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tommarvoloriddlesdiary · 6 months

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a small piece of a bigger whole:

“You haven't hexed him yet?” Hermione stared at him in disbelief. “Harry, that is literally the bare minimum!”

“Well, what do you expect me to do, Hermione?!” She flinched back, and he paused, catching himself. He lowered his voice, “This isn’t just any person. It’s him. It’s Voldemort.”

It was hard to argue that, Hermione frowned. But not impossible. And she was determined. “He will be Voldemort. Not yet. We have time—and he’s so different. So… human.”

Harry’s face crumpled, scrunching into itself like he’d just taken the most painful blow - it was such a terribly sad look on him. “You don’t think I see that?” He asked, but Hermione swore he nearly begged.

The silence that overtook them then was something wholly unexpected, unfamiliar—and she had no idea what to do with it.

They hadn’t had a moment this tense since they were children, just getting to know each other and still testing how delicate the ties of their friendship were. Still learning that not all relationships came ready forged in goblin-made silver - no, but a steady hand and a blaze strong enough could certainly do the trick.

They definitely hadn’t had a moment like this since the start of their Horcrux hunting. At what point are bonds finally unshakeable, if not after that?

How could she reassure him? It was rare for her to be confronted with a problem and have no idea how to fix it. Especially when it should have been easy—an open note exam. Hermione wasn’t blind to what had been happening since they arrived here, and she wanted to tell Harry that it was alright. That anything he decided wouldn’t be held against him, even if he want to befr—

But Harry sighed again, and just like that, the feeling passed. And her chance with it. “He’s already hurt so many. He’s killed Myrtle, Hermione… his family…”

From anyone else, Hermione would have heard the plea in his voice as what any sane person should hear - a yearning for her to come to her senses. After all, Voldemort was Tom Riddle’s past, present, and future.

But she knew Harry better than anyone. Sometimes even better than Ron did.

So she heard deep behind his hushed whisper, the loudest shout. Harry’s voice almost rang in her ears, asking - Is there still hope? After all he’s already done, can he be stopped?

Can he be saved?

Hermione didn’t know. But if anyone could save Voldemort—

#tomarry #harrymort #tomarrymort #my fic #pov: hermione #it is unnamed #but part of something i’ve shared before #ron hermione and harry are in the past and naturally nonsense ensues #separately; thank you for the kind words on my last share 🥲 i will try for patience #it will not be binned

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ursdahlia · 1 year

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muggle black tie at the ministry

#dramione fanart #dramione #draco x hermione #hp fanart #next: harrys pov

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sodamnradd · 2 months

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Hermione emerged from Harry’s closet wearing nothing but his blazer.

“You know he’s never going to buy that.”

She unclasped her clip and ruffled her hair in the mirror, pinched her cheeks, slapped them until they pinked. Bit her lips. Pinched her thighs so they would bruise.

“Quick.” She pushed her hair to the side and tilted her head. “Give me a hickey.”

“No.” Harry reeled back.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“It’s a very big deal and I’m not—”

“Harry James Potter, put your mouth on my neck right now.”

“If Malfoy actually believes I did that to you, he’s going to…” he trailed off, because he didn’t know how Malfoy was going to react. But it would not end with a pat on the back and a ‘congratulations’. “I work with the guy.”

“Traitor.” Hermione rumpled the bedsheets.

“He’s not coming into my room.”

She ignored him.

“Just tell him you want to get back together.”

She hurled a pillow at his chest.

The sound of the fireplace made them freeze.

“Stop it, Harry!” Hermione started to giggle, making a soft, sultry moan Harry never wanted to hear from her mouth again.

“Potter?” Footsteps echoed down the hallway. Years of pure-blood etiquette made Malfoy one of the most well-behaved men Harry knew, so it was extremely out of character when he threw the door open, uninvited.

Malfoy came face to face with Hermione.

She swept her curls from her eyes and plastered on a freakishly convincing look of surprise.

Malfoy’s cold eyes darted from Hermione, semi-dressed. To Harry, who, luckily, was fully clothed and only slightly flushed from embarrassment.

He asked tightly, “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” she said at the same time Harry replied, “She’s trying to make you jealous.”

She glowered at him.

But Harry was looking at Malfoy. Noting the betrayal in his eyes. “She thinks you slept with someone. That’s why she’s been acting like this. I swear I didn’t touch her.”

“Harry!” Hermione cried.

Malfoy seemed torn, but he knew Harry well, and Hermione even better. The devastation on his face morphed into concern. “Granger?”

Hermione looked away, shoulders bunching up, arms crossed.

“Talk to me,” he pleaded.

She shot him a deadly look, and Harry was relieved not to be on the receiving end of it for once.

“I saw you go into that senator’s suite. Her hands were on you. Grabbing your tie, dragging you inside. She shut the door… You…” Her voice caught. “Came back hours later. Showered. Tried to… touch me."

Realising the truth, Harry opened his mouth to correct her assumptions, but Malfoy beat him to it. “You were gone the next morning because you thought—”

“I knew.”

“You thought,” he corrected her. “I slept with someone else and crawled back to you afterwards?”

She shrugged. “Older women have a certain allure. I saw how she looked at you.” She clutched Harry’s blazer, as if realizing how ridiculous she looked.

But Malfoy didn’t seem to find her ridiculous at all. His gaze raked down her chest, lingered on the swell of her breasts, her bare legs. “You have no idea how you… That you believed I would ever… When you’re…”

Harry had never witnessed Malfoy tongue-tied before.

“I know what I saw.” Hermione stepped back as Malfoy stepped forward.

“That woman was my assignment,” Harry interjected, even though they weren’t supposed to talk about open cases. But Hermione needed answers and Malfoy was useless. “I asked Malfoy to pretend he was spending the night with her as a safety precaution. He didn’t want to do it. But I was desperate.”

“I occasionally grant Potter favours. Though now I will expect many in return.” He shot Harry a telling look. “For a bloody long time.” Great.

Malfoy approached Hermione again, and this time she let him. He touched her cheek. So gentle, Harry wondered if Malfoy had been Polyjuiced. “There’s no one else, Granger. Ever.”

Hermione shut her eyes. Leaned into his palm. Malfoy lifted her chin. Stroked her hair. Murmured something against her lips. She kissed him. His hand trailed up her thigh. Beneath the blazer.

Harry shut the door behind him, making a mental note to ask Kreacher to change the sheets later and set the blazer on fire. He grimaced when he heard the bed squeak.

The first of many favors he now owed Draco sodding Malfoy.

(732 words, photo prompt from twitter)

#dramione #draco malfoy #hermione granger #draco x hermione #hermione x draco #dhr #dramione drabble #sodamnrad #sodamnraddrabbles #harry potter #harry pov

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cursed-byesexual · 5 months

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I'm such a sucker for fics from the pov of some NormalPerson™ who tries to understand what the actual fuck is going on with your fave. For example;

- Hermione's parents sort of got used to their daughter talking about dragons and curses and she makes it sound like its no big deal so they just go along with their strange kid. Except now there's a man at the door who says he's the minister of magic and he would like to personally invite you and your daughter to the first memorial of the final battle as she is a war hero of the highest order. What do you mean there was a war? Hermione, get down here this instant!

-Or a true crime podcast about the crimes of Sam and Dean Winchester through the eyes of someone who went to college with Sam. He hosts podcast nights and everytime one of Sams alleged kills is described he tells the friends who are listening with them about that time Sam went vegetarian for a month after watching a nature channel docu.

-Or Percy Jackson returns to a mortal high school after one of his adventures and one of his teachers has to try and decipher the transcripts from his old schools. How the fuck did this little skater boy blow up his last school? Why isn't he in prison??? Or dead??? The parent-teacher conference night that follows is one for the ages as Sally Jackson lies her ass off, but with skill.

-Or John Watson decides to go to a class reunion against better knowledge and Sherlock tags along to learn more about John out of boredom. His former classmates don't understand what the hell Sherlock Holmes is doing at their party if there hasn't been a murder and absolutely come to the conclusion that the two are together. They have to be, right?

Basically anything that puts these unhinged adventures and relationships into perspective I guess, sorry if these don't make sense,,, tag me if you know any fics of this sort! For any fandom! Or comment you own hc!!!

#harry potter #hermione granger #Percy jackson #Pjo #bbc sherlock #Sherlock #john watson #secret good supernatural #Supernatural #Spn #sam winchester #Dean winchester #outsider pov #fic idea #fic rec #fandom #johnlock

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undercoverdrxco · 3 months

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my personal collection of outsider pov - dramione fics

Hermione [Jolene]

How Ron Weasley Learned His Lesson

Exposé (Ginny’s Version)

Five Times Harry Potter Was Sus of Hermione Granger and One Time…

enjoy <3

#dramione #dramione outsider pov fics #dramione fanfic #draco and hermione #draco malfoy #hermione granger #hermione x draco #draco x hermione

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jomiddlemarch · 3 months

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they two play out the game

“Be honest—”

“What do you want me to say, Hermione? That I fell in love with you at school, when you loathed me, when you loathed me because I made you feel that way because I couldn’t bear your pity or worse, being beneath your notice, a shrug of your shoulders, an eyeroll? That the Amortentia I brewed in Potions smelled like ink and rose geranium soap and the bloody catnip you must have grown for your Kneazle in the greenhouses because you never would have nicked it from Sprout? That I envied Weasley for his family loving him and welcoming you, when my father wanted you dead and my mother refused to remember your name?”

Draco paused, lifted a hand from where he’d been gripping the railing and loosened his tie. It was dark blue, because they were no longer children, defined by Houses. He wore his robes open, like an Oxford don, and she could see the suit he wore was Savile Row, not Wizard-tailored. His brogues were polished to a shine short of a House-elf’s efforts.

“Should I tell you I’ve dreamt of you for years, in that periwinkle petal dress and on my ballroom floor, screaming for mercy, and in bookshops, in teashops, in the pub, laughing, smiling at Potter and Longbottom, making a face when you take a sip of your bitter? In the Wizengamot, at my trial, like a Fury. At all the other trials, demolishing their smug assurance, making them cower, making them see? Do you want me to explain how I told Astoria we would marry but I’d never be able to love her and she told me she already knew it, that she understood everything and that if I didn’t mind too much, she supposed we’d do well enough together? You want to hear how when my son was born, I wanted to Owl you, before anyone else, even though you’d have been baffled to receive any message from me, would have probably thought it was a prank from George Weasley, an overture to return to the Weasley bosom after you and Ron ended it ostensibly amicably, except that you’d left England and hadn’t been back in six years for more than a fortnight?”

He took a step nearer and Hermione resisted the urge to fold her arms across her chest or draw her robes closer in some nonverbal attempt at protection. He’d grown taller after the War ended and she hadn’t, not a whit, probably stunted by the stress and starvation of the Horcrux hunt, but he was still a few steps below her on the stairs, so he continued to look up at her, a supplicant. He was still giving her that power, that dominance over him which she hadn’t believed when he’d offered it earlier in words alone.

“Shall I tell you how I followed your career, the papers you wrote, the conferences you attended, collecting clippings like a lovesick groupie with his favorite Quidditch team? How I heard your voice when I taught Scorpius his first spells? How I told him the brightest witch I’d ever known was Sorted into Gryffindor and he was confused because his mother had been a Ravenclaw? How my wife fell in love with my best friend and I didn’t care, or rather, I was happy for her because Theo loved her back and it was nothing for me to look away and let them have the time they could? How I thought if you knew, you’d perhaps admire me for once, for not being selfish, for making some sacrifice, except that you’d be wrong, it wasn’t a sacrifice at all, not when I cared about them both in one way and not at all in another? You want to hear how I thought I’d seen you—at the train station and in the City, in the Prophet, your hair braided, that streak of white like a halo, like a queen’s ivory filet, your eyes, sweet Nimue, your eyes, Hermione—”

“I’m not a saint,” she put in.

He climbed another stair and now he looked directly at her. She could rest her hands on his shoulders if she wanted. She could raise a hand and stroke his cheek, graze the steel temple of his spectacles, the silver hair at above his ears.

“I know. And I know why you don’t wear a glamour or charm your hair the color it was when we were young. You want me to tell you how my wife died and I wanted you to comfort me? To come to her funeral and hold my hand, to wear the veil for her and to let me fold it back over your head to face the truth? How I wanted you in my bed, fresh from your bath, in a nightdress you’d let me ruck up to your waist, naked beneath me, your skin like silk, arching up into my hands, gasping, laughing when I accidentally tickled your waist. Crying out when you felt my mouth on your breasts, suckling, when you felt my cock hard between your thighs, when I begged you? When I told you to spread your legs, love, when I praised you for being so good, my beautiful, darling, delicious witch I wanted to fuck all night, that there was no one else, there never had been, there never would be, only you, my darling with your dark eyes and your brilliant mind and your magic, your heart, your cunt—You want me to say that I love you, that I’ve loved you to the best of my ability for the best part of my life and that I don’t want you to go, not now, not ever, but I know that’s not up to me?”

There was a slight flush in his cheeks, a gleam in his grey eyes that might be tears, but his voice was steady, restrained, and there was space between them yet that she knew he would not breach. She used the effort required to cast tandem wandless in a duel to the death, more than she’d used when she was eighteen and expected to save the world.

“If it’s the truth—” she said.

“It’s the truth,” he answered. “There’s more, I suppose, but it’s much the same.”

“Then it’s what I asked for,” she said. She closed her eyes for a moment, part of her sure he would not be there when she looked again, a dream, a vision she’d conjured, Nimue and Merlin both, trapped within her desires while the world lived and grew around her. She opened her eyes and there he was, waiting. There was a shadow in his gaze, the expectation of rejection, abandonment. He was not a man accustomed to hope. She’d asked, though, and he’d answered.

“I’ve learned, as I’ve grown older, that I can’t hope for the best. Settle for what I’m given. I must take what I want, with both hands,” she said and reached over, up a little, to cup his face with her palms, her fingers touching the ends of his hair at the nape of his neck. He was very still, almost rigid, and she felt a frisson of fear, of being deceived, denied.

“With both hands,” she repeated a little hesitantly. “Unless, you don’t, after all—Scorpius will not, and you have to put him first, of course—”

“I do,” Draco, beginning to smile. “And I was told not to come home without you, though Scorpius is willing to take my word for your arrival. He’s not waiting there for us.”

“No?” Hermione said, feeling terribly warm, terribly, wonderfully desired. Needed. Accepted.

“No, I shall have you all to myself,” he said. He finally put his arms around her, very carefully as they were still on a staircase and perhaps he was a little unsteady now. “D’you suppose, before we go, I might kiss you?”

“Here? Where anyone might see?” Hermione asked, though the hallway had been deserted for the past hour and the charm on the wall sconces needed to be recast. Though she had let herself look at his mouth, the curve of his lips. Let herself admit her own appetite had gone beyond any curious hunger, to craving, the sweet she had been forbidden for so long.

“Yes. Be honest, would that bother you?” he said.

“Do you think I will say it would? Do you expect me to tell you no when I’ve just said you’re what I want? All that I want?” she said, echoing him. Making him grin, a hint of the smirk she first remembered seeing on his face as a young boy, now subsumed into such tenderness she felt nearly overwhelmed.

“Is it the truth?” he said.

“Yes,” she said and then she didn’t say anything else because they were beyond needing any other word than “Home—” the Side-along as easy as a breath, as waking from a dream into the day.

They named their first daughter Verity, explaining it was a family name.

#dramione #post-hogwarts #Hermione x Draco #hermione POV #romance #scorpius malfoy #the beauty of fanfic #just justing to the big climatic scene #the burn of a slow burn #prior draco/astoria #astoria/theo #prior ron/hermione #draco really monologues for all he's worth #gets a little blue

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honeydukesheroine · 5 months

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Masterlist

Writings, author and fic recommendations

Multi-Chapter (WIP)

🏔️ The In-Betweens (6th Year)

Multiple POV (Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione). 115k+ words. Harry/Ginny. Ron/Hermione. Canon-compliant HBP missing moments, emotional landscaping, expansion on canon.

Short Fics

💫 One Shots

Missing Moments: The In-Betweens (6th Year): moments outside the main narrative Go With Grace: Ginny HBP/DH missing moment Holy Ground: Hinny, post-DH, Ginny's graduation Hush: Hinny, godfather!Harry

🍬 Microfics

Star: Hinny HBP missing moment Believe: Hinny HBP missing moment Secret: Ginny DH missing moment Stop: Ginny, motherhood Cheer: Potter family fluff Freeze: Potter family fluff

Inspirations and Fic Recs

🥂 Fic Authors & Artists That Inspire

FloreatCastullum GinFizz thegirlwhowrites642 GreenhouseThree Annerb blvnk

🌊 All Time Favorite Fics

Not From Others by FloreatCastullum Might Discuss the Match by FloreatCastullum Quidditch Is For Losers by GinFizz Ginny Weasley and the Half-Blood Prince by RRFang Orchards by Whinlatter Back to the Eclipse by thegirlwhowrites642 Twenty-Two Days by BrightlyBound

Thanks for reading! 🌤️

#masterlist #writing #harry potter fan fic #recs #fandom favs #hinny #missing moments #harry potter pov #ginny weasley pov #hermione granger pov #ron weasley pov

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autumnweeen · 4 days

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WIP Wednesday Dramione

I’m here once again trying to convince you to read this fic. It deserves so much more attention than it has gotten! Not only because of the amount of work that ellieauthor has put into formatting all the chats and creating all the amazing conversations between the Slytherins and the Gryffindors, but also, THE WRITING!!! The writing is simply spectacular ♥️

#harry potter fandom #dramione #draco malfoy #hermione granger #draco x hermione #fanfiction #ao3fic #harry potter #ao3 fanfic #eighth year #hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry #txt socmed au #draco pov

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dramioneasks · 5 months

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Beyond Recall or Desire - vannminner - E, 25 chapters - In December of 2001, Draco Malfoy was meant to be married. Unfortunately, a union with Astoria Greengrass would be impossible as his soul had already been bound to another's. Now, if only he could remember whose... - “A birth bond?” Narcissa asked. Alistair shook his head, “I’m afraid not. This is something else entirely.” He made eye contact with Draco before quickly looking away. “This is a chosen bond… a mutual decision…”

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elcieford · 15 days

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The Dragon & The Otter

Welcome to my latest WIP - this is an epistolary Dramione fic featuring a Durmstrang student Draco Malfoy, who decided to start writing to Hogwarts student Hermione Granger.

The letters start 10 Dec 1994, after the first task of the TriWizard Tournament, and before the Yule Ball.

Enjoy! xoxo 💌🦦🐉

#dramione fanfiction #dramione fluff #dramoine #fanfic writing #draco x hermione #hp fanfic #fanfiction #durmstrang draco malfoy #pov draco malfoy #pov hermione granger #letter writing #epistolary #durmstrang #triwizard tournament #yule ball #dramione tbr

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tommarvoloriddlesdiary · 1 year

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It’s a picture of Riddle and Harry.

In it Harry sports a tense smile, the kind Hermione only ever saw back when they were in Hogwarts. When the new younger years would approach him and ask for his autograph, ask to see his scar and fall all over themselves to meet him. Ron liked to call it Harry’s ‘fake face’, and even though those days they were hard-pressed to agree on anything, both vehemently agreed they hated seeing that look on Harry.

She cringes the longer she looks at him—Harry’s so stiff! With his arms crossed (a self-soothing habit, Hermione knows) and his awkward little lean to the left. Goodness, Harry looks mid bolt like he’d do anything to get out of that situation right now.

It’s all made even worse because, in comparison to the near statue stillness of Harry, Tom Riddle is like a whole movie.

Hermione watches (with a slightly morbid fascination) how Riddle’s eyes meet the camera with pinpoint accuracy. How he grins slowly, his confidence visible in its wide fullness. Distracted, she wonders if all his self-assuredness comes from that dimple on his right cheek? Then she scoffs and definitely knows it’s at least partly responsible for Riddle’s many features in Witch Weekly.

It all lasts only a handful of seconds before Riddle’s gaze strays back to Harry, and it takes multiple loops before she confirms: yes, Riddle does actually frown when he looks Harry’s way. It’s the slightest, faintest frown she’s ever seen in her life, but it is there, and it pulls all that confident smugness of his down with it. After, Riddle suddenly shifts towards Harry, maybe to get closer, but the picture resets before Hermione can see if he follows through.

It’s such an odd little moment, both of them dressed in formal robes and clearly caught by surprise. Where was this photo even taken? How does it even exist in the first place? Surely whoever took it saw Harry’s stiffness or how Riddle broke pose too soon? Surely they’d vanish it, unusable as it was, not at all cover page or picture book material.

It’s even odder when Hermione takes a moment to realise that this photo must mean an awful lot to Riddle…for him to have gone out of his way to frame it for his desk… Actually, could this be the only photo of them together? It feels so impossible considering the meetings and galas and events, all seemingly never-ending.

Oh. It clicks to Hermione in a flash that it very well can’t be the only photo of them together, but possibly it’s the only photo of them alone. Just them. No one else to their sides, on their arms, or in the foreground and background.

With a steadying inhale, an overwhelming feeling of awe fills her. It grows, starting in the middle of her chest and pushes its way up to the rosy blush of her cheeks. Hermione stands in Riddle’s private study, shocked and wholly blindsided, wondering just how long exactly Tom Riddle has been pining over Harry Potter.

#tomarry #tomarrymort #pov: Hermione #my fic #something i wrote in my spare time #my spare time being nonexistent #i somehow wrangle some together and it's clearly needed because every time i went to type 'time' (which doesn't feel like a real word-#-anymore) i've nearly always spelt it out as 'tome' and have had to retype it #tom and harry have taken over my every waking thought this is new #also this sat in my drafts for a while #wasn't sure what to do with it #so here we go

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bluebugsy · 7 days

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We finally hit 100k words 🎉

Now we just have to get to the ending ☠️☠️☠️

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damsel-in-mistress · 7 months

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Dramione drabble, POV Draco

He would have loved to say he was above such pettiness. That he'd evolved. That he had neither need nor desire to stoop down to that level anymore.

But he would have been lying.

As he watched Weaselbee stumble and fumble through his pathetic attempts at making nice with Hermione, he was itching to let him know how pointless his efforts truly were. How Hermione had all the pleasure and excitement she could want. How Draco was so very willing to provide it. And how she took and gave that pleasure of her own free will, enthusiastically so - from and to him.

Merlin knew he would have loved to spell it all out in great detail and rub the redhead's freckled nose in it. But not only would that have been considered rude conduct, Hermione would have gravely disapproved. And he did so want to stay on both the giving and receiving end of her pleasure.

So, instead, Draco contented himself with the private knowledge of his carnal delights and let it take the form of a smug sneer or smirk whenever Ronald Weasley made an appearance. After all, Hermione had already made her choice.

#dramione #damselsdramione #dramione drabble #draco malfoy #hermione granger #pov draco #draco x hermione #hermione x draco

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undercoverdrxco · 1 month

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With Care, Neville

Neville Longbottom’s perspective on Dramione

#dramione #dramione one shot #one shot #Neville Longbottom #dramione outsider pov #outsider pov #Draco and Hermione #dramione fanfic #hermione x draco #draco x hermione #draco malfoy

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jomiddlemarch · 2 months

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I loved and guessed at you, you construed me

It was not that he was waiting for her as much as that he was most often in the faculty sitting room at this hour and so was she and the staff knew to leave out a full tea service and also a magically chilled bottle of very dry amontillado, the color of her eyes. And then to tell anyone else that the room was occupied and that they were not to be disturbed.

It wasn’t that he was waiting for her, but he did look up when she came into the room, letting the ancient, rare and precious book he held slip out of his hand, an instinctive, wandless spell keeping it from clattering onto the floor.

“You cut your hair,” Draco said.

Any pretense to eloquence, savoir-faire, or intellectual rigor associated with achieving his Potions Mastery and Mwandamizi kemia had been decimated by the four words, uttered in a tone of complete shock, which given his Pureblood upbringing meant flat, with a hint of scorn. He had spent the past twelve years working to convince Hermione he wasn’t that man anymore, the one who would have meant the scorn, the fault-finding appraisal, cold and superior and not terribly clever underneath it all.

(The one he’d felt doomed to become before the chandelier fell in his family’s ballroom. Before she’d testified to keep him out of Azkaban. Before she’d returned his formal letter of apology with a brief addendum You were a child, Draco an absolution he didn’t deserve.)

Blaise always said he was his own worst enemy. Theo always nodded and offered a glass of single malt Scotch. Neville always shrugged and tried to reassure Draco, meandering through some nonsense about how they’d all had to grow up too soon, let down by the adults, forced to experience trauma that they’d been lucky to survive and a plate of buttered toast would soon set him to rights.

Luna changed the subject and talked about some possibly fictional chimerical creature to take his mind off his shortcomings. It never worked but he appreciated her effort and consistency.

“I suppose that’s better than ‘Bloody hell.’ And “Holy fucking Christ.’ Harry reverts to Muggle obscenity when he’s really surprised,” Hermione replied. “You only told me what I already know, as I didn’t accidentally fall into a Mongolian silver scissor-bush.”

“Is that a thing?” Draco asked.

He had to keep talking but there was a lot to take in, the startlingly gorgeous line of her bare neck, the angle of her jaw, how her eyes looked enormous, luminous. How her chestnut hair was swept across her brow and came to a delicate little point on the nape of her neck, all these hidden aspects suddenly marvels revealed. Suddenly, astonishingly breath-taking and erotic and also heart-breaking, because he’d wanted so to run his fingers through her loose hair, to stand behind her and draw a brush through her curls. Watching her eyes get drowsy in the dressing-table’s looking-glass, resting a hand on her bare shoulder and feeling the tickling silk of her hair. He’d wanted to cast the spell that ended the charm securing her chignon, to pull out the jeweled pins she used to keep her braids in the coronet around her head.

“No. It sounds like something Luna would mention though,” Hermione shrugged. It was as if he’d never seen the gesture before.

“It’s a lot to take in,” he said.

“It’s actually not. It’s both literally and figuratively not,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Snape being a double-agent in love with Harry’s mum was a lot to take in. Any Sunday lunch at Molly Weasley’s table is a lot to take in. War and Peace in the original Russian without a translation charm is a lot to take in. I took off a few inches—”

“A few inches?”

“Fine, I got the first professional, Muggle, haircut of my adult life because I was fed up with my hair and charms and Sleekeezy and glamours, so many glamours, and you would think I have announced I am Grindelwald’s secret lovechild,” she said in a tone of complete exasperation, pursing her lips in a matching moué he felt an impossible urge to kiss very thoroughly and until she was gasping his name.

He was fairly certain that action would not be requited, not now, and potentially not ever.

But definitely not now.

She was now almost glaring at him, waiting for a response.

If this was ever to become something beyond hopeless pining, if he were ever to be allowed to call her sweetheart and coax her back to bed, he couldn’t get the next part wrong.

“Are you happy with it?” he said. It was a gamble, saying anything would have been a gamble, but there was a chance he’d gotten it right.

He’d surprised her, that he could tell instantly, though her face changed very subtly. It meant no one else who’d seen her had asked and considered she might be. No one else had thought about why she’d done it, only what they thought of it. Evidently, both Weasley and Potter had indicated a negative response, Weasley likely driven by his own unrealized Pureblood upbringing, where all witches wanted the long hair associated with power and Potter never wanted her to be anything other than she’d been in their youth, when her unruly hair was her most obvious signifier.

“Yes, I think I am,” she said.

“That’s good. That’s what matters,” he said. He was supposed to reference the book he’d been reading or follow-up on their most recent conversation about geopolitics or whether Chopin was a Squib or at the very least offer her something to drink, the tea first and then, when she demurred, the sherry. But all of those would require him to look away from her and he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Not quite yet.

“I ought to have done it a long time ago,” she said. She spoke without her usual forthright confidence, but also without any of the regret the statement might have implied. She sounded hesitant, as if she wanted something from him she felt she shouldn’t. Or shouldn’t ask for.

It was tempting to make some sort of declaration, offer reassurance or an argument. But he’d gotten this far by asking her a question.

“Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know. It would have been a way to move on. Grow up. Make my life easier, decide it for myself,” she said. She was watching him very closely as she spoke. She liked that he’d asked, though she wasn’t smiling. “It wouldn’t have been grief or some kind of, I don’t know, unhinged trauma response.”

It would very much have been a response to the colossal trauma she’d experienced if she’d hacked it all off after being tortured, and it wouldn’t have been unhinged when one considered the myriad extremely risky alternatives she might have chosen, but Draco wasn’t about to ruin everything. Even as his own worst enemy, he could keep from doing that.

“It could have been just something you do when you’re in your twenties, trying something out. Like, going to the Maldives or studying Norn. Learning earth magic from tribal elders in Namib.”

“Only you would saying learning earth magic in Namib is something you do in your twenties,” Draco said wryly. “Most people just go to the pub and fret a lot.”

“You didn’t,” she said.

“I think it’s well established I’m not most people,” he said.

“No. You’re not. You’re the only person who didn’t tell me cutting my hair was a terrible mistake,” she said. “As if it could even remotely compare to the other terrible mistakes I’ve made.”

“It’s not a terrible mistake,” he said. “And you’re the person I know best whose made the fewest terrible mistakes in her life and we can sit here drinking sherry talking about it because of it.”

“My parents wouldn’t agree,” she said.

“Neither would mine. I wonder how people grow up when they don’t have to discover their parents were deeply, entirely wrong about something absolutely crucial to survival,” Draco said.

“We could ask Blaise Zabini,” Hermione said after very clearly Thinking About It, a little crease appearing between her eyebrows.

“Too risky,” Draco replied. “It’s only the husbands people talk about but people have a way of disappearing when they ask questions about his mother.”

“No one would comment on her haircut,” Hermione said wistfully. “What a bloody icon.”

Draco laughed, startled.

“You’re enchanting,” he blurted out. Stupid, gauche, impulsive—he could go on (and on) about how ill-considered it had been.

“Well, I am a witch,” she said. She did not seem put off. In fact, she smiled at him, a little shyly. “Goes with the territory—”

“You enchant me. Bewitch me,” he said, throwing caution to the winds. “You don’t want anyone to comment on how you look, so I shouldn’t but you’re exquisite—”

He broke off, fearing he’d broken it all. She was still in the room and he still had all his bits and bobs, when he knew she was a dab hand at wandless curses. It was rather late to decide discretion was the better part of valor, but better late than never.

“I didn’t do it for you,” she said.

“No,” he replied.

“I didn’t do it only for you,” she clarified. “But I was curious to see how you’d react.”

“Did you have a hypothesis? You usually do,” he said.

“Yes. You’ve exceeded it slightly,” she said. There was a gleam in those sherry-brown eyes and when she tilted her head to the side, he understood the vampire’s insatiable lust.

“I can do better than slightly,” he said, half-dazed with the realization that she was requiting far more than he’d ever imagined. And that she’d imagined his response to seeing her bare neck, had wanted his admiration. He got up from his chair and crossed the room to her, standing close enough to take her in his arms. “I can do a wide margin. Prodigious. Overwhelmingly—”

“I like prodigious,” she said and he leaned in and kissed her parted lips softly, then deeply, one hand at her waist, the other cupping her cheek. The urge to possess her was tremendous, held in check only by an immense and constant tenderness, the moon that could pull the devouring tide back from the shore.

“Can I see overwhelmingly?” she whispered. “For comparison—”

“Of course,” he answered and moved to kiss her neck. He tasted the pulse of her carotid, sucking gently where he wanted to nip her. He moved back up to the hollow behind her ear, grazing her lobe with his tongue, then murmured,

“You cut your hair. I love it.”

#dramione #hermione x draco #draco POV #post-hogwarts #epilogue what epilogue #hermione gets a haircut #romance #pining #always some extra worldbuilding #references to lots of characters #had so much fun I wrote a second part #that one's hermione POV

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