It isn’t how he pictured this evening going, when he’d first sighed and shrugged on his jacket for the work function — or how he ever thought this particular turn of events might come about between him and Hermione. How might it have gone? An ill-advised mistake on too much wine, maybe: she’d fuck him after the party and then leave and they’d never speak of it again, besides it being more tense when they ran into each other in the Ministry hallways.

But here’s the miracle of it: it’s not awkward. The night keeps inching on and on and it keeps being not-awkward, just as Hermione coils around him and Draco smirks and tangles his feet with hers. This version is better. His thumb runs along the edge of her arm where he can reach her, absentmindedly following the line of her warmed skin.

“No takebacks,” he repeats. “Which is funny, that. I actually pictured you dropping me back in the gutter as soon as you were done with me.”