Archive of Our Own ^beta

When anyone called me "Lovely"
They were findin' ways not to praise me
But you say it like you're in awe of me
- Honey, Taylor Swift

1.

A girl’s dorm room is messy at any given point in time. It’s inevitable. Four girls in one room; there is bound to be clothes, makeup, hair products, accessories, and personal belongings scattered around, littering shelves and dressers and desks. Hermione hates mess, but she’s come to find comfort in the chaos of her room shared with Lavender Brown and the Patil sisters. She tries to keep her portion of the room clean, but even if she keeps it pristine, it seems that she is stuck with some of the messiest girls in the world. But, as mentioned, she finds peace in knowing Lavender’s favorite perfume always ends up on Padma’s dresser, or Parvati’s makeup bag practically lives on the floor in front of their communal floor-length mirror.

It is always messy to some degree.

But the usual mess doesn’t hold a bloody candle to the explosion that has gone off in their room in the process of getting ready for the Yule Ball. (Said explosion was affectionately named the Yule Bomb.) 

Parvati is applying eyeliner to her sister’s lashline, while Lavender pins some of Padma’s delicately curled hair back away from her face. Hermione's open wardrobe doors are partially concealing her from them as she contorts her arms back to zip up her dress on her own.

She likes her roommates enough, but she’s always felt a little isolated from them. Padma and Parvati are their own duo, obviously, and Lavender has always been a little iffy towards Hermione because of how close she is to Ron. So aside from Padma helping Hermione with her eyeliner, Hermione had mostly gotten herself ready. Which is fine.

She hasn’t done much with her hair, using a smoothing charm to eliminate the frizz and leave her curls defined and bouncy. One side is pinned back with a silver clip adorned with stars, but she hadn’t needed help putting that in. Her makeup is simple, nothing she hadn’t been able to do on her own, with the exception of the liner.

And now, she zips up her dress alone. 

She crosses the room to the tall mirror, admiring the reflective burgundy fabric. It drapes off her shoulders and pulls tight around her chest and torso. The skirt flows down in tiers that twirl effortlessly when she moves. The satiny material shifts from dark red to a magenta shade depending on how the light hits it. When they’d gone dress shopping, Ginny had been the one to pull this off the rack for her, and they’d both known the moment Hermione put it on that this was The One.

“Wow,” Padma says. In the mirror, Hermione sees all three of her roommates eyeing her. She spins in their direction, the skirt swishing and giving them the full effect of the color. 

“Like it?” Hermione asks, smoothing one hand over the bodice. “Ginny was the one who found it for me.”

The Patil sisters both nod. “It’s gorgeous,” Padma tells her. 

At the same time, Parvati says, “I love the color.”

Hermione’s eyes shift to Lavender, and instantly, something unpleasant curls in her stomach. Lavender’s blue eyes assess her all too closely, a small divot between her brows, and an obvious frown curving her lips downward.

Her gaze drifts upward, and the moment it connects with Hermione’s, Lavender’s expression melts into something sweet and entirely fake. “Don’t you look lovely?” she says, the faintest chill to her tone. “I’m sure Ron will like it.”

Hermione’s hands curl into fists, hidden in the ruffles of her skirt. She shifts on the balls of her feet. “Ron and I aren’t anything, Lav…” she says awkwardly. Which is technically true. She certainly has feelings for the moron, not that he can take a hint to save his life. And he’s never given any indication of returning her feelings. “And I’m going to the dance with Viktor, so… I don’t care if Ron likes it.”

Lavender just grins tightly, her eyes briefly flickering over Hermione again before turning back to Padma’s hair.

Hermione forces herself not to react further, turning back toward the mirror. Suddenly, the dress feels a little too tight, a little too much. After a few seconds of hesitation, Hermione wipes off the lipstick she’d applied—a neutral pink that’s a few shades darker than her natural lip color—and instead, swipes on a clear gloss. If Padma hadn’t been the one to do her eyeliner, she would take that off, too, but she doesn’t want to seem ungrateful.

The change in lip color does little to make her feel better. Exhaling a silent sigh, she scoops up her short heels from the floor and leaves the room, walking barefoot all the way to Ginny’s dorm.

2.

While Hermione has friends, she also finds herself exceptionally close to several of her professors. It comes with the territory of being a star pupil. She loves to learn, and she loves to gather information right from the sources. 

Her favorite of the Hogwarts faculty, though, is not technically a professor. It was the librarian, Madam Pince. Hermione consistently finds herself in the library—to study, to read, to hide away when life becomes overwhelming—and Madam Pince always welcomes her with a grin. They frequently speak of fiction books, as both of them have a penchant for mysteries. 

In the last week, though, Hermione had opted for a romance novel by a well-known witch author. She bursts through the doors of the library and sets the book on Pince’s desk.

“Alright, I know this is a bit out of our norm, but I absolutely must recommend it,” Hermione says, the words flying out of her mouth. “It takes place in a small town in France, and the main character is a baker whose shop is running out of money. The love interest is a developer from Paris, and he’s looking to buy the street her shop is on, but he ends up falling in love with her.”

Pince watches her with a strained smile and tired eyes, though Hermione hardly registers it.

She flips to an early page she’d bookmarked. “The imagery and the descriptions are just so beautiful and vivid. It is like I could picture the scenes and the town so perfectly.”

Pince clears her throat tightly. “That’s... lovely, Miss Granger,” she says tightly. “However, I’m suffering from a bit of an illness today, and I have much work to do. Perhaps you could tell me about it some other time.”

Hermione blinks, nodding once. “Oh. Yes, of course. Sorry,” she says sheepishly, grabbing the book and taking it to a table out of Pince’s line of sight. Hermione sits and holds her book in front of her, flipping back to that marked page, but her eyes stare vacantly at the wonderful words. 

It was entirely understandable that Pince hadn’t been in the mood for Hermione’s rambling, but it still feels a little bit like the rug being pulled from beneath her. That’s lovely, Pince had said. The words were, at face value, a compliment, but they had been said as anything but that. And the more she considers it, she begins to realize she’s heard those words, and similar ones, from professors before.

Slughorn, telling her it was lovely that she’d perfected her process for the intermediate potions. Flitwick, saying ‘That’s nice, Miss Granger’ in response to her telling him how she’d managed to transfigure a tiny hairclip into an expensive-looking notebook. Sprout, murmuring that it was just wonderful that she’d used her Herbology knowledge to evolve the basic Cough Potion, allowing it to cure one’s congestion for a full day, rather than the usual twelve hours. 

Over and over again, she's heard these words, and she is only just now realizing they had always been said with a placating tone. Hermione slowly closed her book, giving up the pretense of reading and just setting it on the table. Something weighs heavily on her shoulder, making it feel like an invisible force is pressing down on her. Making her feel smaller than she actually is.

It isn’t Pince’s fault, really, but she can’t help but feel the dejection settling in her stomach. Hermione scoops up her book, and as she walks towards the library exit, she pulls the bookmark out from its spot. She drops the book off in the return bin and heads back out into the hall.

3.

Hermione turns to admire the way this dress clings to her body. It’s a slinky, dark blue satin dress that sits in a cowl neck style over her chest. She’d gone back and forth between the dark blue and an emerald green, but she’d ended up settling on this one for Harry and Ginny’s wedding. 

Down the hall from her bathroom, she hears Ron rushing to finish getting ready. They’re running just a bit late, but that is on par for Ron, unfortunately. Hermione grabs her clutch from the marble counter and leaves the bathroom, walking towards the living room. She glances at the delicate silver watch adorning her wrist. They were supposed to leave seven minutes ago.

“Ron,” she calls sweetly. “Are you about ready?”

“Yes, yes,” he says, finally leaving her bedroom and walking down the hall as he fiddles with his cufflinks. He’s in a dark grey suit, his tie the same shade as her dress. They’ve only been official for about six months, after a few years of her pining. The relationship hasn’t been everything she’d dreamed of, so far, but they’re in the early stages. Of course, it will take time to transition from friends to lovers.

“You look wonderful,” she says softly, resisting the urge to smooth his hair into place. He’d likely tousled it on purpose, and he hates when she mothers him.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, brows furrowing as he struggles with his cufflink. There’s a brief moment of silence.

“How do I look?” she inquires with a small smile, cheeks flushing at her having to ask. 

He barely glances up. “You look lovely,” he says, the words a little distracted. A smile finally pulls at his mouth, but it’s not directed at her. It’s at the wrist of his shirt, where he’d finally managed to snap his cufflink together. By the time he looks at her properly, the smile is barely there anymore. “Can we go now?”

He says the words as though she were the one holding them up.

Hermione swallows, a pang of hurt coursing through her. She had put effort into her appearance, more than she did on a usual day-to-day basis. She looks good. Surely he could spare her more than a half-second glance. Hermione purses her lips and forces herself to ignore it for now. He’s likely just stressed from running late, she thinks. Perhaps once they're at the Burrow, he'll take another look and tell her that she looks beautiful.

“Sure,” she whispers, nodding once. It is their best friend’s and his sister’s wedding day, and Hermione is not going to make this about herself. He holds out his arm and she curls her fingers around his bicep. The familiar tug of magic pulls in her stomach, and they Apparate with a quiet pop!

+1.

There is a really good chance that Hermione may vomit. Her stomach is churning and bubbling with nerves, and she’s flitting around her flat, trying to busy herself just to stay distracted from the anxiety. She applies an anti-perspirant charm for the third time because she cannot stop sweating. She searches through her crossbody bag, which is small on the outside but endless on the inside, thanks to an undetectable extension charm, for her travel-sized perfume and pink gloss, reapplying both.

She glances down at her sandals, ensuring they’re laced up for the fourth time. She knows her pale green sundress is wrinkle-free, but she casts another ironing charm. She double-checks the bows of her dress’s straps, tightening them and making sure they’re in the same place on each shoulder. 

She’s never been this nervous in her entire life, which is saying something, because she’s had quite the life, with an entire war and a senior position at The Ministry under her belt.

And the reason she is so bloody nervous is because she’s going on a date with Malfoy. As in, Draco Malfoy.

It’s been years since she’s dated seriously. Ron was the last one, and it had only lasted a year. Despite that she’d known for almost the entirety of the relationship that something had felt off, the ending of it had still gutted her. Not necessarily because they were over, because that was truly for the best, but because if she hadn’t been able to make it work with one of her best friends, someone who knew her better than almost anyone, what were the chances she would ever be able to make it work with anyone?

And for the past few years, it had seemed as though she was proving that theory over and over again with each date she’d gone on. All of them left her unfulfilled and feeling hopeless about the future of her love life.

Enter: Draco Malfoy.

Apparently, he’d been trying for years to become an Auror, but due to his involvement on the wrong side of the war, it had taken years of reparations for him to get approved. But he’d never given up, clearly, as almost a year ago to date, he’d been accepted into training. 

This was how they met again, when about four months ago, he’d attended a Ministry event and had approached her. An overdue apology from him had turned into small talk, which had turned into light flirting, which had turned into him showing blatant interest. Even so, it had taken her a few months to warm up to the idea of going on a date with him, and by the time she’d agreed, she’d found that she really… really liked him.

Hence, the nerves.

She’s about to look into her hallway mirror to check her curls for the eighth time when a knock sounds at her door. Her heart drops to her stomach, and she takes a slow breath before crossing her flat. She reaches for the doorknob, hesitates for a split second, and then swings the door open.

If he’s nervous, he doesn’t show it. Bastard. But he looks incredible. Dark slacks, a pale beige sweater that has two undone buttons at the collar. When she sees him around the Ministry, he’s always in Work Mode, which means his mouth is always set in a firm, serious line, and his eyes are sharp and perceptive. Now, his gaze is soft, and there’s a slight but genuine smile pulling at his lips.

“Hi,” she says, grinning.

“Hi, Granger.” His attention flicks down, taking her in, and his grin stretches. “You look…” His voice sounds a little breathless, “Absolutely lovely.”

Her breath momentarily gets stolen from her lungs, and she feels her smile dim in shock, so she quickly pulls it back up. Hearing that word fall from his lips, in a way she’d never heard it spoken, has her speechless for a second.

“Oh,” she breathes, glancing away from his face to hide her embarrassment from her odd reaction. “Thank you.”

She sees the puzzlement on his expression, and before she can say anything else, he hedges, “Is that— sorry, did I overstep…?” he asks slowly. She can hear the apprehension in his voice, and she’s instantly shaking her head.

“No, no,” she assures him. She feels a little mortification at what she’s about to admit, but she’d rather face the shame than allow him to think he’s upset her. She knows her cheeks are hot as she says, “No, it’s just I’ve never been called that by someone who actually meant it.”

That only seems to confuse him further. Eight seconds into their first date, and she’s already ruining things. That must be a world record. 

“Really?” he asks.

She nods, briefly tucking her bottom lip between her teeth. “Usually I hear it in quite a sarcastic or condescending tone.”

He frowns, and his brows furrow for just a second. She’s about to open her mouth to find a way to shift the conversation, to save the night, when he takes a small step closer. The words die on her tongue as she notices the sincerity in his gaze, his eyes going all soft again.

“In that case,” Draco says quietly, earnestly, “you look lovely, Hermione. Truly.”

Her lips part, and she’s rendered speechless yet again. And breathless, like there isn’t enough oxygen in the world. And thoughtless, like he's wiped her brain of anything useful. The corner of his mouth pulls up into a teasing smirk, though it’s still blatantly affectionate. The gears in her brain finally begin working again, and she smiles.

“Thank you,” she whispers, her cheeks burning. She blinks a few times, clearing her throat. “You also— you look wonderful. Truly.”

“Thank you,” he parrots. He steps back. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve taken the liberty of planning our evening.”

“Not at all,” she says, stepping out of her flat. She turns to lock the wards behind her. “Am I allowed to know, or is it a surprise?” 

“Dinner at a highly recommended Italian-Spanish fusion restaurant, and a private tour of The Wizarding Library of London.”

Her smile spreads wide on its own accord, and his eyes flash to it, a small one gracing his face in response. “That sounds incredible,” she says honestly. She loves the Wizarding Library, though she’s only had the free time to explore it a couple of times, and it was always crowded. 

“Is side-along apparition alright?” he asks, holding his hand out. She doesn’t hesitate, placing her palm in his. It’s warm against hers. Something in his expression gets even softer, and he pulls her a little closer before the magic surrounds them and they disappear.

+2. 

“Wait, why are they kissing?” Draco asks, making Hermione snap her head away from the television. “I thought they hated each other.”

He’s sitting on the opposite side of the couch, both of them leaning against an arm of the sofa, with their legs running parallel between them. She presses her foot into his thigh gently. “Have you not been paying attention at all?” she asked. “They’ve been falling in love the entire time.”

He blinks at the screen, then furrows his eyebrows. “How? They were competing for the same position the entire time,” he argues. “And now that she’s getting it, he should be angry, but they’re kissing. This makes no sense.”

Hermione looks from him to the screen, where the actors are professing their love to each other in the rain, then back to Draco. “Are you— okay, did you see the way he bought her a new shirt after someone spilled coffee on her? Right before she had her meeting with the board?”

“Yes.”

“If he hated her, don’t you think he would’ve left her to fend for herself? Or he might’ve been the one to spill the coffee, sabotaging her?”

“Well—”

“But instead, he took her to the shop next door and paid for the blouse.”

“He’s a nice bloke,” Draco argues. “Surely, she would’ve done the same if the roles had been reversed.” 

Hermione sighs. “It’s a classic trope, you know. Enemies to lovers. This thing happens all the time in movies.”

This gets his attention, his eyes finally pulling away from the screen to assess her from across the couch. “What do you mean?” he asks. “They hated each other. How can that transform into love in a few months?”

Hermione tilts her head back, thinking over the countless rom-coms she’s watched in the last few years. They’ve become a bit of a guilty pleasure for her, and she’s managed to get Draco hooked. “Well, if you’re looking for examples, workplace rivalry, as we saw here. Enemy kingdoms where they’re forbidden to fall for each other, but do anyway. Ones where they dislike each other, but they need to pretend to date for a myriad of reasons. Second-chance romances where they go from lovers to enemies, then back to lovers. I saw a vampire and vampire slayer film once, but it wasn’t that good,” she shakes her head, remembering all of the fake blood.

“And,” she continues, beginning to gesticulate, the way she did when she got very into her monologues. “It makes sense because the line between love and hate is incredibly thin. They’re both obsessive emotions where the person of your attention takes up a great deal of your brain space. You have to care a lot to truly hate someone, the same way you have to care a lot to love someone, aaaand,” the word drags when she notices him staring, “why are you looking at me like that?”

His head is tilted slightly, eyes glimmering as he watches her. There’s a smile on his face that’s so soft, she’s certain he doesn’t even know it’s there. His expression is a little reverent, awed in the way only he’s ever regarded her. When she calls him out, he seems to realize the way he’s looking at her, but he’s not embarrassed. If anything, his entire demeanor seems to grow sweeter. “You just have the loveliest mind I’ve ever encountered,” he tells her.

Hermione nearly blushes at the compliment. “I mean, it’s a common trope,” she says, shrugging lightly. “I’ve seen it enough to understand it.”

“Mm,” he hums, eyes still jumping around her face like he doesn’t know where he wants to land. “I’ll have to watch more, then, as I’m not entirely convinced it’s possible.”

Hermione raises an eyebrow. “Not possible?”

“To go from hating someone to loving them.”

She blinks. Surely, he’s joking. When the punchline never comes, she purses her lips. “You don’t think it’s possible… to hate someone… and then later on… love them?” She says the words slowly, like he’ll piece together what she’s saying. But he only shakes his head. Hermione chuckles.

“What’s funny?”

Hermione reaches down and pats his calf. “My darling,” she says with a soft sigh. “We hated each other, did we not?”

His lips part, and he looks a bit dumbfounded, like he’d forgotten about their rocky history. “Oh.”

Hermione muffles her laughter in her palm. Draco instantly tries to defend himself. “Okay, well, we didn’t see each other for years,” he says. “By the time I saw you again, I had no feelings towards you.”

“How sweet.”

“Shut up and get over here,” he says, tugging on her ankle lightly. Hermione laughs and pulls her legs back before crawling across the couch. She swings a leg over his thighs and straddles him. He tucks a curl behind her ear, smiling at her. “If I’d been smart enough to get to know you then, there was no chance I would’ve hated you. I can’t even imagine being able to hate you.”

“No?” she whispers. He shakes his head. 

“Currently, I feel quite the opposite.”

Her breath hitches at the implication. They’re almost seven months into this relationship, and neither of them has actually said the L word yet, though Hermione is certain she feels it every time she looks at him. She hums softly.

“I’m not sure what you mean by that,” she says, baiting him.

He bites. “I love you, Granger.”

Her smile is radiant. “Yeah?” 

“From your perfect smile to your lovely brain. I’m quite in love with you, actually.”

Hermione leans in. It’s barely a kiss, more like two smiles pressed together, but it’s wonderful anyway. “The feeling,” she says between smiley-kisses, “is incredibly mutual.”

+3.

Hermione is not a morning person, and yet, her body hadn’t gotten the memo today. The sun has barely risen when she crawls out of bed after lying there awake for almost twenty minutes. Not even the warmth of Draco’s bare chest had been able to lull her back to sleep. She silently grabs her work bag on the way out of their bedroom and slips into the hall. 

She trails down into the kitchen, setting her bag on one of the stools at the island, before whipping up a mug of coffee. Hermione pulls out a few folders and spreads papers out, looking at the petitions and proposals she’s meant to edit so they can be voted on by the Wizengamot. She had meant to do this last night, but she had forgotten when Draco suggested they go on a walk around the block. Which turned into slipping into the Muggle world to watch a film, which turned into a late-night pizza date, which had turned into some wonderful shower sex after they’d returned home. Really, it is shocking she's awake this early after all of that activity last night. But since she hadn’t touched these papers last night, they would have to get done today.

She isn’t sure how long she’s been sitting there when she hears their bedroom door open and footsteps approaching. Draco is a vision in the morning: ruffled hair, sleep lines indented on his cheek, sleepy eyes, and an even sleepier smile. He crosses the kitchen, ignoring the pot of coffee and beelining for her instead. He wraps his arms around her from behind. “Good morning, lovely girl,” he murmurs in her ear, his voice deliciously raspy. “What are you doing up already?” 

Her chest warms at the term of endearment. He uses it frequently, but it never gets old. It never sounds any less sincere. “Just these petitions for the office,” she says, stretching her spine as she leans back into his chest. He’s still shirtless, and she can feel the warmth of his skin through her thin jumper. 

He hums softly. “It's Sunday, love. Come back to bed with me.”

“I can’t sleep,” she says.

Draco presses a kiss on the corner of her jaw. “We don’t have to sleep.”

“Insatiable.”

“Yes, well. Have you seen you?”

Hermione laughs softly, but she taps her finger on one of the parchments in front of her. “I want to finish these before tomorrow.”

“Finish them later, then,” he says, his lips brushing her skin with every word. “It’s early and I miss you desperately.”

Hermione turns her head, and he pulls back enough for them to make eye contact. She grins at his rumpled state and the hint of desire in his eyes. “You miss me?” she asks. “You just slept next to me all night.”

Draco's arms tighten around her waist. “And yet it’s not enough,” he says, voice low and grumbly. “It would seem no matter how much time I spend with you, I can never get enough of you.”

“Poor baby,” she teases, though she’s the exact same way. Almost two years with him, and he still manages to make her feel like she has butterflies in her stomach when he looks at her like he’s never seen something so lovely in his life.

“Indeed,” he agrees. Draco seems to hesitate for a second before he holds his arm up in the direction of their bedroom, hand open. Something flies into his palm, but before Hermione can see what it is, he’s moved it out of her line of sight.

“Show off,” she whispers. He knows she loves wordless and wandless magic, so he uses it to turn her on.

“Like you can’t do much more impressive things,” he teases.

“What did you summon?” she asks.

He doesn’t answer for a second, and she’s about to press the issue when he curls around her and rests his cheek against hers gently.

“I suppose the only way to fix how insatiable I am when it comes to you,” he says softly, bringing his arm around her to show her what’s in his palm. Hermione freezes at the sight of a black velvet box. He continues as he opens the box, “is to agree to spend the rest of your life with me. To appease my neediness, of course.”

“Draco,” she whispers, her hand coming up to grip his wrist as she stares at the ring gleaming up at her. It’s a white gold band with a princess-cut diamond in the center. Four rectangular rubies frame the main jewel, and then three more small, circular diamonds in a little cluster rest on either side of the rubies. “It’s so beautiful.”

She turns her head and he leans back just enough so they’re face to face. He's entirely serious, completely sincere, when he softly says, “Marry me, Hermione. Please.”

He barely finishes the final word before she’s nodding. “Yes,” she whispers. “Of course, yes.”

His lips break into a brilliant smile, and she barely gets to return his quick kiss before he slips the ring from the box and reaches for her hand. He swipes his thumb over her knuckles as he places the ring on the correct finger. As soon as he does, she’s turning in her stool and wrapping her arms around his shoulders, pulling him down for a kiss. He doesn’t miss a beat, curling his arms under her thighs and lifting her. 

“Oh, sorry, did you want to finish your work?” he teases. Hermione threads her fingers into his hair and pulls lightly as a warning.

“Take me back to bed, you horrible man.”

“A horrible man that you just agreed to marry.”

She can’t even continue teasing him when her mouth splits into a wide smile that he mirrors instantly. “I did,” she agrees. “So perhaps you should take your fiancée to bed?”

“Mm,” he hums, pleased at the sound of those words. “What a lovely idea.”