Chapter Text
Hermione Granger had become frighteningly good at pretending she was fine.
It was a skill cultivated slowly, over years of smiling through war briefings, hiding tears at funerals, gritting her teeth through Ministry hearings and endless post-war reconstruction meetings where everyone spoke in clipped tones, as though composure alone was holding the country together.
Even in the quiet of her own office, tucked away in the corner of the DMLE, Hermione never let the pretence drop.
See, much to her chagrin, Hermione had never quite mastered the art of Occlumency, so hiding her feelings away like this still took effort. The redirection, compartmentalisation, burial of emotion, was not quite second nature, so she made sure to keep busy. Distraction was the best kind of medicine.
She buried herself beneath schedules and paperwork and deadlines until there was scarcely any room left in her mind for anything else.
It was easier that way.
If she kept moving, she did not have to think too closely about the quiet of her flat when she returned home at night. Or the way she still instinctively reached for a second mug whenever she made tea before remembering there was no one else there to drink it.
Work helped.
Work always helped.
Setting up a whole new office in the DMLE was a lot of work, but it was necessary work. After the war, the ministry started seizing possessions and property from any supporter of Voldemort, but with nothing to do with them and nowhere for them to go, they were kept in containment in the Department of Mysteries. Naturally, this presented a problem once families like the Notts donated entire vaults worth of cursed objects.
Hence, the creation of the Office for Cursed Artifact Regulation.
Today’s disaster involved a cursed jewellery ledger recovered from Knockturn Alley that had attempted to bite three Aurors and successfully hospitalised one junior clerk.
Hermione had spent the better part of six hours disentangling layered enchantments from parchment that shrieked every time she touched it incorrectly.
The ledger sat sulking inside a containment case at the edge of her desk now, its brass clasp twitching occasionally in what Hermione suspected was resentment.
"You are being incredibly dramatic," she informed it tiredly.
The clasp snapped at her.
Hermione sighed and rubbed at her eyes beneath the dim golden glow of her desk lamp.
Outside her office windows, London had dissolved into cold November rain sometime around four o’clock. The Ministry corridors beyond her door had long since quieted, most employees apparating home hours ago to spouses and children and dinners and lives that existed outside fluorescent lighting and cursed paperwork.
Hermione remained exactly where she was. A stack of unfinished reports sat precariously near her elbow. Three Ministry memos awaited signatures. A half-drunk cup of tea had gone cold nearly an hour earlier.
She reached for it anyway. The tea tasted faintly of regret.
With a sigh, she picked up her quill and continued writing her report. While the Office of Cursed Artifact Regulation was initially under the Department of Mysteries, Robards had moved her into the DMLE after a raid on Lestrange Manor uncovered thousands of cursed objects, effectively hospitalising half his task force. And while Hermione was grateful to have more money at her disposal for tools and outside opinions, she did not appreciate the stacks of paperwork that had to be filed after every curse was broken.
Still, focus was safer than thinking.
Thinking led to spiralling, and spiralling inevitably led to Ron.
Which was ridiculous, honestly. The breakup had happened three months ago. Quietly. Mutually, if one was being technical about it. There had been no screaming rows or shattered dishes or dramatic betrayals.
Just the slow, painful realization that loving someone did not necessarily mean you could build a life with them.
Hermione still wasn’t entirely sure when they had started making each other unhappy. Perhaps they always had, a little. The thought sat unpleasantly in her chest.
She pressed harder against the parchment.
The truth was, the breakup itself had almost been a relief. The aftermath, however, had been unexpectedly humiliating.
Everywhere Hermione went lately, she felt as though she was arriving after the conversation had already happened. Friends grew oddly careful around her. Invitations became gentler, less automatic. People watched her too closely whenever Ron’s name surfaced in conversation, as though she might shatter at any moment.
Ginny, especially, had mastered the deeply irritating habit of looking at Hermione with naked concern every time they met for drinks. As though Hermione were some tragic Victorian widow instead of a woman with a demanding career and perfectly functional emotional regulation. Mostly functional.
Hermione shifted in her chair and rolled tension from the back of her neck with a wince. The movement pulled unpleasantly at the muscles in her shoulders.
She was exhausted.
Not physically, exactly. Just worn thin. Like butter scraped over too much bread, her mind supplied unhelpfully.
Hermione glared vaguely at nothing.
Living alone probably wasn’t helping matters. Her flat in Bloomsbury remained painfully untouched by another person’s presence — too tidy, too quiet, too careful. Some nights she found herself leaving the wireless on simply to fill the silence.
Pathetic.
With an irritated huff, Hermione shoved the containment report aside and reached for another file.
"You look dreadful."
She glanced up to find Harry standing in the doorway of her office, tie crooked, Auror robes half-undone, holding two takeaway coffees.
"You continue to be unbelievably charming," she muttered.
"You continue to look dreadful," he replied, setting one of the cups down in front of her.
Hermione accepted it with a grateful hum anyway.
Expecting him to leave, as he usually did, she turned back to the stack of reports. Harry lingered. Immediately suspicious, Hermione raised her gaze again.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Harry." He exhaled through his nose and dropped into the chair opposite her desk with all the enthusiasm of a man approaching his own execution, "what happened?"
"Nothing happened," Harry said quickly. "It’s just—I spoke to Molly yesterday."
Hermione’s stomach tightened instinctively.
Harry looked profoundly uncomfortable now, rubbing the back of his neck the way he always did when trapped in social situations he couldn’t hex his way out of.
And suddenly she knew.
"Oh."
"Ron's bringing someone to Sunday dinner." Harry grimaced.
Hermione looked down at her coffee. "That's fine." It was going to happen eventually.
“And Molly just thinks—”
“That it might be awkward.”
Harry winced.
Hermione took a careful sip before responding because she had spent years perfecting composure and intended to die before surrendering it now.
“That’s perfectly reasonable.”
“It’s not Ron, honestly,” Harry said immediately. “He said he doesn’t care. He actually seemed confused anyone thought it would matter.”
That somehow made it worse.
Hermione smiled anyway, "Molly’s right. I'll pass on this one."
Harry's brows furrowed further. "Are you sure? Even after - you know - you're still family, 'Mione."
Hermione sighed, the kind of sigh that escapes when one was weary of the world, "I know, Harry."
"Me and Gin don't have to go. We could do a small dinner at Grimmauld Place. It won't be a Molly Roast but I can do something small. Salmon or something?"
"Of course, you and Ginny have to go, Harry. It's fine. I'm fine."
Harry didn't look convinced.
"Have you met her?"
"Olivia?" Well, that answers that question. "Yeah, we ran into them at the Leaky Cauldron. She's nice. Trainee Healer at Mungo's."
Hermione smiled. She expected jealousy to pierce her heart, but it didn't.
That was the humiliating part.
Hermione did not want Ron back. She knew that with a bone-deep certainty that surprised even her sometimes. Their breakup had not been explosive enough for hatred. It had simply been two people exhausting themselves trying to force something into existence because history demanded it.
In fact, the two of them were better for it - conversation flowing better than it had in years. But, things were always going to change. Hermione had just been fooling herself that perhaps it wouldn't. But the Burrow was no longer hers. Now there was apparently another girl sitting in her seat at Sunday dinner while Molly worried Hermione’s presence might make her uncomfortable.
Something sharp lodged itself quietly beneath Hermione’s ribs.
Harry was still watching her carefully. His eyes flicked to her desk.
"What's that?"
Hermione didn't even look towards it. "Nothing."
The answer came too fast.
"That sounded suspiciously like something."
"It isn't."
But his eyes had already caught on the cream-coloured envelope half-hidden beneath a paperweight. He crossed the room before she could stop him, plucking it neatly from the desk.
"Harry! That's private."
He ignored her completely.
“Since when do you get mysterious handwritten invitations?” He turned the envelope over. “And why does the handwriting look smug?”
“Give it back.”
He unfolded the card anyway.
Hermione felt her stomach tighten.
Harry scanned the page in silence for a moment before one eyebrow lifted.
“Oh.”
Hermione crossed her arms. “Oh?”
“You’re invited to Theodore Nott’s birthday.”
"It's just a birthday."
Harry looked at her incredulously. Re-opening the letter, he began to read aloud.
Dearest Hermione, the light of my life,
You are cordially invited to the birthday of the marvellous, the magical,
the mystic Theodore Nott.
April 1st, 8pm. Don't be late. Or do, personally I love to make an entrance.
Formal-ish attire, interpret however you like,
I enjoy confusion aesthetically.
I am excited to see you there, gorgeous girl.
All my Love, Theo
"Doesn't sound like just a birthday. Something you need to tell me?" Harry tried, and failed to wiggle his eyebrows.
Hermione swiped the invite out of his hands. "Idiot. Don't you read?"
"That's what I have you for." Hermione slapped his arm, "Ow!"
"Theo doesn't swing my way, idiot." Harry's jaw dropped. "Which you would know if you read the Prophet or Witch Weekly or anything at all really."
"Doubt I would've got that from the Quidditch Times."
Hermione slapped him again.
"Hey!" He rubbed his arm, "You have to go."
"I am going."
"No, you're considering going," Harry corrected.
"Which means you’re already halfway to inventing an excuse not to."
"That is not true."
Harry gestured broadly to the avalanche of paperwork surrounding her. "Hermione, you’ve been buried in Ministry files for three weeks. At this point, I’m worried your bloodstream has turned into ink."
"That is medically impossible."
"If anyone could do it, it would be you- please don't hit me again."
She narrowed her eyes at him, but he only grinned.
"I’m serious," he said, softer now. "Go to the party."
Hermione exhaled through her nose. "What if it's not fun?"
"You don’t know that it won't be."
"Yes, I do."
A soft smile spread across Harry's face. "You like Theo."
Her expression flickered for half a second too long.
Harry immediately pointed at her. "There. That face. Exactly that face."
"I did not make a face."
"You absolutely made a face."
"I don't know anyone there," Hermione muttered, changing the subject. "What if I get trapped in a dull conversation about wine and chateaus and investment opportunities?"
Harry shrugged. "Then stay an hour, insult somebody subtly, drink expensive champagne, and leave."
Despite herself, Hermione let out the faintest laugh.
Harry smiled, quieter this time.
"Best case," he said, "you actually enjoy yourself for once. Worst case, you come home early and complain to me tomorrow. Either way, it’s better than watching you slowly fuse to your desk chair."
Hermione looked down at the invitation again.
Then back at him.
"You’re annoyingly persistent."
"I learned from the best."
At seven forty-two, Hermione was still stood barefoot in the centre of her bedroom, surrounded by the casualties of her wardrobe. A black skirt hung half-off her desk chair. Two blouses lay abandoned across the floor. One earring had vanished entirely.
The dark green dress she'd bought specifically for today remained draped over her duvet like an accusation.
It was objectively beautiful.
Bias-cut silk. Low back. Thin straps. The sort of dress that seemed designed for women who moved through rooms effortlessly. Women who leaned against bars laughing softly into champagne glasses. Women who knew what to do with their hands.
She'd bought the dress in Woolworth's because she'd fallen in love with it the minute she'd seen it. It was beautiful, luxurious silk that draped across her body and the saleswoman had practically begged her to take it home.
Since then, she’d tried it on exactly twice.
Both times she’d stared at herself too long in the mirror and felt something cold settle beneath her ribs.
Not ugly.
That would have been easier.
Just…wrong somehow.
Too aware of every inch of exposed skin. Too conscious of the line of her shoulders, the tension in her posture, the way she never quite looked relaxed inside her own body.
Other women seemed to inhabit femininity naturally. Hermione always felt like she was translating it from another language.
With mounting irritation, she turned away from the mirror and reached automatically for her black jeans draped across the chair.
Safe. Familiar. Invisible.
Her fingers curled around the denim before she stopped.
Because suddenly the exhaustion hit her all at once. Not physical exhaustion, a deeper kind. The exhaustion of constantly worrying about how other people perceived her, what other's thought, whether they liked her.
Slowly, Hermione let her eyes drag back to the dress.
The room was quiet except for the rain tapping softly against the windows.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she muttered to herself.
Her jeans fell back onto the chair and before she could change her mind again, she picked up the green dress and pulled it on.
The silk settled cool against her skin.
Hermione looked up reluctantly.
The woman in the mirror still looked tense. Still looked uncertain. But she also looked...
Good.
Not effortlessly beautiful. Not dazzling. But, good.
For one terrifying moment, she allowed herself to stand there without immediately searching for flaws.
Then her nerves returned in full force.
“Brilliant,” she said grimly to her reflection. “Now you only have to survive the actual party.”
At eight nineteen, Hermione apparated outside Theo Nott’s townhouse in Notting Hill and immediately considered apparating home again.
The building itself was absurdly beautiful.
Tall Georgian windows glowed amber against the dark London street. Music drifted faintly from somewhere inside—something jazzy and low. Laughter echoed briefly as the front door opened and closed again.
Everyone inside probably looked effortless.
Hermione suddenly became acutely aware of the simple green silk of her dress, her basic black heels that she'd owned since she was fifteen, and the simple cardigan she'd pulled on just before she left the house.
She took a shaky breath. You are a grown woman, she reminded herself sternly.
You have negotiated international cursed-object legislation.
You once made Lucius Malfoy visibly afraid of you in a Ministry corridor.
You can attend a birthday party.
The front door swung open before she could lose her nerve completely. Theodore Nott leaned lazily against the doorway, wine glass balanced in one hand.
Of course he looked offensively elegant.
Dark charcoal jumper. Sleeves pushed to his forearms. Black trousers tailored to perfection. The sort of understated wealth Hermione had learned was somehow more alarming than obvious wealth.
His gaze landed on her. Then paused. Very briefly.
Not in a vulgar way. Not exaggerated. But enough for Hermione to feel heat crawl abruptly up her neck.
“Well, well, well,” Theo drawled softly, one eyebrow lifting, “look what the Kneazle dragged in.”
Hermione folded her arms instinctively before remembering the dress made the gesture look ridiculous.
“You sound surprised.”
“I am surprised,” he admitted easily. “I had you at roughly sixty-forty against your own anxiety.”
Hermione scoffed, the knot in her throat loosening. This was the Theo she knew and loved.
Her eyes narrowed. “You assigned betting odds to whether I’d attend your birthday?”
“Theodore Nott Enterprises is a highly respected institution.”
Despite herself, the corner of Hermione’s mouth twitched.
Theo noticed immediately.
His expression shifted into something quietly triumphant.
“There she is,” he said lightly. “I was beginning to think you’d arrive looking clinically miserable.”
“I do not look miserable.”
“You looked at my front door like it had personally betrayed you.”
Hermione glanced past him toward the townhouse.
“It’s a bit intimidating.”
Theo followed her gaze.
“The house?”
“The people.”
Understanding flickered briefly across his face so quickly she almost missed it.
Then, thankfully, his expression turned amused again.
“Well, half the people here are emotionally constipated purebloods pretending not to know each other’s scandals.” He stepped aside, holding the door open wider. “You’ll fit in beautifully.”
Hermione snorted before she could stop herself.
Theo smiled.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her inside.
It was truly serendipitous that Hermione had even met Theodore Nott to begin with. After the war, Theodore's plea deal lead him to Gringott's as a cursebreaker.
The Wizengamot had deemed him useful enough to salvage and detached enough from active Death Eater operations to spare. Theo himself seemed deeply unsurprised by the arrangement. According to rumour, he’d accepted the terms with the same bored politeness one might use discussing poor weather.
Hermione hadn’t thought about him much at the time.
She remembered Theodore Nott from Hogwarts only vaguely: quiet, clever-looking, difficult to place. A Slytherin who orbited the periphery of louder personalities. He had never sneered at her openly like Malfoy or tried to provoke her like Parkinson. He had simply watched things with a detached sort of intelligence Hermione, in hindsight, recognised immediately.
But Hogwarts had not exactly encouraged inter-house friendships during a war.
And Hermione had spent most of her adolescence surviving.
It wasn’t until four years later—after she’d established OCAR - that Theo reappeared in her life properly.
Theo entered the picture during the Wiltshire Estate Incident.
What initially appeared to be routine containment escalated quickly after two Unspeakables triggered a concealed curse network hidden beneath a manor staircase and temporarily lost their eyesight.
Gringotts sent Theodore Nott as an external consultant.
Hermione disliked him immediately.
Not because he was arrogant. That would have been familiar. No, Theo was something far more irritating: effortlessly intelligent.
He arrived forty minutes late carrying coffee and took one glance at the staircase before saying, casually, “Well. Looks like someone’s been messing around with Byzantine blood warding and Egyptian funerary hexes.”
Hermione looked up sharply from the rune sequence she’d spent the last three hours analysing.
“That’s impossible,” she said immediately. “The structures destabilise each other.”
Theo looked at her for the first time then. Not dismissively. Interested.
“They do if you anchor them traditionally,” he replied. “This uses intermediary binding.”
Hermione stared at him, mouth agape. Then immediately crouched beside the staircase to examine the lower runic sequence more closely. He was right.
Theo crouched beside her a moment later.
“See the secondary channel?” he asked.
Hermione tracked the markings instantly. “It’s feeding vertically.”
“Exactly.”
“That shouldn’t stabilise.”
“It doesn’t,” Theo said. “That’s why the staircase shifts every seventeen minutes.”
Hermione looked at him properly then, and something strange happened. A weight lifted off her shoulders. For perhaps the first time in her adult life, she felt mentally understood without needing to explain herself first.
Theo spoke the way Hermione thought. Fast. Layered. Precise.
He never simplified his ideas midway through speaking or paused expectantly for clarification. He assumed she would follow complex theoretical leaps because of course she would.
They worked together for fourteen hours straight.
By the end of it, they had dismantled the curse web, contained three sentient artefacts, and argued extensively over whether seventeenth-century curse-breakers qualified as “scholars” or merely “engineers with personality disorders.”
Theo maintained it was both.
Hermione accused him of historical slander.
Somewhere around two in the morning, Theo casually mentioned he needed to leave before Charlie murdered him for forgetting dinner plans again.
Hermione blinked.
“Weasley?”
Theo looked genuinely confused. “How many Charlies do you know?”
Hermione burst into laughter. A few seconds later, Theo followed, giggling until both their sides hurt and they were bent over, unable to breath.
After that, Theo started appearing in her office with increasing regularity.
At first for consultations. Then for coffee. Then simply because he liked being there, his feet up on her desk, discussing whatever he'd read in the Journal for Arithmancy Advancement.
He vanished into archives for hours and returned carrying obscure texts in dead languages with visible delight. Charlie occasionally appeared around sunset to drag Theo home while pretending not to notice either of them had forgotten to eat again.
The friendship formed so naturally Hermione almost failed to notice it happening.
It was easy in a way friendship rarely had been for her before.
Not because she lacked people who loved her. She knew that Harry loved her deeply. Ginny understood her better than most people ever would. Ron had loved her too, in the ways he knew how.
But Theo understood a very specific part of Hermione she had quietly mourned for years. The intellectual loneliness of being perpetually ahead of conversations.
At Hogwarts, Hermione had spent so much of herself trying to be less intimidating. Less intense. Less eager. She loved Harry and Ron fiercely, but there had always been moments where she felt herself compressing complicated thoughts into smaller, easier shapes.
With Theo, she never had to do that. He met her mind at full speed.
On the quiet lonely nights when she was tucked up in bed, Hermione found herself grieving something she could never quite articulate aloud. The realisation that the choices she had made, the choices they all had made, the choices made for them, meant that she had missed out on this.
Because if things had been different—if children had not been sorted into ideological camps at eleven years old—Hermione thought she and Theo might have become friends much earlier.
Theo rested one hand lightly against the small of Hermione’s back as he guided her through the entrance hall.
The touch was brief. Casual.
Still, it grounded her enough to stop her from immediately turning around and fleeing into the London night.
The townhouse was warm in a way that felt expensive.
Golden light spilled from antique sconces across dark wood floors. Music drifted lazily through the rooms—jazz threaded with low conversation and occasional laughter. Everywhere Hermione looked, people stood in loose elegant clusters balancing crystal glasses and looking impossibly comfortable in their own skin.
Hermione instantly became aware of every inch of exposed back beneath the green dress.
Theo seemed to notice.
“Relax,” he murmured beside her. “Half these people are pretending to have read books they absolutely haven’t.”
“That does not help.”
“It should.”
Before Hermione could reply, someone across the room gasped dramatically.
“Oh my God.”
Pansy Parkinson appeared seemingly from nowhere, all sharp eyeliner and black satin, crossing the room with alarming speed.
Hermione barely had time to brace herself before Pansy wrapped both arms around her.
“You look gorgeous, Granger.”
Hermione blinked in shock.
Then immediately felt heat climb into her face.
“Oh,” she said intelligently.
Pansy pulled back just enough to look her over again.
“No, honestly. About time.”
Theo just grinned as if he knew this was going to happen.
“The colour is criminal on you, by the way.”
Hermione, who had spent the last two hours convinced she looked faintly ridiculous, could only stare at her.
“Thank you,” she managed finally.
Pansy’s expression softened very slightly.
Then, as though sensing Hermione nearing the limits of social tolerance, she squeezed her arm once and disappeared back into the crowd with the efficiency of someone born for parties.
Hermione watched her go in mild disbelief.
Theo smirked beside her.
“You’re blushing.”
“I am not.”
“You absolutely are.”
Hermione grabbed the nearest champagne flute off a passing tray before she could embarrass herself further.
The party itself was…unexpectedly pleasant.
That surprised her most.
She had anticipated posturing. Awkwardness. Thinly veiled judgement from old pureblood families who still spoke about the war like an unfortunate social inconvenience.
Instead, the atmosphere felt oddly intimate.
Theodore Nott, Hermione realised quickly, collected strange people.
A former Beauxbatons alchemist argued animatedly with a Ministry archivist near the fireplace. Blaise Zabini lounged across an armchair discussing magical art fraud with someone Hermione vaguely recognised from the Prophet. Charlie stood near the dining room doorway deep in conversation with an elderly wizard while absentmindedly untangling fairy lights from his sleeve.
Charlie pulled Hermione into a hug as she passed, pressing a light kiss to her forehead. It warmed Hermione that Charlie was still as affectionate with her as he had always been. She couldn't say the same for some other Weasleys.
"The library is on the first floor. First door on your left," Charlie whispered before letting her go. Hermione smiled gratefully as Pansy came up to drag her away.
They ended up sitting in a circle, as Theo disappeared into an argument about ancient ward theory with two curse-breakers from Cairo, and Hermione found herself laughing unexpectedly hard at something Daphne Greengrass said about Ministry incompetence.
It felt easy.
Still, the never ending carousel of unfamiliar faces wore on Hermione as time passed, even as Pansy helpfully supplied names. About forty minutes in, Theo vanished entirely. One moment she was listening to Blaise describe a disastrous diplomatic gala in Milan, and the next she realised Theo was no longer somewhere within visible distance. Hermione tried not to pay attention to it, but found herself looking towards the door every few seconds.
The room abruptly felt louder. Warmer. The laughter around her sharpened strangely at the edges.
Hermione took a sip of champagne and realised her hand wasn’t entirely steady.
This was ridiculous. Theo disappearing for ten minutes was not a crisis.
Except suddenly the awareness of herself returned full force. The dress. The noise. The sheer number of people.
Her skin began to feel too tight.
Hermione set her glass down carefully before anyone noticed her expression changing. “Excuse me,” she murmured to no one in particular.
Then she slipped quietly from the room. The corridor was just as full of people as the sitting room, but Hermione knew where to go. First floor, first door to the left.
Hermione exhaled shakily climbing the stairs. You are fine. You are completely fine. She tried to convince herself that everything was fine. Except her pulse was climbing too fast now, her thoughts beginning to turn inward in that awful familiar spiral.
Too much skin. Too many people. Too visible.
The door to the library was cracked open, but Hermione was too caught up to notice as she slipped inside.
The library was beautiful.
Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined dark green walls. One lamp glowed softly near a leather armchair. Rain tapped gently against tall windows overlooking the street.
Relief hit her so hard she nearly sagged with it.
Then a man’s voice said casually from somewhere deeper in the room:
“Theo, where the hell did you put the—”
Hermione froze. Panic surged instantly.
Without thinking, she moved quickly behind the nearest bookshelf, heart hammering so loudly she was convinced the stranger could hear it.
Footsteps moved slowly across the carpet, unhurried as he strolled through the shelves. He was tall. Broad-shouldered.
The man appeared briefly between shelves before disappearing again.
Dark jeans and a pale button-down with the sleeves rolled carelessly to his forearms. The first few buttons hung open at the throat, exposing sharp collarbones and the pale line of his chest beneath warm lamplight.
Hermione’s stomach dropped violently.
Malfoy.
He hadn’t seen her yet. Her heart hammered at the thought of him finding her hiding between shelves, effectively spying on him. She tried to move, her legs shaking as she tried to slip back out through the door.
Malfoy wandered toward another shelf, still scanning titles.
“Theo?” he called again absently. “Did you steal that copy of—”
He turned.
Everything in Hermione seized at once.
Her pulse jumped painfully hard beneath her ribs. Heat crawled abruptly up her neck.
Malfoy stopped immediately. "You're not Theo."
Hermione squeaked, backing up further against the wall and slowly shaking her head.
"He disappeared. I don't know where he went," she tried to say, but her voice came out hoarse, dry and unused.
Malfoy nodded, his gaze passing over her face once. Hermione suddenly became horribly aware she was breathing too fast. She closed her eyes, trying to focus on slowing her breathing and her racing heart. It was fruitless.
She opened her eyes, expecting Malfoy to still be towering over her. Instead, he was at her eye level. "Hey," he said, quietly.
Hermione hated that the gentleness in his voice nearly undid her entirely.
“I’m fine,” she said too quickly.
One pale eyebrow lifted slightly. “Right.”
Humiliation flared hot and immediate. “I just needed a minute.”
Malfoy nodded once like this was perfectly reasonable. He remained exactly where he was, giving her space without making a show of it. He didn’t fidget. Didn’t fill the silence unnecessarily. The stillness of him seemed oddly intentional, like he’d decided the room would move at her pace and expected it to obey.
Hermione stared fixedly at the titles lining the bookshelf beside her.
Malfoy shifted towards the door after a moment. “I was leaving anyway.”
“No, it’s fine, I should just—”
“Granger.”
Her words stopped instinctively. His tone was firm - not sharp or harsh, but firm enough that her body reacted before her mind did.
Malfoy watched her for a moment, his expression unreadable in the low lamplight. "Look at me."
Hermione hesitated only briefly before lifting her eyes to meet his. His silver eyes gazed at her with a warmth she'd never seen before.
The sort of eye contact that made it feel impossible to spin further into herself.
“You’re breathing too fast,” he said. “Slow it down.”
Hermione swallowed.
“I’m trying.”
“I know.” His tone softened fractionally. “Try again.”
Something low and strange tightened in her stomach at the calm certainty of the instruction.
Hermione exhaled shakily.
Malfoy watched her carefully, his attention unwavering in a way that should have felt overwhelming and somehow didn’t.
“Again,” he said softly.
She closed her eyes. A slow inhale. A slower exhale.
The rain tapped quietly against the windows. Music drifted faintly from downstairs beneath the silence stretching between them. Malfoy remained completely still through all of it, patient and calm, like he
had already decided she was going to calm down and saw no reason to rush the outcome.
Eventually the tightness in Hermione’s chest loosened enough for embarrassment to creep in around the edges. She opened her eyes before darting away.
"Sorry."
"For what?" Malfoy asked, his tone hard.
"That was humiliating."
"No, it wasn't."
“It objectively was.”
A quiet huff of amusement left him.
“You disappeared into a library at a party full of Slytherins,” Malfoy said dryly. "Probably the best idea you've had all day."
To Hermione’s horror, a startled laugh escaped her.
Something in Malfoy's expression softened then—not visibly enough for most people to notice, but enough that she felt it.
“There you are,” he murmured.
The words settled somewhere low in her chest.