Chapter 27: The Dinner That Isn't a Date
The latent flaw in her Floo wards gnawed at her. It was a professional insult, a personal vulnerability, and worse—he’d been the one to point it out. Hermione spent three days systematically reinforcing every protective enchantment on her flat, even the ones on the windows facing the empty alley. It was rigorous, satisfying work. It also felt, stupidly, like being caught with her homework unfinished.
On Thursday, the smell of old parchment and elf-made tea in the Department of Mysteries nearly made her gag. She shoved a memo at a junior aide and muttered to no one in particular, “I’d kill for a plate of proper carbonara. Ministry cafeteria pasta is an offence to magical and muggle Italy alike.”
She didn’t see him. She never did when he was listening.
At seven sharp, a knock sounded on her office doorframe. Draco stood there, one shoulder leaning against the jamb. He wore dark trousers and a fitted charcoal jumper, no robes. In his hand was a battered, brass cogwheel.
“You’re working late,” he said.
“So are you, apparently,” she replied, not looking up from her report. Her heart was doing something absurd against her ribs.
“I have a business dinner. With a French brewing consortium. At a place near the Vatican.”
Hermione lifted her eyes. “The Vatican doesn’t allow Portkeys for direct arrival. The magical district is three blocks over.”
A flicker in his gaze. Annoyance, or admiration. “Fine. It’s three blocks over. The restaurant, however, is exceptional. They source their burrata from a magical dairy in Puglia where the cows graze on singing clover.”
She stared at him, at the absurdly specific detail offered as a peace offering—or a challenge. “This is your business dinner.”
“It is.”
“And you just happened to have a two-person Portkey to Rome on you.”
“I’m a prepared individual.” He held up the cogwheel. “It leaves in ninety seconds. The pasta, I’m told, is al dente. A revolutionary concept, here.”
This was insane. Reckless. She had a mountain of work. She was wearing yesterday’s blouse. He was her… something. Rival. Fated alpha. Persistent irritant.
The thought of the cold mushroom pie waiting in her refrigerator decided it.
She stood, grabbed her cloak, and snatched the cogwheel from his hand just as the enchantment activated. The familiar, nauseating hook behind her navel yanked them both away.
They landed in a narrow, cobbled alley fragrant with basil and wood-fired oven smoke. A string of fairy lights illuminated a plain green door. Osteria del Tempo Perso, read the weathered sign.
Inside, it was all warm terracotta and exposed brick. The proprietor, a stout man with a magnificent moustache, greeted Draco by name and led them to a small table in a wall niche, half-curtained for privacy. A candle flickered in a chianti bottle.
“Business consortium is late,” Hermione noted dryly, unfolding her napkin.
“Dreadfully rude of them.” He didn’t even bother to sound convincing. He ordered wine in fluent, idiomatic Italian. The sound of it, low and certain, did something to her stomach.
The wine came, deep and red. They clicked glasses. A silence stretched, not uncomfortable, but charged.
“So,” she said. “You just happen to know obscure Roman osterias.”
“I travel for the business. And I hate eating in hotel dining rooms.”
“Must be a terrible burden, the Malfoy empire.”
He took a slow sip. “It has its moments. Less tedious than rewriting werewolf legislation for a panel of bigots.”
“At least my work has a point.”
“My work funds a point. Several. Including the rather expensive reform initiative you lobbied for last quarter.”
She couldn’t argue. He’d been a quiet, substantial backer. She changed tack. “Did you have a house-elf in Italy, too? To scout the restaurants?”
A shadow crossed his face, quick and dark. “No. I learned that particular skill from Dobby.”
The name hung between them, a ghost in the candlelight. Hermione felt her defensiveness soften at the edges. “He was a good elf.”
“He was free.” Draco’s thumb traced the stem of his glass. “My mother taught the kitchen elf to make soufflé. A disastrous, messy business. Flour everywhere. I’d sit on the counter. She said a man should know how to make one thing perfectly, so he’s never entirely at the mercy of others.” He gave a short, humourless laugh. “My father thought it was common.”
“Can you? Make a soufflé?”
He met her eyes. “I can.”
The food arrived. The carbonara was sublime, peppery and rich. They ate. The conversation meandered, losing its barbed edges. He asked about her parents’ practice, genuinely listening to her description of their updated dental techniques. She probed him about iterative fermentation processes in potioneering, and he explained with a focused passion that was nothing like the bored drawl of his school days.
She told a story about Ron setting fire to a saucepan trying to make toast. He recounted Theodore Nott’s attempt, at seventeen, to brew a love potion that turned his own hair permanently periwinkle.
She laughed. A real, unguarded sound that shook her shoulders.
He went very still, watching her, his fork suspended. The candlelight caught in his grey eyes, turning them molten silver. The look was total, a physical thing. It was the look from the rooftop, stripped of all pretence. It was possession, and awe, and a hunger so deep it momentarily erased his usual control. It made the air in the little niche too thick to breathe.
Hermione’s laughter died in her throat. Her skin felt too warm. The bond between them, that quiet hum, surged into a resonant chord.
He blinked, looked down at his plate, and the mask slid back into place. But it was cracked. They both knew it.
He paid while she was in the loo, despite her hissed protests on her return.
“You said it was a business dinner. Expense it,” she muttered as he held the door open for her onto the cobbled street.
“I will. As a research and development cost.”
The Roman night was cool. They walked in silence toward the designated Apparition point. The tension was different now. Softer. More dangerous.
At the edge of the magical district, under a wrought-iron lamp, she stopped. “This wasn’t a date.”
“Obviously,” he said, his voice rough at the edges. He was standing too close again. The scent of him mixed with wine and Roman night air. “It was due diligence.”
“On what?”
“On the structural integrity of a ceasefire.” His gaze dropped to her mouth, then back to her eyes. “And the soufflé.”
He offered his arm for Side-Along. She took it, her fingers curling into the soft wool of his jumper. The world compressed.
They spun out into the sterile, fluorescent brightness of the Ministry Atrium, the apparition point humming with late-night traffic. The sudden shift from intimate Roman darkness to bureaucratic glare was jarring.
He released her arm the required second after they were stable. The distance felt like a loss.
“Your Floo,” he said, his tone now brisk, businesslike. “I could fix the latency issue. It would take ten minutes.”
Hermione hugged her cloak around her. “I already did.”
“I guarantee you didn’t. Not the way I would.” He said it not as a boast, but a fact. “Saturday. Two o’clock. Don’t brew tea. I’ll bring my own.”
He turned and walked toward the fireplaces, not looking back. He didn’t say goodbye.
She stood there, the taste of pecorino and wine and something painfully like hope still on her tongue. He’d named a day. A time. He was coming to her home.
It wasn’t a date.
It was infinitely worse.