Eventide

A/N : hulloo, some things to highlight before we begin.

This story contains explicit language and ignores the timeline of the Harry Potter series.

If you cannot stand the relationship between Hermione and Draco then this story might not be for you as the story focuses on the aforementioned characters.

All characters, settings, and anything related or relevant to Harry Potter that are mentioned in this book belong to JK Rowling.

now sit tight and enjoy loves! thanks for reading!

The Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw that evening found Draco idly strolling around the library, eyeing the bookshelves trying to find any book to get lost into. The pleasant sound of shoes clicking the marble floor, melodiously accompanied by the sound of pages flipping and quills dancing across parchments, together creating a harmonious tune to his ears.

Draco noticed the aromatic earthy warm smell of coffee grounds lingering in the air, awakening his senses every time he breathes in the library. The view of the library was not disappointing at all, with the quaint cherry wood window wide open, allowing the sun shamelessly pouring its light into the bibliotheca.

All those empty thoughts came to a halt when the corner of his grey eyes caught a certain familiar silhouette of a classmate, particularly a brunette, famously known as the brightest witch of their age. His heart paused, before it skyrocketed to the moon, beating furiously in his chest. He tried to ignore the sudden existence of crazy butterflies flapping their wings in his stomach, just because of a mere sight of a witch named Hermione Jean Granger.

He felt a sudden unknown itch to talk to her but didn’t know how. He has always been a brilliant conversationalist, being a socialite and all his mother had trained him which strings to pull to start a small talk.

Unfortunately, all those lessons and scoldings flew away like the dust in the corner of the library as he had no slightest clue on how to talk to her. They were not friendly to each other, only regarded one another as classmates and no more than that. But most of the time, Draco wished they were more than just classmates.

More than friends, dare he says.

Pretending to walk past her table, he glanced in her direction, trying to see what she was doing. It’s not like the swot would probably notice someone was staring at her, she was too absorbed with her world to realise anything happening.

The witch had her quill between her fingers, moving it up and down as her brows furrowed at the parchment in front of her.

Elaborate the use of unicorn hooves in modern medicine. As a responsible potioneer, explain the correct methods to consume the unicorn hooves without harming the animal.

Draco clicked his tongue. Easy. He already has a plethora of answers to put into. But the brunette seemed to be struggling with her as he saw her flipping through books piled up on each other in front of her, with another parchment to her right with angry scribbles on it. She had a muggle pencil between her teeth, and Draco wondered how it would feel like to have her lips around him.

‘Guess what, we use unicorn hooves for any potions that require a strong source of protein. Mainly used by any patients who suffered hair loss after any treatment,’ he interrupted.

‘I know that,’ she replied, teeth gritted together.

Draco snorted before rolling his eyes, ‘Then why did you look like you were about to have angry fuck with all these books? Don’t tell me you’re into that kind of stuff, Granger.’

‘I’m not! Now leave me alone, will you?’

The wizard bit his cheek, looking upwards, and pretended to think. ‘Is United Kingdom still a free country? I think so,’ he darted his gaze to her. ’So, no. I feel like staying here. Watching you squirming with homework suddenly seemed like my favourite pastime to do now. You know, there’s someone who’s also good at potions, right?’

Hermione scoffed, ‘And what made you think that I think I’m going to ask you?’ She raised her chin, meeting her coffee orbs against his grey ones.

At that moment, Draco decided that brown is his favourite colour. Well, next to green and silver. And it has to be Granger’s shade of brown, cannot be a shade more or a shade less.

‘Fuck, focus.’ He scolded himself.

‘Curious one, aren’t you Granger?’ He examined his nails for a while, before tilting his head and looked back at her. ‘If you must know, I feel like doing charity today. And what better charity there is than to take the time out of my busy schedule to help a frustrated Hermione Granger, the brightest witch of her age with her school homework. Can't imagine how brilliant my work resume will be!’ His eyes reflected a wolfish twinkle in them.

Not satisfied with only receiving glares, Draco continued. ‘What? I thought that was what you Gryffindorks preach about -- something about teamwork or two heads better than one? Are you afraid you are fraternising with the enemy? Or are you afraid of your brightest witch of her age reputation tattered if you ask for my help? No worries, Granger’, he strode forward until he was faced with her back. Draco caged her in, putting his hands on her right and her left respectively on the table. He leaned forward until he caught the smell of jasmine and books. He placed his lips to her right ear, ‘Don’t fret. I’ll be your dirty little secret’, he blew a breath, satisfied with how she gasped and went stiff.

He noticed a certain part of her body went pert, and Draco would like to believe it was not due to the low temperature in the library. Feeling triumph with her response, he waltzed out of the library, leaving her all hot and bothered.

He has an image of a brunette, specifically in a library to wank to.

***DMHG***

The next day after school, Draco decided to skip lunch and walked to the library, hoping to see a certain someone. His eyes scanned the great library hall, moving left and right before stopping at a sight at the end corner of the library.

He began walking towards her direction, pleased that her companion for today does not come in a form of a celebrity orphan or the carrot siblings. Her choice of companion was odd to say, an alarm clock and a kneazle with fur so long Draco could barely make out its face.

When Draco was a few steps away, Draco took note of the familiar parchment he saw from yesterday. The lone witch was scratching her hair out of frustration before turning to the kneazle, ranting about her homework to the flat-face cat.

She took out a book and read it quickly, before taking the kneazle’s tail to bookmark the page. She began gripping her quill to write only to freeze and put her head on the table, face facing the kneazle, right hand brushing her familiar.

‘Still stuck on the same homework, Granger?’ She jumped, clearly wasn’t expecting him today.

‘Who’s this? Your new tutor?’ Draco pointed at the orange beast.

This time, he got himself a reply. ‘His name is Crookshanks.’ She seemed very defensive about him.

As if on queue, the four-legged ginger began to purr, the sound reminded Draco a lot of Hagrid’s motorbike. He felt the creature was judging him.

Draco concluded Granger will never ask for his help. Still, he has answers that she wants and the satisfaction of her writing down the answers that he told riled him up.

He glanced at the parchment. She only answered the first part of the question.

‘Synthetics. Unicorns with paraplegics.’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Alchemists had discovered a way of making synthetic unicorn’s hooves. One of the main ingredients for the synthetic was horse hooves. Magical paleontologists and molecular biologists proved that the DNA shared between unicorns and horses matched up to almost 100 percent. It was also claimed that these two animals share the same common ancestors,’ he elaborated.

Granger blinked.

‘You will want to write it down.’ He smirked.

A shade of red decorated his companion’s cheeks, making her look lovelier than before.

‘Honestly Granger, I thought you would have known!’ He pretended to gasp. Hermione paused her movement and started looking at his way. Finally.

‘Why are you helping me? If there is anything you want then you better swallow it up because I’m not in the mood to entertain your bollocks today.’ She cleared it up.

Draco leaned forward, enjoying the way she was affected by this simple movement. Ensuring his eyes met hers, he continued, ‘Charity, Granger,’ he dragged.

She rolled her eyes, clearly unamused with his words today.

‘Fine, at least humour me with this one. Where did you get that information? Because I can assure you that I’ve thoroughly read all the books in the library and all the books I have in my room but I couldn’t find any answers. I mean, I have answers, but they were not as detailed as I want them to be. And I remember Professor Slughorn told us, when writing, we should assume the reader does not know what we are talking about and give answers as thoroughly as possible. Besides, what if this question comes out on the exam? I don’t want to waste my time reading all these books when I could just review my answers here.’ Draco didn’t think Hermione realised she was blabbering.

‘You must be quite stressed out if you are suddenly ranting at me. What? Our favourite problematic duo doesn’t have enough brain cells to understand your struggles? Seemed like it.’ He hummed.

Granger just looked at him. ‘You know they won’t even be interested to even listen the first part of it. You still haven’t answered my question. How did you know this?’

‘I read. Maybe you should try,’ he smirked. Wrong answer. He swore he could see the fire burning at the end of her messy curls.

‘You and I both know who reads more, Malfoy. I swear if you don’t tell me I’m going to hex your balls until you can’t reproduce anymore.’ Her eyes burned, only to have him feel more riled up.

‘Didn’t know you had it in you to jeopardise our children.’ If before she was not amused, Draco decided now she was in a rage.

The wand in her hand began flickering with electricity. Deciding to spare his life for another day, Draco put both hands up.

‘Fine. With a condition. Answer me why you have an alarm clock with you like a psychopath. If you want to donate this rusty old thing’, he jutted his chin to the round clock, ‘ You should at least consider giving the old grandfather clock, this toy won’t match the whole ancient library theme, you know.’

She looked a bit shy but didn’t hesitate. ‘To set a timer. I was supposed to get all the potion homework done by yesterday but I couldn’t find the perfect answer and it’s dragging me until today and disrupting my whole schedule. So I have to set up a timer to make sure I don’t get too absorbed that I forgot I have other works to tend to.’

Didn’t know what to do with her explanation, Draco gave his part of the bargain. ‘Advance Potions: 28th Edition. It was a compilation of ideas from many scholars from all centuries up until now. I thought you would have the book.’

‘I was collecting money for it,’ she said.

Hermione had been collecting money ever since the announcement of the latest edition was released in the Daily Prophet. It became one of the most anticipated books of the year. She even had it on her wishlist. But a certain need got the best of her and she may or may not spent the money buying other books that attracted her interest during her last visit to Flourish & Blotts. She knew she shouldn’t the moment Crookshanks acting clingy around her before the visit, foreshadowing her.

Now, she has to face the consequences. And of course, Professor Slughorn used the newly released book as the answer to his question. He frequently mentioned how important it is to keep on being up-to-date as the wizarding world keeps on evolving and new discoveries found daily.

Something tugged Draco’s heart. Judging by her face, Draco could tell how bad she wanted it. It was a very expensive book, due to its high demand in the market. Even if she has enough money to purchase it, he doubted she could get the special edition ones, the ones with interpretation, reviews, and far more detailed and thorough explanation for everything in there. He has the special edition book in his dormitory, perfectly resting on a velvet cushion placed in a box. The publishing company was kind enough to send them a copy, mainly due to their influence in the wizarding community. His copy even has the author’s signatures with some messages he didn’t bother to read.

He bet its new owner would enjoy the book more than he did.

‘I have a copy. At the Malfoy’s library, of course.’ He lied.

If before this he could feel butterflies, now he swore he could feel all of Newt Scamander’s magical creatures having a fiesta in his stomach when Hermione’s eyes widened and shined at him as if he said he was going to build the biggest library for her to live in.

‘I could give it to you now. But I have to owl my mother to send it.’ Another lie. Even if the book was in his house, Draco could just summon Mippy to grab it for him. But he doesn’t want to.

He wanted to give it to her tomorrow so he could have a reason to meet her again.

The witch in front of her was too dumbfounded to move. Her perfect lips were opened a bit, still not done by the shock he sent her way.

‘Won’t your mother care for the book to land on a stranger’s hand?’ She asked.

‘Even if the book belongs to Narcissa, she won’t care shit, seeing she could still buy thousands of its copies,’ he thought.

‘I can assure you that should be the least of your concern. We can still afford the same book over and over again if anything happens to the book. Our vault is big enough we might even have another slot open if someone is interested to have rights on it’, he hinted.

Unfortunately for him, Granger was too euphoric to notice the last part of his “we’re loaded” speech.

‘So Granger, tomorrow? Same time?’ He asked, snapping his fingers in front of her face to break her from a non-existent stupefy curse.

‘Yeah. Up to you.’ She said shyly.

Draco nodded, beginning to announce his leave and simply turned around when a feminine figure was hugging him from behind.

When he turned around, he was sure he looked so confused because she started to blabber again. ‘Sorry, I hope you don’t mind. I’m not usually like this but wow-- you are going to give me the book that I had to save up for months?’ She looked away, trying to find something to compose herself. ‘It’s just, thank you, Malfoy. It may not mean much to you but it means a lot to me.’ She turned around to sit back.

If only she knew how much this meant for him too. If he knew she would be swayed by books that easy, he would buy the whole Flourish & Blotts for her and asked the owner to immediately send any new release to Hermione Granger.

When he walked out of the library, he hoped she didn’t notice the tent forming when she hugged him from behind.