A/N: This was my attempt to get rid of crazy writer's block, and it got away from me. Thanks to iwasbotwp for beta reading it!

Next Time

The idea of going home to his empty house made Draco's stomach twist painfully. It was why he remained in his office well after business hours. He sat rigidly in one of the stiff couches placed around the fireplace. They were stylish, of course, but largely uncomfortable. Astoria had selected every piece of furniture in his office, and mostly for their visual appeal.

A small pain knifed through his chest. Six months after her death, there were times when it still hurt like the first day. He had brief moments of peace when he could function as if he hadn't lost his wife in childbirth. These blissful bit of time usually happened when he was working, which was probably why he now spent all his time at the office. He hated it, yet it was the only place in the world where he felt like himself again.

The stiff fabric of the couch was scratching him through his silk shirt. The room was too quiet. His head was too heavy for his neck. He slouched forward, cradling his ear against his palm. The light from the fireplace was making the shadows dance, mocking his grief. A wave of his hand would put the fire out, but he found he couldn't summon the courage to sit not only in silence but darkness as well.

Draco heard someone come into the room but hadn't the desire to raise his gaze. A pair of women's shoes entered his vision. They were flats in a shiny, off-putting nude color, scuffed at the toe. Only one person would wear shoes with so little appeal. He lifted his eyes to see two paper cups, placed carefully on the low table by ink-stained fingers. A bottle of fire whiskey followed.

"It's the good stuff," she told him. "The shopkeeper reassured me."

Draco glanced at the label and grunted.

"It's third rate at best, Granger," he commented, his voice rough with heartbreak.

"Bugger," she swore as she unscrewed the lid. "I paid five galleons for this!"

A screw off lid? That should have been her first clue.

"Five whole galleons?" Draco pretended shock.

"I'm the underpaid researcher, remember?" She poured a finger of whiskey into each cup. "I don't use sickles to wipe my ass."

"Head of Research," he corrected her. "And I pay you an obscene amount for what little you accomplish."

Draco caught a whiff of her perfume as she settled next to him, ditching her shoes and curling her feet onto the couch. Her scent was, perhaps, the only pleasing thing about her. It wasn't cloyingly strong; he never smelled it after she had left his presence, but perhaps that was the appeal. She had to be near him, intimately near, for him to be aware of it.

He took the cup she offered and studied the dubious contents. How was he to tell the clarity of the color if it was shrouded in waxy paper? Every feeling rebelled.

"I warned you when you begged me," she arranged her skirt around her knees, "To take the position that I would not fudge my results. There are more important things than locking down patents on potions. Cheers."

The paper cups made a horrid scraping sound as she knocked them together.

"I beg to differ," he muttered before throwing the liquor to the back of his throat.

It wasn't awful. He'd had worse. The cheap bottles of centaur piss they'd smuggled into the Slytherin dormitories had burned like Fiendfyre. The woman seated across from him coughed and clutched at her throat. A brown curl sprang free of the tightly cinched knot at the back of her neck and bobbed around her chin.

"Nobody could possibly want to drink this!" She started pulling at her collar, buttoned all the way up. Merlin, he hated the way she dressed.

"Nobody with taste buds," he agreed, sinking another mouthful.

"Well, I'm sure it will do the job regardless." She was peering into the cup suspiciously, another curl falling to the side of her neck.

"Trying to get me drunk, Granger?" he smirked. "Just remember that no matter how drunk I get, I will not sleep with you."

She laughed. "I'm holding you to that promise when you're drooling against my neck later."

"That happened one time!" he objected.

"Though how you confused me with Astoria will always be a mystery."

The truth was, he hadn't confused them. Draco had wanted to taste the skin at Hermione Granger's neck, and they had all been drunk enough to get away with it. Astoria had laughed uproariously when he had drunkenly confessed later that night. Two days later, she had donned a Gryffindor schoolgirl uniform complete with red lacy knickers and rocked his world. That was the kind of woman he had married. The woman he had loved with every fiber of his damaged heart. The woman he had lost.

The pain was back, gripping his chest like a vice. He leaned his head back, trying to hide the misery on his face. A few tears rolled down his cheek and into his collar.

"I liked her." Granger's voice was sad.

Draco shook his head as if it could chase away the pain.

"No you didn't," he choked out. He took another drink.

"I did! We weren't best friends by any means," she said as Draco snorted, "But she was a force of nature. I admired that about her."

"You both have that quality."

"Did you know, not long after you hired me, she tried to make me over?"

"When did that happen?" The idea was preposterous, mostly because it was obvious from Granger's wrinkled linen skirt that Astoria had failed. And she never failed.

"A few months into the job. She swept into my office on a random Tuesday and announced that we were going shopping."

Granger shuddered, the look on her face communicating deep distaste.

"I complained the whole time. Laid into her with lectures on unreasonable societal pressure on women to look a certain way, and how a woman's worth was more than her appearance."

The sound of her warm voice was the perfect counterpart to the tingling in his extremities. He took a shuddering breath and gulped down more whiskey.

"She would smile and agree and hand me another over-priced blouse. She asked probing, intelligent questions to keep me talking. Usually, while I was handing my purse to the cashier."

He knew that strategy intimately. A wan smile tugged at his lips.

"I felt good about myself near the end. Like I had gotten through to her about the futility of dressing oneself to please others," she sounded so amused. "Except I got home with eleven bags of clothing, three of makeup, and a hat posh enough to require a gilded box the size of a large dog."

Draco coughed on a chuckle. There was an entire closet at home devoted to hat boxes.

"And why have I never seen you wearing such a hat, Granger?"

"I gave it to Lavender," she answered absently.

"My wife put in all that work, and you just gave it away?" He tried to sound astonished, but he was also slurring. Mostly, he sounded drunk.

"I think I was a bit scared of her after that. I mean, how did she do it?" Hermione asked the last in hushed tones, sounding absolutely puzzled.

He was laughing. It felt like glass in his lungs, and more tears escaped from under his eyelids, but it was something. Then there was the smooth sensation of a silk handkerchief against his cheek. He clutched at it, inadvertently grasping her fingers in the process. Her hand felt nothing like Astoria's. This woman was a scholar, a warrior. She had callouses from quills, from thumbing through stacks of old parchment, from gripping a wand tightly during years of war.

He yanked away, balling up the scrap of fabric and chucking it to the floor.

"I'm not a child. I don't need you to babysit me," he snarled. Bloody hell, his head was swimming.

"That's funny because you're acting a bit like my Godson when he throws a tantrum," she snapped at him. "Except Albus is cute, he can get away with it. If you want me to leave just say so."

He was sure he wanted her to leave, but the words wouldn't come. "Did you think you could just waltz in here and make everything all better?"

"Don't be ridiculous! Nobody can make it better! I just didn't want you to be alone."

"What do you know about it, anyway?" he shouted. "You've never lost anyone!"

Her face closed down. Draco realized he was wrong, but he was deliberately trying to hurt her. Instead of making him feel better, the pain in her eyes made him want to apologize. If anyone had suffered, it was Hermione Granger.

"Next time I'll just leave you to your misery!"

"There won't be a next time," he responded wearily.

"Fine with me! Saves me five galleons."

Hermione stood up briskly, and stomped away, unsteady on her feet.

"Don't forget your ugly shoes!" he called after her.

With a huff, she marched back and shoved a foot into one shoe before bending over to pick up the other. She groaned as she righted herself, using the back of the couch for support. Most of her hair had sprung free from its confines and was bouncing around her head. She was flushed with anger and alcohol, her skirt slightly crooked and her shirt untucked.

Draco started chuckling. She glared at him as she hopped on one foot, trying to get the other shoe in its rightful place.

Suddenly, she lost her balance. She spun around with wide eyes and ended up flat on her bottom, her shoe flying from the tip of her feet across the room to land against a rather expensive painting. It rocked dangerously for a moment before stilling. A further disheveled Hermione sat on the floor, blinking rapidly and breathing hard into the silence.

A laugh escaped his chest, bursting from his mouth with raucous joy.

"Stop laughing, you prat," she whined, rubbing her leg. "I think I twisted my foot!"

But she was laughing too, her eyes bright and sparkling. Draco pushed himself up and paused for a moment to allow the room to stop spinning before wobbling over to her. He pulled her up unsteadily, clutching at his aching sides as he led her back to the couch. She slumped next to him and watched as he poured more whiskey. Nearly half the bottle was gone.

"My nose is tingly. Tingling. Ting. A. Ling." She snorted.

"Lie down before you hurt yourself."

It was the closest thing to an apology she would get, and she knew it too. She gave him a long-suffering sigh and followed his instructions. They ended up lying on opposite ends of the couch, their legs tangled together. Hermione summoned a blanket and covered both of them. He had questions he wanted to ask, but none of them came out right.

"How did you know?"

How did you know I needed you?

She stilled. "I do know the date. And Pansy says you've been locked in this office all week. More than usual."

"What are you doing here?"

Why do you care about me?

"Theo and Blaise are in France. A business trip you sent them on if I recall. Pansy says you've locked the Floo.

He caught the implication. She was right. He didn't want any witnesses to his breakdown. And yet here he was, leaking all over his furniture with one curly haired swot offering him a handkerchief.

"Besides," she continued. "We're friends."

It was a question. He wanted to snap at her, to scare her away, so she never came back with her understanding eyes, yanking joy out of him like pulling teeth. He didn't deserve this respite, this brief moment of peace, with Granger's skin pressed against his and her sweet scent on his clothes. It felt like a betrayal, in more ways than one.

Draco had a sudden vision of his wife, arms crossed, foot tapping in that particular way of hers, communicating to him her utter disbelief at his stupidity. She shook her beautiful head and grinned out of the corner of her mouth.

"Ogden's Finest," he muttered, half asleep. "Anything between 1945 and 1947. If you pay less than seven galleons, it's not worth it."

Granger shifted next to him but didn't respond.

"For next time."