#eeupdate

She smiled, and he returned it.

"But I came here with a mission," Draco then stated, once again amused. He dropped his hand from her hair and took hold of something in his other hand. Hermione followed the movement, but the Slytherin scarf from his hands was already around her shoulders.

Holding on to the ends, he pulled, and Hermione couldn't help but step forward, closing the space between them. With a theatrical sigh, she lifted her chin expectantly, raising her eyebrows to wordlessly indicate that she was waiting. Draco breathed out a chuckle before bowing his head and capturing her lips with his, kissing her softly and slowly. Once he straightened up again, he seemed thoroughly pleased with himself.

"That should do it," he said softly. He let go of the scarf after adjusting it neatly on her shoulders.

"Good luck today," Hermione murmured. "And have fun."

Draco grimaced and then found her eyes again. "I don't yet know what I want, Granger, but…" He briefly hesitated. "But being around you feels good," he finished quietly.

Hermione reached out to take his hand. He looked down as she did and slowly interlaced their fingers before finding her eyes again. She gave him a smile.

"So what do you want to do?" she asked.

He gave her hand a squeeze. "Continue what we started before the holidays." He smirked. "And see how long it takes before one of us murders the other."

Hermione immediately pulled her hand back from his and stared at him in mock-anger, but Draco's smirk just widened as he leaned in and grabbed the front of her robes, pulling her in for another kiss.

Draco couldn’t help but stare, disbelievingly. “You broke down a creature, thoroughly indoctrinated and bound by centuries of pureblood customs, with kindness?”

Her smile widened, and her eyes glinted with mischief. “As it turns out,” she murmured, tightening her grip on his hand, “I’m getting kind of good at that.”

Oh, that little minx…

He moved, closing the space between them, and grabbed her chin with his free hand, pulling her closer and lifting her head as he bowed down and kissed her, hard. He felt her arm slide around his waist as her tongue brushed against his lower lip, and he smirked against her mouth before snogging her properly. 

He cleared his throat. "Sometimes, when you're around someone long enough, things change."

Pansy narrowed her eyes at him. "What does that mean?" she asked, her tone a little more snobbish than it was before. "Are you telling me that Astoria Greengrass finally mustered up the courage to tell you she has had a crush on you since the beginning of the year? And that you feel the same?"

Draco straightened up against the backrest of his chair, staring at her in confusion. "What? Astoria Greengrass?"

"Well, if it's not her, then wh—" Pansy cut off abruptly, inhaling sharply as she pulled back her hand. Her eyes ran over his face as she seemed to search for something.

"No…" she finally breathed out disbelievingly. "You're not serious."

As much as it had comforted him earlier, right now he hated how easily they could always read each other. Even more than that, he was incredibly disappointed in himself for realising that apparently, his ability to keep a poker face had greatly diminished since the last time they had seen each other.

When he kept quiet, Pansy leaned over the table, glaring at him.

It’s been 2 years, 11 months and 13 days, but I have finally uploaded a new chapter to Exceeding Expectations!

Sorry for the long wait. Good news, though! The remainder of the fic is mapped out and mostly written! Only 11 chapters left to go, and then it’ll finally be complete :)

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Exceeding Expectations: Chapter 39

She reluctantly glanced back up at him. She knew he was expecting the worst, but she didn’t think that what she was about to tell him even fell within his realm of possibilities. Ron stared back with worried eyes, and Hermione squeezed his hands tighter, knowing it had to be now, before they lost this moment. Before she lost her nerve.

He fully turned toward her and slowly moved closer. His eyes never left hers, and Hermione felt her heartbeat pick up again when Malfoy raised his hand and gently combed it through a strand of curls before lightly caressing his fingertips over her cheek and down her jaw. “I despise it when those I dislike try to help me,” he murmured, and Hermione felt increasingly more breathless as his hand came to rest on the back of her neck.

“Well, then maybe,” she managed softly, giving him a mock-glare through her smile, “you should start acting like you dislike me again.”

Malfoy gave her a lazy smirk and bowed his head, and Hermione’s eyes fluttered closed of their own accord when he lightly brushed his lips over her cheek, toward her ear. “Maybe later,” he breathed out.

Something soft touched his hand, and Draco returned to the present with a start. Madam Medens was leaning forward, holding a tissue to his hand. He inhaled a shaky breath and snatched the tissue from her hand, realising with utter shame that tears were streaming down his face. He wanted to wipe them away, but his body had gone rigid. All he could do was glare at the grief counsellor with what little anger he still had left inside him. 

“Please accept,” she said softly, meeting his glare with a gentle look in her eyes, “that even if the circumstances had been different, you likely wouldn’t have been able to save him.”

"I'm trying, Granger," he murmured. "I'm trying harder than I can properly explain. I don't think you understand how hard it is for me to let go of how I was raised, but I'm doing the best I can. I just need someone to have faith in me…"

She squeezed her eyes shut and Draco felt his stomach flip as he watched more tears escape. He released her hand and resolutely closed the distance between them on instinct, carefully wrapping his arms around her. With one hand he brushed the curls on the back of her head, and with the other he slowly stroked her back. He felt her stiffen for the briefest of moments, but then Granger slipped her own arms around his waist.

They stood like that for a while in complete silence, with the exception of the sound of Granger's quiet sniffs. Draco stared over her head into the Forbidden Forest with unseeing eyes, fighting the voices in the back of his mind that tried to convince him that he was making a grave mistake. But then Granger slightly tightened her embrace—pulling him just a little bit closer—and all the noise in his head was effectively silenced. All that remained was a pleasant warmth in his stomach and a strange feeling of accomplishment for being able to make her feel better.