Chapter Text
Chapter One
Hermione knows this bar of chocolate is sweet.
It’s the most expensive bar of chocolate she could find at Honeydukes. It’s the one with the highest cacao percentage possible without sacrificing the milk. Besides, she knows dark chocolate isn’t quite the same as a nice, solid chunk of creamy, melt-in-the-mouth milk chocolate. She knows because this brand—this particular bar—is her favorite, and that’s why she bought it, thank you very much.
But when she bought it, she wasn’t expecting a game of Truth or Dare to involve that chocolate bar. She wasn’t planning to share her treat at all, actually. She was planning on eating it alone in front of the fireplace at the inn.
Alone. A state of being that she both loves and hates.
Hermione does a lot of things by herself. She wakes up, goes to work at the Ministry, and goes home. She used to go dancing and drinking with Ginny and Hannah, but it seemed like one day, she deflated. She went from going, going, going…to hiding, hiding, hiding. Gone were the Friday night dance clubs and eventually, they stopped inviting her to casual events.
She feels like a void exists wherever she stands. A void that only appears when someone looks at her.
Everything is a battle. Everything’s a chore. Eye contact makes her feel like her head’s going to explode. And one day, years ago, she noticed that whenever she talked about books, her favorite thing in the whole world, eyes would glaze over and smiles would turn polite. The longest anyone would listen to her was a few sentences before they seemed to mentally check out.
Now, no one listens to her, so she keeps herself behind a book with no cover that nobody can read.
Hermione has come to this little five-year reunion with the desire to wallow in nostalgia by her lonesome. Not many people have come since it’s not the ten-year reunion, so wallowing in loneliness isn’t exactly going according to plan. There’s no crowds to melt into.
Harry and Ron aren’t here—they’re out doing reconnaissance for an important case. Even if Ron were here, it’s not as if he’d find it fun or nostalgic to spend quality time with his ex-girlfriend. Not when they can’t even be in the same room as one another without bickering. She hasn't seen Ron since Christmas at Harry and Ginny’s cottage. A night in which she spent having a hysterical panic attack in the loo.
It was lovely.
Somehow, she’s found herself sitting in the Room of Requirement with several of her former classmates. Everyone’s in high spirits, their stomachs full of food from the reunion dinner, and they’re playing Truth or Dare. House division no longer exists, as there are people from all four Houses here. There’s couches everywhere, a fireplace with a roaring, hot fire, charmed lights strung above them…and a blindfold.
A blindfold made of black fabric that’s knotted tightly around Draco Malfoy’s head.
His platinum blond hair is styled differently now. He’s dropped the slicked-back look in favor of wearing it short on the sides and back. The top is long and choppy, layered to hang in his eyes. He’s styled it so the top is messy, like he’s just rolled out of bed to come to this reunion. It’s a much edgier style than he used to wear, and it adds an extra layer of practiced nonchalance to his appearance.
And his body has matured. There’s no baby fat left—only sharp angles and a jaw that cuts like glass. His skin is still pale, but he’s got shadows under his eyes that show Hermione he doesn’t get as much rest as he used to when they were kids.
His clothes are surprising to her, especially given she remembers him always being the one to wear suits underneath his robes. Not that she’d expected him to wear anything specific for the reunion, it’s just throwing her off to see him wearing a long-sleeved black jumper and tight black denims with rips in the knees.
But as much as his hair and clothes have intrigued her, it’s the tattoos that have astonished her.
Either way, she feels self-conscious. She’s been fidgeting with her kinky curls all night, suspended between leaving them alone and messing with them to make sure they look all right. She’s managed to grow them out to her lower back, and has them worn half-cornrowed back from her hairline. Each row is neat and tidy, the ends sealed with small black bands and gold butterfly clips, and the rest of her hair fluffs down her back.
She isn’t trying to appear attractive for Malfoy, or anything, but she remembers his opinions on her hair. She has a haircare routine now, so he shan’t have anything to say if she has anything to do with it. And if he does, well then he can die in a sink.
And that’s that on that.
As Hermione places the first square of chocolate inside of the blindfolded Malfoy’s waiting, open mouth, she makes sure to pull her hand back as fast as she can. She doesn’t want to accidentally touch his tongue. Or his lips. Or any part of him, actually.
Honestly, she doesn’t want to feed chocolate to him at all, but it’s part of the dare. And since she’s more terrified of everyone thinking she’s a loser for not wanting to play, she’s going to follow the rules.
The dare is from Theo. He had dared Malfoy to be blindfolded and fed by one of the girls in the group. It was also his bright idea to make Hermione be the one to do it.
Malfoy’s sitting on one of the couches and Hermione is standing in front of him, flanked by the other girls present. She’s the only one feeding him but having all of their voices come from in front of him makes the game challenging.
Her skin feels hot with the flames of nervousness that come from being watched. She tries not to focus on the room, however, choosing instead to watch the way he eats the sweet.
It’s…an experience.
Malfoy caresses the chocolate with his mouth, rolling the chocolate along his tongue as he savors the taste. Soft smacking noises can be heard only by Hermione as he parts his lips to talk around the food in his mouth, that smirk back on his face.
“Remember,” Theo says from behind them, “you’ve got three guesses to figure out who it is, or you’ll find yourself with another dare.”
“I’m not guessing yet, but I think I know who it is,” Malfoy says, his tone lilting with amusement.
No one speaks. Amused glances are exchanged. Laughter is stifled.
Hermione’s heart rate quickens as she breaks off another square of chocolate.
She really wishes she wasn’t the only one who’d brought sweets. It makes her feel embarrassed because no one else has any. It’s weird when they’ve just come from dinner.
Parvati had asked why Hermione had chocolate in her purse, as though it were strange. And it is strange to the rest of society, carrying sweets around. But to Hermione, it’s practical. It makes sense to keep it in her purse.
Whenever she feels sad, the chocolate is there.
Heat floods her face when she realizes the chocolate is going to melt on her skin if she doesn’t hurry and feed it to him.
As he chews the second bite, melted chocolate crisis narrowly averted, she stares at his body.
Aside from the fact that he’s just as narrow as ever, he’s definitely grown taller. This is her first time being near him all night but when she’d first arrived at the castle, she’d thought he looked a bit taller from across the Great Hall.
She has no idea what’s happened to him since school ended. He’s a bit of a social enigma now. After he’d gotten sentenced to one year in Azkaban, he’d spent the four years since his release out of the Prophet and in virtual hiding.
By the look of him, he’s at least decided not to care about Pureblood propriety any longer.
He’s got the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, revealing his wrists and forearms. The skin that she can see is covered in tattoos of flowers. He’s got all kinds, from gardenias to peonies to roses to daisies. They’re colorful and beautiful, the way they dance along every inch of his skin like he’s a garden. They spill onto the backs of his hands and reach up the front of his neck, almost as though they want to take root and grow him into something life-giving and utopian. His fingers are tattooed, too, but instead of flowers, he’s got alternating crescent moons and stars.
Hermione wonders if he’s tattooed elsewhere.
“Is it Millicent?” he asks, but he sounds like he doesn’t think it’s her. She’s to the far right, beside Pansy, and she’s smirking.
“Wrong.” Theo is smug as he circles around to the back of the couch. He places his hands on it and leans down, his face hovering close to the side of Malfoy’s head. “I’ll give you a hint. She’s tall.”
“All of them are short compared to me, Nott. That gives me nothing.”
“Exactly.” Theo ruffles Malfoy’s hair, who merely grins. Then, Theo’s walking back to join the other guys. “Guess again.”
Hermione’s shaking as she breaks off the third chocolate square and looks down at his hands. At the veins and the tattoos. Slender fingers that look made to hold a wand, to cast spells both light and dark. He wears rings on every other finger—they glitter black and silver in the light of the fire from the fireplace that the Room has provided.
She knows she looks different than she did at Hogwarts. She’s taken care of her hair, yes, but she’s taken care of her fashion sense, too. She’s wearing a high-waisted white skirt with pleats and an oversized mauve jumper with sleeves that are too long for her. Her nylons are opaque black and her boots are black, too. She wears moderately-sized gold hoops in her ears.
But Hermione worries that everyone thinks she looks plain.
All the other girls are wearing make-up and fancy dresses and while she’s happy for them, she finds herself a bit envious. She wishes she were good at beauty charms but nothing ever seems to look right on her. She can’t contour her face because it’s shaped like a square and she can’t make the technique work. She can’t seem to put eyeshadow on without overwhelming her eyes because they’re hooded, foundation makes her skin look dry, and her eyebrows are just a whole situation.
Hermione likes when other girls feel confident and pretty, she just doesn’t know if—
“Did we stop playing, or is my little confiseur eating my sweets?”
Malfoy’s trying to be snarky. She knows that he’s trying to be snarky because he’s got that infuriating smirk on his face. It’s the one that tilts up at the left corner, showing a flash of white teeth and more than a bit of mischief.
But she can’t deny the embarrassing flip of her stomach at the “my little confiseur.”
Does he know it’s her?
The third bite of chocolate goes into Malfoy’s mouth more slowly than the last two. She’s distracted by her thoughts and nerves, and she doesn’t realize that she’s been so lost in her reverie that the chocolate’s begun to melt. Again.
Oh, Lord.
Oh, Lord, this is embarrassing.
It’s stuck. The chocolate has started to melt, and now it’s stuck. She’s going to have to touch his tongue, or—or something equally awful. How else is she supposed to get the chocolate to stay behind in his mouth when she takes her hand out?
She’s going to have a panic attack.
It’s hurtling toward her like a comet, trailing fearful ice in its wake. Hermione can see it now—everyone laughing at her, thinking she’s weird or bizarre or wrong.
Just like her last boyfriend, the frustratingly-handsome Cassius Warrington.
Cassius was the King of Infantilization. He was older than her and talked down to her often, sometimes slowing his cadence or praising her for basic knowledge as though she were a toddler. He would order her food for her at restaurants before she got the chance to even ask for water. He insulted every piece of clothing she wore so that he could buy her a new wardrobe of things she hated made of fabric that itched and suffocated her and made her grind her teeth. He hated her natural hair, wearing her resolve down until she gave in and only wore sew-ins around him.
Her edges still haven’t recovered from that, and it’s been a year since their break-up.
Alas, it hadn’t started out that way, so horrible and defeating. No, in the beginning, Cassius was wonderful and he treated her as an equal. It was a shame that as time went on, he changed and eventually let slip his true opinion regarding her blood status.
That relationship lasted much too long.
He had said there was something off about her and that it was the reason why she couldn’t make new friends and keep them. The reason why her only two friends were Ron and Harry, and one of them was her ex.
And now she’s going to have to hear it again.
They’ll probably call her creepy and accuse her of letting the chocolate melt on purpose. They’ll say how abnormal she is, and they’ll open the book that contains her true self and rip the pages out. They’ll tear her apart.
Just like Cassius.
But then, just when she feels her eyes beginning to sting and she stops being able to take a stable breath, Malfoy does the unthinkable.
He closes his lips around her two forefingers. The entire room goes still as Draco hollows his cheeks and sucks.
Hermione freezes, her whole body on fire. Not only is everyone watching, but it’s mental. He’s Draco Malfoy, the aristocratic, put-together Pureblood heir to the Malfoy fortune. He’s not going to play a game of Truth or Dare in a way that compromises his pride and cleanliness.
But apparently, he is.
Her lungs spasm. She’s been holding her breath. It stumbles on the way out as he sucks the rest of the chocolate off of her fingers, still smirking as he chews.
“I know its you, Pansy,” he says. “Only you have fingers that soft.”
Theo, Blaise, Seamus, and Dean start laughing and they don’t stop until their howling causes them to put hands to their stomachs.
Why are they laughing? Is it because Malfoy just sucked chocolate off of her fingers? Or because they don’t think her fingers look soft? She feels like she’s being watched. She doesn’t know what to do with her wet fingers.
She feels like his tongue is still against them.
Pansy’s standing right beside Hermione, likely to help make the guessing game more difficult. She looks the same as she did when they were in school, with her chic black bob and lips painted cherry-red. She’s been wearing a skimpy silver dress made of satin all night and as she leans down towards Malfoy, her bare shoulder brushes against the fabric of Hermione’s jumper.
“Oh, come off it,” Pansy replies to Malfoy. “You haven’t had these fingers on you since Sixth Year.”
“Forgive me. Whoever’s fingers they are, they feel just like yours did around my—”
“Watch it,” Theo says, his voice a playful growl. “That’s my girlfriend.”
Malfoy smiles.
It disarms Hermione for a moment. She’s seen him smirk. She’s seen the lopsided grins.
She’s never seen him smile before.
Hermione’s face is so hot that her soul is floating outside of her body. It’s on its way up to the sky, to the stars, to the furthest reaches of the universe, where pulsars sing to nothing and don’t care about her embarrassment. The room is full of people she’s gone through school and war with. People she’s friends with and people she’s not. Some of those people are going to find it quite amusing when Malfoy takes off his blindfold and sees that it’s Hermione Granger’s muddy fingers he’s just tasted.
“Wrong,” Pansy says with a snicker. “You get one more guess.”
There’s only two girls left. Hermione and Parvati.
Hermione is blushing so hard, she feels lightheaded. She uses the same fingers he’d just licked and breaks off a fourth piece of chocolate.
“Open up, Draco,” Pansy trills like she’s singing a song. “Here comes the Nimbus.”
Malfoy flashes a crooked grin in the direction of her voice, and then he parts his lips.
Trembling, Hermione fights against the wild beating of her heart and the clenching of her lungs, willing her panic to recede. She places the chocolate in his mouth, already knowing that it’s going to stick to her fingers again. It feels like she’s walking into the ocean in the middle of a hurricane.
Malfoy’s tongue wraps around her fingers again. It tickles this time—perhaps because she’s expecting it—and her anxiety takes over. She tries to yank her hand back, but he’s too fast. It’s like he already expected what she was going to do.
His right hand snaps out and grabs her left wrist from her side. He tugs her towards him right as his left hand comes up to grip her right wrist. She stumbles into him, her knees hitting the front edge of the couch between his legs, right as she feels his thighs bracketing hers.
He’s so…tall. She doesn’t have to do much more than tilt her chin down to look at his face. He seems to have no care for the fact that what he’s doing is very lewd for being in the middle of an impromptu party.
There’s no way he’d do this if he knew for sure it was Hermione.
Right?
Now, she’s really panicking. Her thoughts are going one million kilometers per hour. Everyone’s watching and they’re going to think she’s some perverted nightmare if she doesn’t move away. The fact that she’s just standing there, letting Malfoy do this?
It’s just like Cassius said during one of the worst fights they ever had.
“I don’t understand why you think it’s normal to want to have sex all the time. I mean, for guys, yeah, but for girls? It’s just weird. And why is it that when I want it, you’re not in the mood but the second you want it, you’re pouting because I don’t want to sleep with you? Something is seriously wrong with you, Hermione. I don’t know what it is, but you should really get it checked out.”
There was also one other problem that had plagued their relationship once the hormones and honeymoon phase wore off.
Cassius didn’t like sex.
It’s not that he didn’t like it—he did, really. She knew he did because the weeks after the first time they’d slept together, he’d been like a damn rabbit. It wasn’t necessarily good sex but sometimes it felt the way it was supposed to.
They’d been fairly active for at least a year and then Hermione’s anxiety started to affect their relationship in ways she couldn’t have predicted. It made her closed off, unreceptive to his touches. It made her scared to try new things and terrified of the routine ones. Soon, it got to the point where Cassius didn’t bother with foreplay. He just rammed it in.
So really, he did fancy sex.
It’s just that he hadn’t fancied it with her.
“What’s wrong with you?” he’d said the first time she’d gotten the courage to try and initiate a second round. “It’s really not normal for girls to want to have sex all the time. Are you having an episode?”
That was a glaring red flag, and she should have paid attention to it.
Because the next time they had sex, she was so deep inside of her head with anxiety over whether or not he was even attracted to her that her body was dry and clenched. He hadn’t realized that that was probably a warning that they should stop. She hadn’t realized that she could even ask to stop, and he’d forced his way inside of her anyway.
It hurt.
It hurt, but Cassius didn’t seem to notice or care. He mistook the way she slapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a cry for acceptance. The sex was awful and afterward, he came on her stomach like she meant nothing to him.
She agonized over it for days, feeling awful and ugly and like her skin was crawling. Then, she’d confronted him about it over an extravagant dinner she frenetically and painstakingly put together specifically to discuss the issue with him in a neutral, safe environment.
He’d lost it.
Hermione didn’t like to think about the horrid things he’d said to her. Blaming her for not being wet, calling her a nutter for wanting to have sex in spite of being dry in the first place, telling her that her frigidity had nothing to do with him.
And then, days later, when she was ready to try again, he wasn’t interested. Each time she tried to initiate, he didn’t respond. If she tried to put her hands on his shoulders and massage him, gave him a flirtatious look, or outright suggested they spend time together, he acted like something was wrong with her on a deeper, mental level.
So she hates that she’s standing here in the midst of a brewing panic attack, wrists grasped in Malfoy’s hands as he lewdly licks chocolate off of her fingers, wondering how revolted he’ll be when he realizes it’s her. She can feel his tongue, wet against the creases of her knuckle joints. It strokes gently, flicking the same way she imagines it would if they were snogging. He’s got the blindfold on but for some reason, Hermione can feel his gaze on her.
Something pulses between her legs.
Shame fills her, spreading like poison through her veins. It runs from her heart down to the tips of her fingers and toes, and turns the brown skin of her face red. This is more than mortifying.
This is humiliating.
It’s humiliating because everyone’s watching. It’s humiliating because she knows how much he hates her and has always hated her. It’s humiliating because everyone probably thinks she’s acting like a slag for letting this go on.
It’s humiliating because she likes it.
When he finally lets her go, her fingers sliding out of his mouth with a popping noise, she feels empty inside. He licks his lips.
“It’s Granger.”
Merlin.
The way he says her name is like nothing she’s ever heard before. She’s looking too far into it, she knows she is, but it sounds like a purr. Like he’s intentionally trying to caress the syllables the same way he caressed that chocolate.
“Correct,” Hermione says, her voice coming out as a squeak. She clears her throat, wiping her hand on her skirt. “It was me.”
“Of course I’m correct.”
Malfoy stands up to his full height, removing the blindfold as he does. All six feet and four inches of him tower over her, forcing her to crane her neck to meet his eyes. It makes her feel strange. Finite in the sort of way that a human might feel in front of a vampire.
His eyes are the clearest grey she’s ever looked into.
He’s looking at her like he’s waiting for her to say something, but she can’t think of what on Earth he’d want her to say. She doesn’t like the way he’s always inspected her like a puzzle. When they were younger, putting the pieces together would lead to a picture of how to insult her the best. Malfoy was always good at that—figuring out what hurt the most.
Anxious at being watched so intently, she turns and walks back to the couch she’d been sitting on earlier.
“Well, that was…a thing,” Theo says slowly. “Anyway, that means you go next, Draco.”
Malfoy walks over to a small table in the corner of the room, where he picks up his glass of fizzy drink. He gives the ceiling a thoughtful glance before he takes a sip and sets it down again.
“How about we make some changes?” he suggests.
Pansy arches one eyebrow. “Like…?”
“How about we skip the Dare and just go on to Truth?”
“That’s no fun, though,” Blaise complains. He, along with everyone else besides Malfoy, is seated on the couches. “Why would we skip the best part?”
“Unless.”
“Unless what?”
“Unless I sneak down to Slughorn’s stores and get some Veritaserum? I know exactly how to get in.”
Blaise gasps. “I like the way you think, you sly snake, you.”
“Hurry up and go!” Pansy says, clapping her hands.
Instantly, Hermione’s hackles rise.
Veritaserum use outside of legal proceedings is illegal—it’s a punishable offense. Especially if one doesn’t have the proper potioneering license. To steal it on top of that would earn an instant Azkaban sentence if caught. Hermione knows that. Malfoy knows that. Everyone in the rooms knows that.
But it's clear by the enthusiastic response everyone’s giving that they love the idea, and don’t give a fig about the law. Truth or Dare is child’s play when everyone can lie, but with a truth serum?
No one can.
Malfoy leaves the room.
Hermione clenches her hands into fists in her lap, pretending to listen to Pansy make up new rules for the game. She digs her fingernails into her skin until the pain causes her to lose her breath. This party is overwhelming. She wants to leave but the fear that everyone’s going to talk about her when she leaves keeps her rooted to the couch. She wants to cry, too, but there’s fear in that. She hasn’t wept in front of anyone since Cassius.
Malfoy comes back fifteen minutes later with a smug expression and a small glass vial of pearlescent liquid in his hand.
“We settled on the rules, Draco,” Pansy says, walking over to the table that currently hosts everyone’s drinks. All the cups have Firewhiskey in them except for Malfoy’s and Hermione’s. Pansy then holds out her hand, palm facing up. “Bring it here. Thank you.”
“What are the new rules, my Queen?” Malfoy says in a mocking tone. When he gets to the table, he leans back against the wall with his hands in the pockets of his denims. His thumbs remain outside, resting on the fabric. He appears relaxed.
Pansy uncorks the small bottle and begins tipping one drop into everyone’s drink.
“Everyone has to take the potion. Once we’ve all got it in our systems, we can start picking people to ask questions. You have to answer the question without trying to resist the urge. And I know you know that Veritaserum makes it painfully clear when you try to resist. Looking at you, Theo.”
“Oh, of course, my love.”
Pansy smirks and hands Malfoy his glass, her eyebrows wiggling up and down. “Drink up.”
Malfoy takes the glass from her and takes a small sip. That’s all he’ll need—Veritaserum is potent. As he does so, Pansy waves her wand and sends glasses floating towards everyone else. Hermione receives her own and stares at it.
What if they ask a question she’s too scared to answer?
“If you resist answering with the truth, then you’ll have to serve the punishment,” Pansy says as she prances over to Theo and plants herself across his thighs. She knocks back her Firewhiskey and sends the glass floating back to the table.
“How will we know if someone’s trying to hold in the truth?” Seamus asks.
“Veritaserum causes adverse effects on the body when someone tries to fight it off,” Theo answers, his arms wrapped loosely around Pansy’s waist from the side. “Sweating, for starters.”
“Right,” Pansy agrees. “So if you try to lie, then we get to ask three more questions and not only do you have to answer them, but you have to walk back to the entrance of the castle in your underthings.”
Hermione feels like she’s going to be sick.
“What sorts of questions are you going to be asking, then?” Parvati crosses her arms over her chest, glaring. “I’m twenty-two and I’m not interested in being grilled about my sex life.”
“Well, you’re just going to have to find out the sort, aren’t you?” Millicent says, grinning from beneath her head of burnished red hair. “It’s not as fun without sex questions, and you know it.”
Parvati starts to protest, but Seamus’ hand on hers silences hers.
“It’ll be fine,” he says in a loud voice. “Our sex life is pretty lively, so at least we’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about.”
Pansy glares at him.
Hermione holds in a sigh.
Sometimes, it feels like normal things like sex and intimacy aren’t something she deserves. It feels like it’s all reserved for confident girls with agreeable personalities that know how to do different positions. Girls that have experience.
She fears no one will ever love exploring body the way she wanted Cassius to.
Her eyes are stinging again, tiny pins pricking her corneas. She has to close them for a moment, just to keep them from filling up and spilling over. She hates this, hates the way her emotions make her feel. Her fear and the constant never knowing what anyone’s thinking. She’s never been the loudest person in the room but right now, she’s quieter than she’d be in a Library.
Has anyone noticed?
Malfoy, who is leaning back against the wall, tips his head back until he’s looking down his nose at the room. His gaze slices through the distance and hones in on Hermione. It traverses the planes of her face, drops to the way she’s clutching her cold glass. He stares at her like he can see into her brain.
Gods be, she’s sweating.
She looks away to try and wrangle in her discomfort, but he’s still looking at her. He finds her eyes again as he sits down, stretching one leg out and resting his elbow on the arm of the couch. They hold eye contact for a moment, Hermione feeling like she’s being dragged down into quicksand, and she wonders.
Why didn’t he react to the fact that she’s the one his tongue tasted?
The game begins.