Fic: Showstopper (Draco/Hermione)

[cryptaknight]

Gift For: snegurochka_lee
Title: Showstopper
Author/Artist: cryptaknight
Pairing(s): Draco/Hermione
Summary: An attempt to save his failing business has an effect on his life that Draco never imagined.
Word count: ~7200 words
Rating: NC17
Warnings: EWE
Author/Artist's notes: Thank you to K for the beta and oh, so much feedback. Thanks to S and L for cheerleading and giving me their input along the way. There's no way this would have gotten written without you lot. I wish a very happy holidays to snegurochka_lee, and I hope you enjoy the fic. Any potions/science errors fall squarely on my shoulders- please don't blame Draco and Hermione! Happy reading!


The doorbell jangled, and the serene look fell from Draco's face, and he slumped over the counter. Another customer- or non-customer, really- had left without purchasing a bloody thing, sniffing about young upstarts and purebloods in trade and that the potions were the same as what they could get over at that shop in Knockturn Alley, and for a few sickles less, at that. His hands on his chin, he sighed, feeling dejected and not caring who knew it. It had been hard enough to open an Apothecary, so very difficult to slap his name on that sign and hang it out, especially over his mother's weeping and his father's supercilious objections. The sad truth was that the family needed money, and respectability, and tucking their tails between their legs and licking Ministry boots wasn't getting the job done. Not that his shop was either, at the moment. It had at first, and hadn't he been giddy like an ickle firstie? But he'd soon learnt that was down to people simply wanting to goggle at the sight of a Malfoy with a shopkeep's apron tied round his waist, and once the novelty had worn off, so had his profits. The shop was dangerously in the red, and Draco was worried. Deeply worried.


"What you need is a showstopper," came the voice from somewhere to his left.

"Hmmm?" Draco returned, lost in thought. He swivelled his head, seeing Gloriana Gladrags still in his shop, her blonde head bobbing along as she picked up phials and turned them over in her hands. Glory was the daughter of Gladiola, the current head of Gladrags Wizardwear, who had opened a shop in Diagon Alley, not far from Draco's apothecary. He suspected their surname was a put on; it was simply far too convenient of a handle for the owners of a quirky clothing shop, but that was not his concern at the moment. His concern at the moment was the sixteen-year-old know-it-all currently telling how to run his business.

"You need a showstopper," Glory repeated. "Look, what makes my family's stores any better off than Madame Malkin, or any other clothing shop?" She didn't give him any room to answer. "Because we have special, one of a kind items that you can only get at our stores, see? We started with the socks, and then Dumbledore endorsed us, and it was all Galleons in the bank after that. You need to find that one special thing that people can only get at your shop."

Glory looked terribly pleased with herself. Draco rolled his eyes. The girl hadn't even been alive when her family had opened their first shop, and her grandmum hadn't been but a gleam in the original Gladrags' eyes when they'd gotten the coveted Dumbledore endorsement. Not that Draco liked thinking too much on Albus Dumbeldore, but Glory here had only been a firstie herself during Draco's awful sixth year, so he supposed she wouldn't know about that. He also supposed that was the only reason he tolerated her hanging about his shop all the time, instead of attending her mum's shop like she was supposed to be doing- she was one of the few people that seemed blessedly ignorant of the things he'd done as a foolish teenager. In fact, she seemed to have taken a shine to him, and though she was irritating as all get out, that did score points with him. Besides, he thought bitterly, if he didn't let Glory idle her day away pestering him, his shop would be completely empty of all people but himself.

It was also possible she had a point, but Draco wasn't about to inflate her head by telling her so, so he simply barked at her to mind the phials, because if she broke something, she was buying it, and at full retail. But he filed the idea away, although he had not a damn clue what his 'showstopper' could be.

Over the next several days, however, the idea would not leave him, and on yet another slow day in the shop, he pulled out his copies of Advanced Potions Making and Moste Potente Potions. His mind was going in several directions, but perhaps his reliable texts could narrow it down to one. He could simply make an old, rare potions, something difficult but not unheard of. Or he could specialise in dark potions, but he was reluctant to sully his name any further than it already had been; he could already hear the whispers asking what else one expected of a Malfoy. No thank you. The word 'showstopper' stuck with him, and he knew in his heart of hearts that he wanted to make something new, something the world had never seen before, something truly special. Something that was really just his. So he ended up looking at the books to see what was not there.

Flipping rapidly through the pages, he slowed only when he reached medicinal tinctures and draughts. These were the sorts of things that people could be counted on to buy. When cold season hit, any shop would do for Pepper-Up potion, and when a witch or wizard was in need, one coagulant potion was as good as another. But what if there was some sort of healing draught that people could only find at his apothecary? Then the Galleons would really be rolling in, he thought.

He frowned as he turned the multitude of pages. Merlin's y-fronts, there was a potion for just about every ailment one could think of- cough, runny nose, fever, stomach trouble, headache, the list went on and on. It would be a disaster if someone were to fall seriously ill. They'd end up taking several potions just to feel comfortable. It would be so much easier if there were one potion that took care of everything. He looked up from the book with something like his cockiness of old settling onto his face. That was it, wasn't it? His showstopper.

~*~*~*~*~

Two weeks later, there was nothing cocky about Draco's demeanour. There was a good reason no one had ever made a potion like the one Draco was working on- because it was ruddy impossible. Each potion worked fine on its own, but not in combination with any of the others. It wasn't as simple as isolating the key ingredients in each potion and combining them into one; doing that only left the potions brewer with a huge, sticky, smelly mess, which Draco knew because he was currently wearing it all over his face and down the front of his shirt. Frustrated, he tossed the entire cauldron in the rubbish bin, and sat behind the counter, fuming, trying to scrub the muck out of one of his few remaining high-end shirts.

Of course a voice piped up right then, incredulous and amused all at once. "What on earth were you doing?"

"Working on my bloody showstopper, can't you tell?" he bit out, his voice dripping with scorn. He jerked his head up, eyes flashing with anger, expecting it to be Glory, pestering him as usual, and ready to tear into her for giving him this stupid, stupid idea in the first place. He drew up short, however, because Glory wasn't quite so tall, and she didn't wear hand-knit jumpers, and she didn't have a wild halo of chestnut brown hair standing out from her head. Only one person Draco had ever known had hair like that.

Granger.

"What are you even doing here?" he asked, the scowl on his face deepening. It seemed his humiliation was now complete, having had a witness, and this witness in particular.

Granger looked up at him, then away, perusing the rows of phials along the left wall, her long, nimble fingers turning them this way and that, touching all of his hard work. It was infuriating. Draco's eyes bore into her in a cold, hard stare, a haughty eyebrow lifted, waiting for an explanation. Finally, simply, she said, "I'm shopping."

He met that answer with a more intense version of his previous stare, and Granger sighed, pausing with her hand on a bottle of Hair-Raising potion (something she clearly didn't need, he thought snidely, but kept the thought to himself). "I'd heard you had opened shop. I thought while we were in Diagon Alley, I'd stop in and have a look."

We? Draco's mind quickly filed through names, wondering who else he could count on turning up to mock him. He supposed the Weasel was the most likely suspect, one that was confirmed as Granger continued, "Ron went off to look at Quidditch supplies, which I had no interest in, really, so I told him I'd meet up later and popped by."

Popped by? Popped by, as it were totally normal and natural for Hermione Granger to drop in on Draco Malfoy for some catching up. One corner of his mouth lifted in a sneer, as he finally responded to all of her chatter. "Checking up on me, more like, eh? Well, you've seen now. It's true. Draco Malfoy is a shopkeep. You can report back that I am, in fact, nearly totally disgraced."

He didn't know why he kept on talking, but something about seeing her here now, when the shop was doing poorly and he was struggling so terribly to brew this stupid potion pushed all of his buttons, and the words kept welling up, unbidden, falling from his lips before he could catch them. "And you can also report that I am desperately brewing a potion, trying to save this hovel of a shop, and failing miserably," he bit out. "And it's all over my face and probably going to make all of my hair fall out or something equally horrible, and I shall end my days bald and poor and a failure. Good news for you lot, I'm sure."

His face pinked with horror at all that he'd just said, and to Granger, oh Merlin, to Granger, and the betrayal of his fair skin only made him more angry and more embarrassed, and he turned furiously back to trying to clean himself off, not meeting her eyes for all the Galleons in the world.

He was surprised, then, when all she said in return, after a long moment of uncomfortable silence, in the most reasonable tone imaginable, was, "Well, alright, but what sort of potion are you working on?"

He was so surprised, in fact, that he just answered, his voice low and subdued. "An all-in-one. For illnesses."

"Oh, that is tricky," she said, moving closer, and he wondered if she would just tell him the answer, if this was something her too-clever-by-half brain had already worked out, and he would be left feeling completely stupid and miserable. But it seemed he'd just piqued her curiosity, because when he carefully cut his eyes upward, he saw that she had a thoughtful expression on her face, one he recognised from their school days together. "I wonder if you could-"

But he cut her off, because he couldn't stand it. Things were hard enough without him having to rely on Hermione Granger for help. "I can figure it out myself, thanks."

Granger drew up short, the dreamy-cunning expression gone from her face, something calm and proper replacing it. "Fine. I'll be off then."

He didn't look up again until he heard the jangling bell signifying her exit.

*~*~*~*~*

The owl came a while later, a creature small and hyper and utterly annoying. Draco thought he should have guessed it came from her, and sent it away unopened, but owls from anyone other than his mum, whose owl he recognised as a matter of course, were rare these days, and his curiosity had gotten the best of him.

Malfoy,
I know this is probably entirely unwelcome, but I couldn't stop thinking about your dilemma, so I suppose I am writing at the risk of no response, which would be fine but disappointing.

I'm guessing that the reason your potion was giving you difficulties was because you isolated your key ingredients and simply combined them. My thought is this- perhaps you need some sort of binding agent, something to make them all work cohesively. Unfortunately, I have no idea what this binding agent would be, so there would still be quite a bit of experimenting involved, with mixed results, I am certain. Research might reveal common binding agents that you could try first, however.

I am willing to help. I must admit your project has caught my imagination, and I'm afraid my mind won't rest until the conundrum is solved. I can work on it on my own, of course, but it seems the smarter course to work together and cut the effort in half.

Let me know.

H. Granger

Draco stared at the parchment, flabbergasted. Granger wanted to work with him? The idea of her working on it on her own, solving it before him, filled him with a mixture of quiet rage and panic. But she was offering him something here, and while he had a dim suspicion it was charity, the offer was so shocking that it could be the only explanation for the fact that he responded, rather than shredding her note into a thousand pieces and hexing her irritating owl.

Granger-

Fine. Bring yourself and your ideas to my shop on Saturday.

-D. Malfoy

~*~*~*~*~

Granger showed up on Saturday, just as Draco was ready to close up shop for the night. He'd never set a time for her to arrive, and he'd shamefully been glancing at his watch all day, growing more and more irritated as it had looked like she was going to back out. The fact that he seemed to care only aggravated him more. But as he'd been moving toward the front door, she rushed in, breathless and with her arms full of books which she set on his counter with a sigh of relief. Wordlessly he locked the door behind her. Perhaps this was the best idea, anyway. They could work without interruption, concentrating on the task at hand.

"What's all this, then?" he asked, sweeping his arm out to indicate the pile of books on the counter, skipping over social niceties like greetings and how do you do's.

"Potions texts, really old ones," Granger said, grinning, looking quite pleased with herself. "I borrowed them from the Ministry archives. I've been working with the Ministry, revising the pureblood laws," she went on, flushing slightly at the word pureblood, although Draco only raised a brow in acknowledgment. "So they didn't think anything of it when I asked to take some books home."

"I didn't realise this was a top secret endeavour," Draco said, his face perfectly bland.

Granger flushed again. "No, no, of course not, but it is a bit of a side project, yeah? Not really the reason the Ministry gave me archive privileges."

He nodded silently, selecting a text at random, opening it and running a finger down the page. Granger had not been exaggerating when she said the texts were very old. The paragraph he was currently reading described the process of putting together Pepper-Up potion, with an emphasis on exciting New World ingredients. He looked up sharply, understanding Granger's reasoning for bringing such old tomes in a flash. By going backwards, they could see how the most common potions had been built, what the experimental process had been, and they could then apply that to his more complicated idea. It was pretty brilliant, although he didn't say that to her.

"Why don't we each take a book," he suggested, "and go through, looking for the binding agents?"

She agreed, and they spent that first evening in fairly companionable silence, every so often breaking the quiet to point something out to one another- an interesting ingredient, an unfamiliar technique. When she left, she left the books in Draco's care, so he could look them over at his leisure if he liked. He took it as a sign she meant to come back. Why that pleased him, he couldn't say.

It became a routine for them, though. A few nights a week, Granger would show up, coming directly, Draco learned, from her job at the Ministry. They never made small talk, simply got to work, although there was less and less silence, and more enthusiastic exchange of ideas. The talk was rarely personal- although things such as Granger's job came up, and Draco talked about opening the shop, they steered clear of sensitive subjects like Granger's continuing relationship with Ron Weasley and her friendship with Harry Potter, like Draco's struggling relationship with his father and his distinct lack of friendships. Glory had gone back to Hogwarts in September, and apart from his customers, Granger was Draco's only visitor to the shop, and while he suspected she knew this, she was discreet enough not to bring it up.

One evening she did ask him if he lived here at the shop. He'd nodded, waving a hand in the direction of a narrow staircase, which led to a simple one room flat above. He could've stayed on at the manor, he knew that, but he'd grown tired of arguing with his parents, and had craved a little independence. The flat had been there, empty. May as well use it. She'd had an odd look on her face then, the one he'd come to recognise as her turning a realisation over in her head, but he didn't ask, preferring not to hear what sort of conclusions she was drawing about him.

"Weasley might not let you come, if he knew you were mere steps from my bedroom, eh?" he said instead, making a weak attempt at a joke. His focus was on the root he was slicing; they'd made their list of potential binders, and had moved on to actually trying them out. This would be their first brew.

"About that..."

Something in her tone made him look up, and his lips tightened into a thin line when he saw the blush staining her cheeks. A funny feeling settled at the pit of his stomach, because he thought he knew what was coming, and his own voice came out cold. "Yes?"

"Ronald doesn't exactly know about, ah, this," she said, the red on her cheeks deepening, her eyes not meeting his.

Draco set his knife aside and laid his palm flat on the table, his face blank but his voice biting as he said, "You haven't told him it's me you're working with."

She shook her head, finally looking up at him. Her eyes were pleading, but he kept his own hard, unforgiving, unwilling to give an inch until he understood why this felt like a sucker-punch. Finally, she said, "I was trying to avoid any dramatics."

"Maybe you should just go," Draco suggested, each word an icicle. "Avoid any trouble altogether. I'm sure I can manage on my own from here."

"Draco," Granger said, her voice impatient as she pushed a stray curl out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. "There's no reason to get worked up about this. I'll tell him if it matters that much to you."

"This?" he said, his tone so imperious that he wondered if he was channelling his father. "This doesn't matter to me at all. You understand nothing. I don't know what I was thinking."

It was a lie, but one she believed, and that was all that mattered. Draco supposed it was natural for her to think he would dismiss her this way, that he could just write her off now, after all this. She still simply thought of him as a Malfoy, he thought, if she couldn't see that it had meant something to him when he'd thought she was openly working with him, or why he was disappointed to find out he was simply her dirty secret. He was stung to the quick, although he couldn't fully understand why, and he covered it by retreating behind that cruel Malfoy mask, and the fact that she believed it without question perhaps stung most of all.

"Fine," Granger said, and to his horror there were tears pricking at her eyes, but he couldn't risk softening, couldn't let her get any further under his skin than he apparently already had. He simply stood and watched as she gathered her books and walked out of his shop, perhaps for the last time.

*~*~*~*~*

It was nearly two weeks before she returned. Her timing, as always, was spectacular. Draco was sitting at the counter, hot steam pouring from his ears and nose, his face bright red and his eyes watering. Granger dropped her parcels, rushing at him, flapping her hands about his ears frantically. Eventually, the steam began to ease to a trickle, and she stepped back, a chagrined expression on her face.

"Oh, Draco," she said, reaching around him to look at his notes. "Too much of the chilli pepper from the Pepper Up recipe?"

"Got it in one," he said, little puffs of steam escaping from his mouth with each word. He gave Granger a hard look. "Didn't think I'd be seeing you round here."

She clasped her hands together, fidgeting. "Yes, well, after I left last time I went to Ron's and spoke with him straightaway. We rowed a bit and it took a few more conversations, but I really didn't want to come back unless he was all right with it."

"And is he?" Draco said, his voice tight. He rather thought that if this was important to Granger, she shouldn't need Weasley's permission to carry on.

"I don't know. I hope so." An odd look crossed her face then. "We're both very busy so I think he just decided he was tired of arguing over it."

She seemed to shake herself, and when she was done her demeanour was businesslike. "Anyway," she said briskly. "What matters is I am here and if you'd like my assistance again it is on offer."

Wordlessly, Draco pushed his notes over to her, so she could see what he'd been working on. He'd been operating strictly off of his notes, since she'd taken her books with her when she'd left that day. He assumed that was what was in the parcel she'd dropped, and while she made sense of his scrawling handwriting, he went to retrieve the books where they'd fallen in her haste. As he gathered the books up, he spoke quietly, muttering down toward the floor.

"I'm sorry, you know, Granger. For what I said. It was said in anger."

He didn't quite dare look over his shoulder at her, but he sort of lifted his head that way, and was relieved when she didn't make a huge deal of the apology. All she said was, "After all this, I think you can call me Hermione."

And after that, life resumed its pattern once again, with Hermione paying regular visits to his shop after hours, and they pored over books and took notes and brewed failed potions and time sped by in that way it had. Weeks passed and they moved along by inches, but Draco found he didn't mind because the process was so enjoyable. He managed to keep the shop afloat, and the thrill of the chase, hunting down the answer to this problem, put him in a better mood than he could remember being in since he was sixteen years old.

That, he told himself, was why he was so dismayed when Hermione turned up on Halloween, her eyes reddened with obvious signs of tears, looking a wreck and clearly feeling that way as well. He hadn't expected her tonight- there was some big Ministry do for the holiday, which he'd declined an invitation to, much to his mother's dismay. Hermione had indicated she and Weasley were going when Draco had complained about his mother trying to pair him off with one of the Greengrass girls. Draco had said that was all the more reason for him not to go, and Hermione had made a face, but that had been the end of it. Until now.

Startled, he peered curiously up at her. "Hermione, aren't you supposed to be at the Ministry party? You haven't even got a costume on. What's wrong?"

The concern sat strangely on him, and he supposed that was because this wasn't the sort of thing he and Hermione did, and in any case he wasn't usually anyone's idea of a shoulder to cry on. He stood and awkwardly reached out to sort of pat her shoulder, and waited for her to say something.

Hermione swiped at her nose, sniffing. Then she drew herself up proudly. "Ron and I have ended things. My evening is suddenly free and I thought you might like to work."

Draco hardly thought Weasley was worth all the fuss, but in any case he could understand the desire to use work as a distraction for inner turmoil, since it was a habit he had himself. So he pulled out a chair for her, and found her some parchment and a quill, and took his own seat once more. After a few minutes of working in silence, however, he couldn't help asking why. Not that he particularly cared, of course, but since the end of the war Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger being together had been something of a staple of wizarding life, and it was an adjustment to think of them not being linked.

"Grown apart, I suppose," she answered, her voice subdued. "It wasn't any one thing, just him being tied up with Auror training and me with my work at the Ministry, and then different hobbies, you know, and it just seemed like we were together out of habit more than anything else. It was strange, we didn't have a row or anything like that. We simply decided."

It made sense, in a very boring and depressing way, and Draco said nothing for a few more minutes, busying himself with the quill scratching across the parchment, taking notes on knotgrass- transmutative properties, very interesting. Then he stopped abruptly, and without looking up from his notations, said, "His loss."

She took a pause of her own then, and he held his breath for a moment, but then the movements of her quill resumed, and he followed suit.

~*~*~*~*~

Soon enough, the winter holidays were approaching. Draco was only aware of this because of the garish decorations that seemed to have taken over Diagon Alley, and the reappearance of Glory at her mother's store. He kept any sense of festivity out of his own shop, fancying that potions were a dignified sort of affair and that his customers did not want to be subjected to singing elves or blinding lights or anything else that would only ever be acceptable at this time of year. Business had actually picked up slightly, with cold and flu season upon them, and with gift-giving on people's minds. He'd still made as much time as possible for the project, however, and Hermione had kept up her regular visits to work with him on it. They hadn't spoken about her and Weasley again, much to Draco's relief, and their interactions had returned to their less personal nature, which he preferred.

On this day, he was carefully rereading his notes on their experiments, trying to write a list of the binding agents they'd tried to compare against the ones that they'd compiled back in the early days. To his dismay, almost every ingredient had its match on the list of failures. Perhaps this really was impossible. He felt himself begin to get irritable, as he drew a final dark, heavy line through wartcap powder, at the bottom of the list. They'd been at it for so long, and he'd felt so optimistic at first. Now he thought the experiment would end in failure after all.

"Well, we've gone through all the traditional binding agents, I think it's safe to say," Draco said, his lip curling as he looked over at Hermione. "So unless we're going to use a poison instead, we're done."

Hermione threw her quill down and stared at him. "What did you just say?"

Confused, he stared back at her. "I said the only things left are poisons. So unless we want to try them, we're done."

"A poison, a poison..." Oh, dear Merlin, she was staring at him again. Then, to his complete and utter shock, Hermione reached out and cupped his face in her hands, planting a smacking kiss firmly on his mouth. "Draco, that's genius!"

Now he was stunned and staring. Had she really just kissed him? On the mouth? And called him a genius? For being sarcastic? It was completely bewildering, and all he could do was look at Hermione, frozen, wondering what on earth he should do. She was looking at him, too, her face red like she had just realised what she'd done, and she opened her mouth, that mouth that had kissed him, to say something and-

The bell jangled. Their heads swivelled as one toward the front door of his shop, which was currently filled with a sixteen year old blonde who was bearing down on them.

"I've got to go," Hermione whispered, and before Draco could protest, she was gone, out the door in a rush of cold air, leaving him to stare after her.

Draco turned his ire on Glory, glaring at her, lifting an arrogant eyebrow and awaiting whatever inanity she was about to spew.

"Oh," said the younger girl. "Did I interrupt something?" She gave him a knowing look, as if at her age she knew anything at all.

Draco's eyes narrowed. "Yes. We were working."

"No, you weren't," Glory continued, obliviously. "You were snogging. I saw."

"We were certainly not." His tone was icy. Clearly the girl had no sense because she did not quit while she was ahead.

"Yes, you were. Do you love her?" Her voice had gone romantic and dreamy and Draco couldn't bear it a second longer.

"Get. Out!" This was horrifying. He pointed imperiously to the door, ordering her to leave at once.

She did, but it was in a gale of laughter and a flurry of skirts and Draco suspected he hadn't been intimidating at all.

Oh dear.

~*~*~*~*~

After all that, Draco feared things had gone so terribly awkward that Hermione might never come back at all, but she did, showing up at closing time the next day as usual, as if nothing had changed between them. Maybe for her, nothing had, he thought. Perhaps she kissed everyone when excited by their ideas. He'd heard of stranger turn-ons. Why, Rabastan Lestrange had once mentioned something about house elves and maid costumes and Theodore Nott had a strange fascination pertaining to horses... and now, he realised, she had him babbling inside his own head. Fantastic.
- Hide quoted text -


Hermione entered the shop in a blaze of enthusiasm, though, talking excitedly before the door had even closed behind her, rummaging in a grotty old knapsack, looking into it instead of where she was going, and she nearly mowed into him. He put his hands up, holding her arms to steady her, getting a brilliant smile in return that made his stomach flip over. Oh, when had this happened? Draco forced himself to focus, listening to her ramble and gathering that he had actually had a rather excellent idea the day before, unbeknownst to him.

"The answer," Hermione was saying, "is mistletoe!"

She looked at him expectantly, as if she was waiting for him to shout Egads, mistletoe, of course! Unfortunately he still had no idea what she was on about, so he just said, dumbly, "Mistletoe?"

"Yes, mistletoe. It's only everywhere right now; I could kick myself for not thinking of it sooner," she said, still rummaging in the sack. Draco realised that she must have put a bottomless charm on the thing, because it was in no way large enough to warrant this amount of going through, and he took a moment to admire her talents before forcing himself to focus again. "I'd considered it before, but ruled it out because, generally speaking, it is poisonous. But then you said what you did-" She at least had the good grace to flush, then, although her attention was still wholly on the contents of her bag. "-about using a poison, you know, and it simply clicked in my head.

"Ecologically, mistletoe is actually a keystone species, did you know? Where it grows, there's more life- more berries, more birds, and so on, and places where mistletoe grows are more diverse as a result. Magically speaking, then, it's an amplifier, see? Alone, poisonous. Paired correctly, it makes everything work better."

Draco stared at her. It made sense. It also hit him like some sort of home truth, one he couldn't think about to closely but that resonated with him all the same. Alone, poisonous, but paired correctly... "Sweet Merlin," he said, wonderment in his voice. "I think that's it."

Just then, Hermione found what she wanted in her sack, her arm flinging out widely as she pulled out whatever it was and announced, "Here it is!"

Draco looked up to where her hand was poised above his head. In her hand was a healthy and flowering specimen of mistletoe, its leaves a deep and vibrant green, the fruit little white round pearls nestled in the cluster. He glanced back at her, then up again. "Oh."

Hermione's bright brown eyes followed his gaze, and her lips twitched as she saw what had gotten him flustered. Draco swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing, waiting for her to say something. She looked perfectly mischievous as she said, "Well, it is tradition."

"Hermione, I- that is to say, I don't think-"

"Oh, Draco. Do shut up," she commanded, her voice sounding exasperated.

But then her hands were cupping his face and she was stretching up to kiss him, and oh, god, her mouth was warm and soft and everything he'd ever wanted. Something broke within him, something stiff and previously unyielding just cracked right in two, and his arms went around her and he kissed her back for everything he was worth. He spared a moment to hope that the vital mistletoe had been put somewhere safe, and then it was the last thing on his mind because her mouth was still on his and now her tongue was involved too, and he was lost, utterly lost in her. Hermione broke the kiss for a moment to ask if they could go upstairs, and Draco didn't even bother with the stairs, he simply Apparated both of them up to his flat, kissing her and tugging her backwards until he felt the edge of his bed hit the back of his knees.

Draco pulled Hermione down on top of him, his hands tangling in the wild curls of her hair, kissing her until they were both breathless. His face red, his eyes bright, kicking himself for his sudden spurt of nobility, he pulled back to ask, "Are you sure?"

She answered him by tugging his jumper over his head. He didn't ask again.

Their clothes came off as if they were racing, in a flurry of fabric strewn about his room. At some point, he rolled her under him, and his hands found her breasts. His fingers danced over the pale, firm flesh, his fingers teasing her nipples into peaks before following with his mouth. Hermione's hands fisted in his hair; she made a lovely noise as his tongue flicked over the pebbled peak, and eliciting more of those noises suddenly became his life's goal.

Draco kissed his way down to the edge of her knickers, where he hooked his thumbs under the bits of lace holding the tiny things together, tugging them down over her hips. He met her eyes, looking up to find them dark and echoing the incredible desire he felt himself. Pressing a light kiss to the inside of her thigh, he nudged her legs wider, his fingers slipping into her damp curls, finding the little bundle of nerves hiding there. He followed his fingers with his tongue and was rewarded with another one of those lovely sounds, followed by more and more as he teased her to a frenzy. When he could take it no longer, he surged upward, claiming her mouth once more, exploring her hungrily, catching her lower lip between his teeth, gently sucking it into his mouth before allowing his tongue to delve inside her mouth, kissing her at this point with more enthusiasm than skill. He wanted her so very badly.

He pushed her thighs a bit wider with his knees, and while her hands were doing lovely things to him, he nudged them away, taking his cock into his own hand, pressing forward, guiding himself into her. Again, Hermione took the initiative, reaching around to grasp his arse, pulling him down, and in, seating him fully inside her. A groan escaped his lips, and he kissed her again, unable to stop doing so, really, his mouth moving desperately on hers, telling her without words how happy he was, and how phenomenal it felt to be with her, to be in her, like this. Finally, his patience gone, he kissed a trail down her throat, then reared back, rocking his hips into hers, bracing his hands on either side of her as he found a rhythm that pleased them both.

Oh, blessed hell, she felt amazing, she was amazing, as she moved under him, matching him thrust for thrust, kiss for kiss, cry for cry. Her nails dug into his back, and his mouth got more savage on hers as he was swept away into a world of pure sensation, a world where there was only Hermione, and him, and these moments and this feeling. It felt like it was over too soon, and at the same time it felt like this was all that had ever existed, and he had no idea how much time passed before she was coming apart in his arms, her hips bucking and her head tossing and that wondrous hair flying and his name wrenched from her lips.

"Hermione, oh, god, I-" and what he would had said was lost for now, because he found himself spilling over that edge, his release hitting him in a thunderous wave that seemed like it might never stop. He rained kisses upon her face, and said her name over and over, wanting to draw out this perfect moment that was over with entirely too quickly.

Draco fell alongside Hermione, panting, his forehead pressed to her shoulder. They both breathed raggedly, and he found himself laughing even as he tried to catch his breath, stunned and ecstatic and deeply satisfied all at once. He kissed her sweat-slick shoulder, and she turned her head, her eyes meeting his, a smile on her lips. She kissed him, so gently and sweetly that his heart began to pound in a very different way than it had been just moments before.

"I suppose," he said, his voice still hoarse and breathy, "that we should see if the mistletoe even works, after all that."

Hermione laughed, a very nice sound, he thought, and kissed his nose. "In the morning."

He pulled her closed, wrapping himself around her, nuzzling at her ear, pondering starting all over again, when she spoke once more. "If this works, you'll have to put my name first on the bottle, you know."

Draco lifted up on one elbow, his lips twitching in a smirk as he ran his eyes over her lovely naked form. "But a poison was my idea. Genius, remember? And it is my shop. So I rather think my name ought to come first."

"Granger comes first alphabetically," Hermione pointed out, her expression impish.

"But the whole thing was my project to begin with." He ran his hand down her side, hoping to distract her.

"And you'd never have gotten this far if I hadn't offered my help." Hermione reached up, playing with a stray strand of his fine blonde hair.

He silenced her with a thorough kiss, and that effectively put an end to the argument for a good long while.

One Year Later

"Happy Christmas, Hermione," Draco said, handing her the package he'd enticed Glory to wrap for him. All the girl had demanded in exchange was a full account of how the gift went over, which he had agreed to, although he'd privately thought he might end up omitting a few details if it went well.

Hermione's clever hands made quick work of the wrapping, and she looked at him quizzically as she removed the lid of the box. "It's a bottle of our potion."

"Yes, but look closer." Draco turned the bottle over in her hands, so she might read the label.

After they made an effective brew, Hermione had reluctantly agreed to let him put his name first, although the argument had been an ongoing one right up until they'd had the labels printed. In the end, she had acceded to the fact that this was the showstopper that was supposed to save his shop, and thus should be associated with Malfoy's Apothecary. He'd spent that night handsomely rewarding her as best as he knew how, and she hadn't complained too loudly when the first bottles had gone out on his shelves. And neither of them had complained when that first batch had sold out in a matter of days. Word of mouth took care of the rest, and Malfoy and Granger's Cure All had been his number one seller ever since.

"There's a typo," Hermione said with a frown, lifting the bottle closer to her face so she could study it more closely. "This one says Malfoy and Malfoy's. Honestly, Draco, that's taking the hogging credit thing a bit too far-" Then she peered at the liquid inside the bottle. "Oh."

Draco held his breath.

Hermione dumped the entire bottle into an earthenware bowl that he wordlessly held out for her, knowing what she would find inside. The ring landed almost perfectly in the center of the bowl, gleaming up at them as Draco stared at his girlfriend, waiting for her answer.

"Yes," she said, her eyes suspiciously bright. Draco scooped up the ring, drying it on his shirt and slipping it onto her finger before Hermione could change her mind.

And then he kissed her, under the mistletoe that always hung in his shop, his heart full of this girl and the potion that had saved him, even more than it had saved his shop. His showstopper.