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“I need you to kiss me right now.”
The sentence — naye, demand; command; biological imperative — is hissed through the perfectly white, straight teeth of one Hermione Granger…
Who has just rudely interrupted his conversation to address none other than his best mate.
Theo turns to the intrusive witch between them, more than a little befuddled. “Excuse m—?”
“You owe me!” she hisses back to Theo in an aggravated whisper, eyes wide and panicked, half hiding behind them both and half looking out at the rest of the ballroom, eyes darting every
which way. “You owe me for that one legislation, Nott, and I need you to kiss me—”
“Wh—kiss you? Right now?”
“Yes—Actually wait, hang on, he’s gone again,” she stage whispers before stealing Draco’s champagne flute from his hand and downing it in one gulp, completely ignoring the man himself. Which is what plucks Draco out of his own shock and reverie about the absolute vision that is Granger in a green dress, Salazar have mercy on his soul.
“The fuck’s gotten into you, then?” Draco asks, sounding more concerned than irritated.
“It’s Viktor, okay?” she says, voice smaller and eyes glued to the ground, wincing almost. “We had a misunderstanding, I didn’t realise he was courting me, and I don’t know, I don’t know what happened, one day it was just drinks at the Leaky, then one thing led to another and, shit… Shit, I think he’s going to propose, fuck… I need him for the Wolfsbane hearing and I, I don’t know how how to tell him that it was all a mistake, I swear, I… oh gods, he’s here!”
She turns her back and hides almost completely behind Theo, who looks to be two pints too deep to be anything but thrilled about the turn of events.
Unlike Draco, who remains firmly in the realm of not thrilled.
“Is he still there?” Hermione whispers, half-drunk and hoarse and small, and eliciting something very upset in Draco’s own quarter-drunk brain.
“Looks like it,” Theo answers, looking unsubtly at Draco as though to ask Can you believe this? but also I’m about to do something massively chaotic.
To which Draco would’ve sent a warning glare of his own, but Theo speaks first:
“Just to clarify, Granger: you want Krum to witness me snogging you here, at a Ministry gala? And I’d be doing you a favour?”
Draco feels himself sober up in two seconds.
Theo looks at him with what can only be described as a twinkle of mischief in his eyes.
Oh. Oh, hell no.
Draco briefly contemplates the consequences of first-degree murder as he glares at his ex-friend — now only known as traitor, bastard, harbinger of chaos…
Hermione peaks her bushy, beautiful, messy bun out from behind Theo. “Yes, okay? Please, I wouldn’t ask if, if I had any other choice,” but her eyes make the mistake of darting towards Draco…
Who feels that pinprick of a gaze like the sting of a hex directed right at the middle of his chest. Stopping his heart quick.
“He’s heading here,” Theo says, and Draco turns to see the man in question finally spotting Hermione, striding towards them. Lovesick eyes and wide grin. Tall imposing frame.
And Hermione, eyes wide and panicking.
And Theo, the tremendous little shit, looking like a kid at Christmas. Cocking an eyebrow at Draco as though to say Your move, mate.
Draco imagines he might have Avada’d him right there and then, in front of the Minister, half of Magical Europe, and god himself, if he’d had his wand out. Alas, he didn’t.
And so he resorted to the next best thing, because Draco is a pining madman who is friends with a piece of shit.
Hermione — grimacing at the sight of the approaching Bulgarian — almost takes Theo’s face to push it down to her own. Almost.
A single stride is all it took.
Draco steps in, an arm wrapping around her waist, pulling her towards himself, leaning over her, and their mouths meet in open shock and a single, devastating…
Lingering, exhilarating, breathless, indulgent, incomprehensible, impossible…
Kiss.
Her eyes are still closed when he pulls back — for lack of air than anything else — and it takes a long, rather momentous pause for him to realise that they are both panting.
“Fucking hell, mate,” comes from Draco’s left. He registers Theo’s gobsmacked delight first, then more than a few people staring.
And then the witch in his arms, smiling, blushing, and gripping the lapels of his robes for dear life.
“So,” Hermione speaks quietly, breaths warm against his chin, staring at the floor with a small smile that fully melts whatever cold shrivel of a heart was left in his chest. “I’ve always wondered if you were a good kisser.”
Warmth sparks to violent embers.
Just like that, Draco thinks Theo should be back in the running for best man.
“Hermininny?”
They both turn to see Viktor’s crestfallen face, and really, Draco should have felt something more than relief it actually fucking worked.
“Oh, um, Viktor—”
“Krum,” Draco interrupts, saving her from the bluster. “Nice to see you again, mate,” he says just after he’s casually released the witch he’s in love with to stand at her side, and doesn’t spare her widening eyes a glance as he continues like a madman, “By the way, my fiancé was telling me about that Wolfsbane hearing you two’ve been working on. Great work!”
Viktor, clearly dumbfounded, mutters some form of thanks and small talk, before turning back to the gala.
“Fiancé?” Hemione whispers after he’s gone, amused and playful, not moving to extricate herself from the arm he rests around her waist. “One kiss and now I’m your intended?”
“That, my friends, was not a bloody kiss,” Theo chuckles beside them as he plucks another drink from a floating tray. “That twenty-second slobbering monstrosity was a public indecency charge on a good day.”
“What’s gotten into you, then?” Hermione asks Draco suddenly.
“Oh, no, love, nothing’s gotten into him,” Theo unhelpfully supplies, sipping his drink. “He’s just wanted to do that for a bloody long time now.”
Draco stiffens.
He watches the revelation dawn on her face: amber eyes widening, smile disappearing.
Fucking hell, where is his wand?? Where’s an Avada when you need it?!? Fucking Theo—
“Oh,” is what she says. Breaking gaze, staring at the floor. Draco closes his eyes, wills the ghost of Godric to materialise and end his misery—
“Well, I’m going to need you to do that again. Sometime. In the future. When you’re… free, I suppose.”
He turns to look at her. Stares at the soft, giddy smile he imagines, is mirrored on him.
(And by gods, if he isn’t done for.)
The silence is thin and charged between them, an arm still wrapped around her waist; they can pry the witch from his arms when he’s in hell.
“You’ve… been wanting to kiss me? I—really?” Hermione suddenly asks, shaking her head in what seems to be happy disbelief, and he can’t help but pull her closer.
Draco opens his mouth to reply when Theo — now a godsent angel, a true genius of his time, etc — interrupts.
“Don’t be silly, Granger,” he tells her in a loud whisper, looking Draco dead in the eyes as he ends the man’s whole career:
“I meant him calling you his fiancé.”
Draco mentally rescinds all goodwill towards his best mate — the absolute fucking prat — who saunters off with a wide grin and a wink, leaving Draco and the object of his affections blushing in each other’s arms…
But not letting go.
~ fin