Work Text:
Hermione was leaning over all the gathered resources for their assigned case, Draco on the other side of the table, as he always was, trying to decipher the strange runes carved into the skin of the victims back with their own wand.
This case had been grim from the very beginning, this being the third in-detail victim report she’d looked at that day, and she’d been desperately trying to think of ways she could lighten the mood since they began.
Her stomach churned as she examined the wand of and that had been used on the second victim, when her eyes caught on the slightly watered-down droplets of blood smudged across the plastic ziplock bag.
“Hey, look,” she spoke, startling Draco as a word hadn’t been spoken for at least thirty minutes, and he sat up, leaning over to inspect what she was pointing at with alert eyes and a creasing brow.
“Your face was that colour when you were told you had to work with me on this.” She said, but when he stifled a chortle, she stilled.
He snapped his expression back into his perfect blank slate of resignation, but she could see the panic in his eyes as they returned to his deductions, flitting all over the page.
“Did I just…make you laugh?” She asked, her mouth parted in true disbelief.
“Absolutely not, I just had a…small seizure.” He told her, making her scoff, her mouth stretching into a wide smile.
“You think I’m funny.” She stated, watching him run his tongue along the top row of his teeth behind closed lips.
“Funny dressing.” He quipped, and she flashed her eyes to the ceiling.
“You like me.” She stated, but her smile fell a little as his eyes shot to hers, his face hardening seriously.
“As a person.” She clarified, allowing a small nervous laugh to ease the tightening in her chest, but he simply looked back down to the words, his lips pursing briefly.
“Come on, admit it-”
“I do not like you, Hermione Granger.” He snapped, and her head jerked, partly due to the first time she’d ever heard him use her first name.
“You’re stubborn, walking around like you know everything and that your way is always best.” He continued, and she pushed herself off the table, crossing her arms over her chest.
“You disregard the psychic practice when you’re a goddamn witch who has encountered innumerable things and beings that you thought could never be imagined.” He finally lifted his eyes to her and her breaths, slowly building harsher and harsher, stuttered when his gaze flicked to her tightly set mouth quickly.
“You’re reckless, always fighting for what you believe in even if it could be the death of you.”
Hermione rolled her eyes at his familiar Gryffindor jibe, and she stared at the large potted fern in the corner of the workroom, her foot tapping the floor impatiently, waiting for him to finish.
“All those precious creatures you’re hellbent on liberating would probably maul you as soon as they had the chance-”
“But they-”
“Yes, yes, I know, but they don’t have the chance to try and maul you, oh my heart just bleeds for them,” Draco drawled with a roll of his eyes, and Hermione’s fists clenched as she envisioned wringing his neck.
“You’ve saved more of this universe than I could have ever anticipated, and I doubt you’ve even scratched the surface of what you’re going to achieve, yet you shy away from compliments and praise, already focusing on your next hero project.” He said, and her eyes travelled back to him cautiously as he scraped his chair back and stood, tension flooding from her lips as she watched him snap his head to the side, and she knew from the weeks they’d spent in here that he had just been distracted from his point.
“That’s another thing, your focus is annoying.” He said, and she threw her arms out defeatedly before they dropped to her sides.
“You decide that you’ve finished something too early. You come to a conclusion then you just leave it and never return to it, then you don’t listen when I try to talk to you about it again or suggest a different route we could explore because all your focus is on the next thing on your never-ending, exhausting list, which you’ll probably have to be buried with like a bloody pharaoh.” He ranted, and Hermione’s eyes flit to the plant and back again, her brow creasing as she only briefly considered that that point might have some truth to it.
“If you’re quite done-”
“I’m not. It’s honestly terrifying how fiercely you protect the ones you love, and how you will do it over and over again with the same energy as if it’s the first time you’ve ever done it. Nothing seems to wear you down.” He shook his head to himself as he stepped around the table, pacing at the head of it, and she swallowed, her heartbeat quickening as she registered he wasn’t quite saying bad things about her anymore.
“I don’t think anything can beat you – well, except when you mix butterbeer and firewhiskey,” he muttered the addition, making Hermione huff a surprised laugh through her nose, “and that one time you accepted wine from Weaslette, on top of them. That was actually quite terrifying as well.” He recalled, and the corners of Hermione’s lips turned up into a small, reluctant smile.
“Your spirit is unbreakable, Granger, and you’re the most-!” He stopped then after taking a step towards her, and she looked up at him with wide eyes, her entire body frozen as he analysed her face, something unreadable in his expression that she could only pinpoint as close to despair.
“Spectacular person I’ve ever met.” He finished, and all breath left Hermione, her body going numb as her eyes flicked over every feature of his face.
She stared at his lips as he opened and closed them, drawing them tightly together before taking a steadying breath.
“So, no, I do not like you, Granger. I…I love you.” He said, and Hermione was certain she’d never feel a bone in her body ever again.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a…small seizure to tend to.” He uttered before promptly bolting from the room.