Chapter 28: The Burnt Soufflé
The rain started at dawn, a steady percussion against the windows that greyed the daylight and made the world feel small and close. Hermione’s flat, usually a sanctuary of order, was in a state of quiet disarray. A blanket was folded over the arm of the sofa. Two empty curry containers sat by the sink. The air itself felt different—charged, saturated with the memory of a hum that had filled the space until midnight, warm and low, like a cat’s purr.
She changed the linens on her bed. She vanished the containers. She opened a window to let the rain-scrubbed air in, but it did nothing to clear the deeper, lingering scent in the room: bergamot, old books, crisp linen, and something unmistakably, undeniably alpha. His scent. It was on the blanket, on the spot where he’d sat, woven into the very fabric of the afternoon and evening.
It unnerved her. It also, infuriatingly, calmed some primal, anxious part of her brain she usually kept gagged and locked in a basement.
At five minutes to two, the Floo—now flawlessly responsive—flashed green. He stepped through, brushing a speck of soot from his shoulder. He was soaked. Not drenched, but the shoulders of his dark wool coat were darkened with rain, and droplets glittered in his pale hair. In one hand he held a weathered leather satchel, in the other, a small terracotta pot cradling a vibrant basil plant.
“You’re wet,” was all she could think to say.
“It’s raining,” he said, as if explaining a complex arithmancy principle. He set the satchel down carefully and offered her the plant. “For the kitchen window. Sunlight. Not too much water.”
She took it. The leaves were a shocking green against the grey day, their spicy, clean scent a tiny assault on her senses. “Thank you.”
He shrugged off his coat, hung it by magic on a hook that materialized near the hearth. He wore simple black trousers and a grey jumper, and he looked… ordinary. Or as ordinary as Draco Malfoy could look, which was to say he still carried himself like the room belonged to him, but there was a lack of pretence today. A directness in his tired eyes.
“The Floo?” he asked.
“Silent as a grave. No latency.”
“Good.” He nodded, then moved past her into the kitchen. He surveyed the counter, the clean rack of mugs, the organised canisters. “Right. Eggs. Butter. Parmesan. A double boiler. You do have a copper bowl?”
“For whipping egg whites? Of course I have a copper bowl.”
“Just checking. Some people make do with inferior substitutes. It’s tragic.”
He set to work with an efficiency that was mesmerising. He located everything without asking, his long-fingered hands sure and quick as he separated eggs, zested a lemon, grated cheese into a fine mound. Hermione leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, watching. The rain pattered. The kitchen filled with the quiet, purposeful sounds of creation.
“You’re not wearing any,” he said, not looking up from the yolk he was whisking over simmering water.
“Any what?”
“Suppressants. The scent is different. Lighter.”
Her cheeks warmed. She’d taken her last dose three days ago. Her cycle wasn’t due for two weeks, but he was right. The chemical veil was gone. What remained was just… her. And he could tell. Of course he could tell.
“I’m between cycles,” she said, her voice tighter than she intended.
He just hummed, a non-committal sound, and turned his attention to the egg whites. He began to whisk by hand, the copper bowl tucked in the crook of his arm, his wrist moving in a rapid, circular motion. The muscles in his forearm corded and shifted under his skin. It was intensely, unnecessarily physical.
“You could use a charm for that,” she mumbled.
“It’s not the same. The friction of the copper, the motion… it introduces more air. Creates a finer, more stable foam.” He spoke softly, focused on the task. A lock of hair fell across his forehead.
She pushed off the doorway and came to stand by the counter, peering into the bowl. The whites were indeed transforming, growing glossy and thick, forming soft peaks that held their shape. The scent of his focus, his quiet concentration, wound around her. It was citrus and clean wool and male.
He glanced at her, just a quick flick of his eyes. “Stop hovering. You’re putting me off.”
“I am not hovering. I’m observing. It’s my kitchen.”
“Then observe from over there.” He nodded towards the table.
She didn’t move. Instead, she leaned closer to see the consistency of the peaked whites. Her arm brushed his.
A jolt went through him—a minute, violent tremor that raced up his arm and into the bowl. The whisk clattered against the copper. A single, perfect peak collapsed.
He froze. They both stared at the tiny failure in the foam.
Slowly, he set the bowl down. He didn’t look at her. His hands, she saw, were not entirely steady. The sight of it, Draco Malfoy undone by an accidental brush of a sleeve, sent a wildfire of feeling through her—triumph, terror, and a piercing tenderness.
“Sorry,” she whispered, though she wasn’t.
“It’s fine,” he grated out. He took a slow, deliberate breath, willed his hands to stillness, and folded the ruined whites into the yolk base anyway. His movements were careful, almost reverent. He poured the mixture into a prepared dish and slid it into the preheated oven. He closed the door with a quiet click.
Then he braced his hands on the counter on either side of the oven, head bowed. The line of his shoulders was tense.
The kitchen was silent except for the rain and the faint crackle of the oven heating.
“It’s going to fall,” he said to the floor.
“Probably.”
A ragged breath escaped him. It sounded almost like a laugh. “My mother’s never fell.”
“Maybe she wasn’t being distracted by her fated omega while she made it.”
He went utterly still. The word ‘omega’ hung in the air between them, raw and true. Her heart hammered against her sternum.
He turned then. His eyes were storm-cloud grey, serious. “That’s it, isn’t it? The distraction.”
She couldn’t lie. Not with his scent everywhere, not with the bond between them feeling like a live wire someone had brushed against. She nodded.
They watched through the oven’s glass door. For a few minutes, it was a thing of beauty. The soufflé rose, climbing above the rim of the dish, a golden-brown crown forming on top. It was perfect. It was a promise.
Then, with a silent, despairing sigh, it began to sink. The centre folded in on itself, collapsing back into the dish, leaving a crinkled, cratered landscape.
Draco stared at it. Hermione waited for the scowl, the sharp remark, the dismissal of the entire endeavour.
A sound escaped him. A soft, disbelieving huff of air. Then another, deeper. His shoulders began to shake. He was laughing. A quiet, genuine laugh she had hardly ever heard. It changed his face entirely, smoothing the sharp edges, warming the cold eyes.
The absurdity of it—of him, of her, of this doomed soufflé in her raining kitchen—hit her all at once. A giggle bubbled up in her throat, then broke free. Soon they were both leaning against the counter, breathless, wiping tears from their eyes as the ruined dinner sat obliviously in the oven.
“I told you,” he finally managed, gasping.
“You did! You absolutely did.” She clutched her side, aching. “Singing clover cows and a perfect Roman carbonara, but you can’t manage a soufflé in a London flat.”
“The variables were compromised,” he said, but he was still smiling. It was a rare, unguarded sight. “Extraneous, witch-shaped variables.”
They ended up eating takeaway curry again, sitting cross-legged on her sofa with the containers on the coffee table. The rain intensified, drumming a frantic rhythm on the roof. They talked about nothing—a tedious Wizengamot member, a funny misprint in the Prophet, the best way to prune a fluxweed plant. His knee rested against hers. The point of contact was a burning, constant awareness.
He didn’t leave.
As afternoon bled into evening and evening into night, the conversation deepened, darkened. They spoke of things with the safety the rain and the dim lamplight provided. The weight of their surnames. The ghosts in their respective manors. The way people looked at them, still, expecting a story from the war that none of them had lived.
“Sometimes I dream I’m back in that drawing room,” she said quietly, staring into her glass of water. “But instead of Bellatrix, it’s my own reflection holding the knife.”
He didn’t offer empty comfort. He just listened, his presence a solid, quiet anchor in the room. When he finally spoke, his voice was low. “I dream of the Fiendfyre. But I’m the one who cast it. And I can’t take it back.”
The confession hung in the air, more intimate than a touch.
When the clock on the mantle chimed midnight, the rain had gentled to a drizzle. He stood, stretching, the lines of his body long and tired in the soft light. “I should go.”
She walked him to the Floo. The two feet of space in front of the hearth felt like a chasm. The hum between them was a palpable thing, a thick cord of silent understanding and unresolved hunger.
“The soufflé was a valiant effort,” she said.
“It was a disaster. Next time I’ll bring my own kitchen. And a containment charm for you.”
Next time. The words shimmered in the air.
He took a pinch of powder, then paused. He looked at her, really looked, his gaze travelling over her face as if memorising the lines of it in this light, in this moment. “Granger.”
“Malfoy.”
He stepped into the flames. “Tell your wards to expect me.”
He was gone in a rush of emerald.
Hermione stood there, listening to the empty grate crackle with cooling magic. The flat was silent, but it no longer felt empty. It felt inhabited. Imprinted. The scent of him, the ghost of his laugh, the warm indent on the sofa where he’d sat for hours—they were all still there.
She picked up the basil plant from the windowsill. She carried it to her bedroom, setting it on the nightstand. She fell asleep with its clean, green scent mixing with the vestiges of bergamot and rain, and for the first time in months, she did not dream of drawing rooms or fire.