room, all right?" A strained smile played on Draco's lips, but his grey eyes, fixed on her, were as gentle as ever. He lowered his voice. "I have to go speak with him. I won't be long."
"All right," Hermione said, studying his slightly pale face and willing herself to sound bright. "I have something I want to tell you when you're back."
He nodded, quickly fell into step behind Sirius, and was gone.
Hermione watched his tall, lean figure disappear, her gaze more resolute than ever.
She was going to tell him one thing: he could not presumptuously push her away simply because some dark wizard might still be alive. Hermione Granger would not accept Draco Malfoy's attempts at self-imposed distance on such absurd grounds.
---
After his conversation with Sirius, Draco made his way to the library as quickly as he could.
He moved through the leafy grounds and the bustle of students, detached from Hogwarts's worrisome spring, blind to the blossoms opening around him.
What could be done? Under the invisible shadow of the Dark Lord, all brightness was tinged grey.
Just like the weather at that moment — a light drizzle had begun to fall, dampening everyone's spirits.
He drew a deep breath, carefully composing his expression, and stepped into the quiet, empty library. He wound his way through several turns and slipped into the card catalogue room.
The place was transformed. No longer dusty, but spotless. His girl stood slender beside a row of shelves in her white blouse and black school skirt, carefully stretching onto her toes to reach a stack of yellowed catalogue cards.
He reached over her shoulder and took them down for her.
Hermione turned. Her eyes lit up. "You're back."
"Yes," he said softly, his gaze full of something that hurt him to feel.
"How did the talk with Sirius go?" she asked, her voice easy and relaxed.
The hands she'd quietly clasped behind her back, however — white-knuckled — told him she was nowhere near as unbothered as she appeared.
Draco sighed. He reached for her tightly clenched hand, gently pried her fingers open, and laced them through his own, freeing her palm from the small marks her nails had left there.
He had noticed long ago that Hermione Granger picked at her palms when she was anxious.
"Is it bad?" she pressed, her thumb sliding nervously along the edge of his hand.
"We need to talk properly," Draco said in a low voice.
He led her in silence through several shelves to an old sofa, cleaned long ago by one of her Scourgify charms. He set the catalogue cards aside and drew her down beside him.
He told her everything Sirius had said — his fingers moving absently through her thick, dark hair — and watched her cheerful expression slowly turn grave.
"Our concerns are valid. Our thinking is correct," Hermione said, frowning.
She was nestled in the crook of his arm, watching him with warm brown eyes. He looked back at her, his expression unreadable.
Hermione knew what lay beneath it. He was calculating. Weighing.
"Draco, no," she said urgently, gripping his arm. "Don't."
"I haven't said anything yet —" He looked genuinely startled, a flash of panic crossing his face.
"It's written all over you. You want to push me away, don't you? The moment anything connected to You-Know-Who surfaces, you start pulling back. It was the same at the Astronomy Tower last year — the moment he escaped, you were already trying to put distance between us." She fixed him with a hard look. "Whenever you run into something you can't solve, your first instinct is to push me away."
"I —" He tried to argue, and couldn't.
"Don't you think that's terribly unfair?" she said. "You're making decisions for me without once asking what I want."
"Hermione, I never meant to disrespect you. It's only — you know what I'm involved in, and you know how dangerous it is. Beyond that, I'd respect your wishes in every other thing." He said it with difficulty, bitterness rising in his throat. "But I can't let you walk into this danger."
"Ridiculous! I won't be fobbed off with such a ridiculous excuse!" Hermione's expression was fierce. "I'll stay with you. I'm not afraid of him."
"That's because you don't know how terrible he truly is, or what lies ahead —" he whispered, and despite himself, something warm and guilty rose in him at the steadiness of her voice.
"Draco Malfoy! Don't you dare play the 'I'll handle this alone, I won't drag you into it' game. Don't even think about sending me away. I am not some owl you can summon and dismiss at will. I want to be with you." Her bright, clear eyes were blazing, and he found it utterly captivating.
"Hermione," he said, his voice unsteady. "Am I truly worth this much to you?"
He looked at her blankly, kissed her cheek, and didn't know what to do with her.
"Of course you are — always. I love you, Draco Malfoy, more than you know —" A tear welled in the girl's eyes and she pressed on, voice catching, "It might sound foolish, but I can't imagine being without you. I want to help. Look —"
She pointed to a small, neatly arranged stack of catalogue cards in the corner. Sniffling, she said, "Those are the ones I found. Books Tom Riddle borrowed. They're useful. I can help you."
"You silly thing — what nonsense are you on about? I have never once thought you useless." Draco was shaken to his core. He reached up to brush the tears from her cheeks, but the more he wiped, the more fell — until his own eyes grew wet and, before he quite knew it, he was crying as well.
She panicked immediately. Forgetting her own tears, she reached up to wipe his.
"Draco — why are you crying too?" she asked, voice thick, pressing her wet cheek against his.
"It's nothing. I'm just — so relieved, Hermione. Merlin, I don't want to let you go. Not even a little." He held her close and tight, as if the thought of loosening his grip was unbearable.
He simply could not bring himself to be cruel to her. Her tears alone sent him into a complete panic.
"Hermione, I'm a terrible person. I'm selfish. I'm walking a tightrope — one wrong step and I fall." His voice came to her in fragments, trembling against her shoulder. "Even my parents might not understand what I'm doing. They might be against me. Do you understand what that means? Being with me is harder and more dangerous than being with any other boy. I don't want you to suffer any of that. And I'm starting to be afraid — afraid that one day you'll hate me for having dragged you into all of this."
Hermione patted his back, her heart aching at this unfamiliar vulnerability in him.
"No, Draco. You're being an absolute idiot." She poured her heart into it, speaking quickly into his reddening ear. "I'll never hate you. No matter what happens, I'll always be on your side. You're the best boy I know. I like you so much. Only you."
"But you don't understand — there are so many things —" He lifted his head to look at her, struggling to speak, and she pressed a finger to his lips. He stared at her. Her eyes were full of love. Every word he'd been about to say dissolved.
"Seeing you in the library every day is the happiest part of my life," Hermione said softly. "I love your kisses. I love it when you put your arm around my waist and walk me through the castle. I love it when you hold me and tell me things. I'll never hate you."
She stroked his hair gently, the way one might calm a large and dramatic cat, and occasionally pressed her lips to his forehead, his nose, his cheek, coaxing the pessimistic boy back toward something resembling peace.
Draco, of course, fell for it entirely. He always did.
He was undone by her direct praise, by her unhesitating confession, by the fact that she was the one reaching for him. It seemed he hadn't kissed her properly in days — perhaps it felt like longer — not because he hadn't wanted to, but because he'd been too afraid of what lay beyond the moment. Too afraid of growing closer and then losing her.
But she had given him no room to dwell in that fear. Her clarity, her candour, her utter steadfastness — it was a slow-acting enchantment, and he was long past immune.
The shadow of the Dark Lord crouching at the back of his mind was pushed aside, for the moment, by the warmth of her.
"I like all of those things you mentioned," he said, looking into her eyes, his own still a little bright. "Kissing. Holding you close." His voice dropped. "Right now I want to pull you to me and kiss you properly. The way we did — behind the tapestry."
Hermione's mouth fell open. Her cheeks went scarlet in an instant.
"Draco — we don't talk about that!" She scrambled off his lap and stood before him, breathless, like a startled rabbit with no idea which way to bolt.
"Don't think about running." He was on his feet in a second, catching her hand and drawing her back with composed efficiency that left her no avenue of escape.
Strange — Hermione could see the slow movement of his throat as he swallowed, every small detail sharp and clear, like a thread pulling taut around her heart.
"The truth is, I enjoyed that kiss," Draco said, watching her expression with great attention. "Didn't you?"
"Of course I did, but it was so —" She was pressed firmly against him and tried, without success, to maintain some small distance between them.
They were very close. Close enough to feel each other's breath and the faint cedar warmth that always seemed to linger about him.
She looked up at his face and was immediately caught in his gaze — which had already caught the full picture of her flushed, shy, thoroughly undone expression.
"Too much?" he asked, with an infuriating lift of one eyebrow.
"Too —" She opened her mouth, mind scrambling for the right word.
While she was still searching for it, they were somehow already back on the sofa. By the time Hermione gathered herself, she found that the thoroughly cunning boy had arranged things so that she was sitting astride him.
How had that happened? This felt entirely different from sitting sideways. Her face was on fire.
"How embarrassing," she finally managed — though she couldn't have said whether she meant the night of the Christmas Ball or her current predicament.
Draco raised an eyebrow.
"A fair description. It is a bit much." He leaned close to her ear, voice low with barely concealed mischief. "However, I need just one small kiss to settle my nerves. You wouldn't refuse me, would you, Hermione — you, who quite likes my kisses?"
When he drew back and looked at her, his expression had softened into something quietly yearning.
Hermione was still caught in the cedar warmth, but that look undid her completely. Blushing, she nodded.
So he abandoned all restraint. He gripped her waist with both hands, pulled her against him, and kissed her — gently at first, soft and deliberate, with all the tenderness of someone who had convinced himself he was about to let her go and had been proved entirely wrong.
After everything they had been through, the relief of still having her here was overwhelming. The fear of losing her, the joy of knowing she loved him, the warmth of her steadfast refusal to leave — all of it surged through him at once.
She felt it too. The fervour with which she kissed him back left no doubt about that.
She gave him her full weight. Her taut shoulders relaxed. A small sound escaped her, barely audible, and his patience lasted approximately as long as it always did.
Naive girl — just one small kiss? Had she truly expected a Malfoy to stop there?
Under his unhurried, deliberate attention, the kiss deepened from something gentle into something that left no question as to how much he had missed her.
Before long they were thoroughly and skillfully entangled — much like their fate, which had never shown any interest in being simple.
Hermione traced his jaw with her fingertips and kissed him back with everything she had.
Her heart was pounding. Not only from the intensity of their earlier conversation or those startling tears, but because he had said it aloud, so freely — that he wanted to kiss her deeply. He had even said tapestry. That single word, like a dripping tap, had been quite enough to make her feel unsteady on her feet.
She had always been quietly ashamed of one thing: she was not nearly as composed as she appeared. There lived inside her a wild and wilful version of herself who found her own unguarded moments far less alarming than she should have.
That version of her was very pleased right now.
After some time, a sharp clatter — the stack of catalogue cards swept from the sofa to the floor — startled them both back to their senses.
Hermione opened hazy eyes. The world slowly came back into focus.
She became aware, with a rush of heat to her face, of just how close they were. She shifted — and the slight movement drew a sharp exhale from the boy in front of her, a burning flush spreading across his face.
"Sorry. Give me a moment," Draco said, his voice rough. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her shoulder, unwilling to let her see his expression.
This did not especially resolve the situation. Her scent rose from the curve of her neck, and he had to exert considerable willpower to hold very still.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly.
"Oh — it's fine," Hermione said faintly, caught in an awkward and thoroughly unprecedented predicament.
If he hadn't been holding her, she thought she might simply have slid to the floor.
An odd feeling moved through her — something trembling and fearful and anticipatory all at once.
In her confusion, she bit her lower lip and focused her attention on his platinum hair, determined to make it considerably messier.
"I thought for a moment our relationship had hit a wall," she murmured.
"You were overthinking," he said, sounding strained. "You silly girl — you really should be smarter than that —"
"Yes, be smarter — keep my distance from you, instead of being —" She took a careful breath, acutely aware of his hands. "Completely at your mercy."
"This was not what I intended when I came to find you," he said quietly, still not letting go.
"I know." She tilted her head to look at him. "But do you like it?"
"I love it," came the low reply, against her collarbone. "Could we kiss again later? I like this. Unless you'd rather —"
She heard him draw a slow breath. His warmth pressed against her collar.
"Why wouldn't I?" Hermione said, with a fearlessness that surprised even herself. "I never said I didn't like it."
A soft laugh from him. "Hermione Granger — sometimes you are astonishingly bold."
"Oh, do shut up, Draco Malfoy," she said, exasperated but smiling, resting her chin on his hair.
He laughed — a real laugh, full and unguarded, the kind she had been longing to hear.
It was in that moment that Draco understood, with perfect clarity, that he could not bring himself to let her go. Not now. Not even a little.
His mind had no room, at that moment, for the drizzle beyond the window or the unsettling spring outside.
He was too busy living it.
A restless, luminous, rain-soft spring.