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Each and every night, a wizened old man walks the museum, but pauses at only one painting.
—
Draco had experienced many beautiful women. Along the years, his father presented him with a procession of eligible pureblooded witches, and he had bedded his fair share. But the beauty of Hermione Granger was something else entirely. Beauty so revered that promising young Florentine artists duelled for her as though she were a treasure. And in the end, Ronald Weasley won the muggle-born muse.
For a time, he kept her stowed away as though others might snatch her beauty with their eyes, but when he finally completed a depiction of her face on canvas, she was proudly paraded around town and worn like a jewelled belt. If she were not the muse of the most spellbinding artist of their time, she wouldn’t have been permitted in the Malfoy villa. And yet, if not for the Malfoy patronage of the arts, Weasley would not have had the means to immortalise his muse.
The first night Draco witnessed Hermione Granger, they turned curious eyes upon one another as they entertained separate conversations. The second night, their sight lingered on each other like a mirror as they passed by, their fingers brushing lightly. Upon the third, she stopped him to ask, “Do you care to read, Signore Malfoy?”
Not only did her countenance always settle into an exquisite grace, but she read written word and kept conversation as good as any man, even debating Draco's claim that the earth was the very centre of their universe.
Hermione Granger was both a physical and spiritual beauty.
The fourth night they crossed paths, she eyed him meaningfully as she trailed away from Weasley’s side. As she studied an artwork, Draco grasped her wrist and leaned in to whisper, “Meet me in the library.”
It felt as though he waited an age.
Eventually, Hermione emerged around the corner in red robes with a sweet timidity. As she approached, her gaze ran lines along the walls of books and manuscripts.
“If the artists should see us,” she whispered. “Or your father…”
There was not nearly enough time in Draco’s life to entertain unease. With a hand to hers, he towed her in until they shared the same breath. “Do you not trust me?”
Hesitation slipping away, her eyes narrowed with her smile. “How could I not trust a wizard who keeps an entire room of written words?”
Draco smirked and she fell into his lips, melding her body against his. His fingers threaded into her curls, deepening their kiss, but their tongues brushed only long enough to taste her sweet wine before voices travelled past the doorway.
Hermione broke away. “I must go.”
“Will I see you again?”
She smirked past her shoulder. “In paint or in person?”
“Please,” he begged unashamedly. “You know which I prefer.”
Three torturous weeks later, Draco found Hermione again. When he pulled her behind Weasley’s studio, he kissed her carefully and curiously. But when she met him in the shade of a garden fountain, he was hungry and impatient, and she tended to his length until he released into her hand. Their movements became reckless and their public looks blatantly longing. Their love was too bold for secrecy.
One day, as Hermione removed his cock from his linen pants and lined up her mouth, Weasley re-emerged in his studio for a forgotten wand, and Draco narrowly escaped through a window just as the artist’s suspicious words carried on the air.
But that night was Carnevale. They would be anonymous amongst the hordes of guests at Malfoy villa.
Silk and velvet swathed witches and wizards, wearing painted masks to celebrate, indulged in rich food and wine and danced uninhibited to the hopping music. The atmosphere crackled with magic, laughter amplifying the charge in the air, and at midnight, exploding fireworks battled the stars and the guests all gasped and cheered.
In the press of people, Draco discovered Hermione from the spill of curls down her back. He clasped her wrist and wended her through the gathering, stopping in both crowded and abandoned rooms to pin her against the wall and kiss her deeply. Their blood thrummed with wine and desire. How had he once lived without her? He failed to recall.
In his bedroom, Draco slipped away the gold mask framing Hermione's eyes. Behind was the woman he would marry. He used his wand to strip them bare, but before he could make their mouths meet, she was astride. As she kissed him, chamomile-scented curls tented around and her wetness grazed his hard length. She rocked her hips, humming against his mouth, then sat back to allow him the exquisite view.
Draco roughly stuttered in a breath, for her beauty made a keen attempt to take it away. She was all symmetry and gentle angles: soft eyebrows, curved pink lips and a delicate upturned nose. Hermione Granger, herself, was art.
He sat up and palmed her silken cheek. “Come away with me. I don’t care where, just let me take you.”
She shook her head lightly. “Ronald hasn’t finished the painting; he has only depicted my face.”
“Does that artist mean more to you than I do?”
Her features rippled with sincerity. “Nothing else in my life means more to me than you.”
He held his breath for the intensity in her eyes, and they read one another for a beat. Read the longing for this love for a lifetime.
As they kissed, Hermione notched his length at her entrance, but she broke their mouths apart to watch his expression as her warmth and wetness enclosed him tightly. Together, they hummed and groaned from the sensation. As Hermione rode up and down, coaxing her little moans, Draco’s palms mapped her body and made a memory. He adored the dips and curves of her. She was silk at his fingertips. When her cheeks flushed pink from her efforts, she became a sight unlike any other. Hermione was a form of beauty that should have been lauded.
Draco trailed damp kisses down her neck and chest, then his tongue swept around the soft peak of her nipple and incited her contented hum. He wanted her all to himself, every single day. Morning and night and all the moments in between. But he had never been a patient man.
“One day soon we will run.”
Hermione’s lips curved. “All the way to Venice.”
Without detaching, he pressed her back until she laid and stroked inside deeply, causing her to moan his name.
“And we’ll marry in spring,” he whispered as he worked into her, “with pink roses in your hair.”
She broke the pleasurable crease of her expression with a smile.
Draco stalled inside of her and used the pads of his fingers at her centre. With circles building quicker and quicker, she writhed into his touch, panting hot against his lips until she arched and shivered and cried out his name. Draco delved deep to make certain her release rode on. She clenched around him in a way that forced a moan from his mouth, and he needed to slow to keep from meeting an early end.
As Hermione grasped for her breaths, she said, “And we’ll have five children.”
Draco chuckled softly, and she laughed along too, lighting something else within. “And grow old and frail together.”
Humour slipped from her expression. She fiddled a fingertip down his bicep, cocking her head. “But will you still love me when I am no longer a young beauty?”
Draco held her cheek. “I promise you, Hermione, I will love you at every age and throughout the ages.”
Her grin returned with vigour, until he thrust inside and her expression switched to brittle pleasure. With her legs splaying wider and a hand pressed to the small of his back, Hermione forced him deeper. She trailed her lips along his jaw until her quiet gasps aligned with his ear, leading him closer to the edge.
Draco sat back to view her beauty: her full breasts quivering with each thrust; the squirm of her hips to meet his every effort; her sweet lips letting out hums, whimpers, and whispers of “Draco.” Knowing he could coax her pleasure wildly stoked his own. With their tongues sweeping and moans melding, Draco’s every muscle tensed as he met his release, not pausing his thrusts until he was spent; until all he had to give was firmly inside.
Could he live this night one hundred times over? Thousands? More. It was all he wished for.
They laid to catch their breaths and listened to the guests revelling in the gardens, only their languid kisses, loving glances and lingering touches marking time.
Coming to sit, Draco slid off a silver ring. “If you refuse to leave with me tonight, then I want you to have this.”
She rose to meet him. “Draco, I cannot wear this—they will all know.”
“Keep it with you. I want to know you always have a part of me.” He slipped it on her finger and tightened it a jot with his wand.
Hermione threaded their fingers, then drew their hands in to sit at her heart. “You will always be with me, Draco.” Her voice was laden with promise and affection that deserved to be written in ink. Immortalised in tempera and on canvas.
Her beautiful mouth shaped into a smile and he closed the distance to feel it in a kiss.
An explosion of fireworks masked the sound of the door crashing open. Suddenly Weasley was there, his face pink with anger, wand battle-ready.
Draco jumped to his feet, tightening his grip around his wand and furling his face in anger.
“If your seed is in my muse—”
“You dare threaten a Malfoy? You are nothing without our gold, Weasley.”
“I won’t simply threaten you, Malfoy. If she is with child and you have marred the figure I intend to paint, then I will see that you no longer exist.”
“Leave us.” Sparks emitted from the end of his wand. “Or I will make certain you leave this life.”
Draco felt a touch upon his shoulder. Hermione was there wearing her chemise and terror in her eyes. “Draco, don’t do anything brash.”
Weasley’s lips twisted into a smug show, and Draco teased an unforgivable curse on his tongue.
“Please.” Hermione’s hand was on his. She leaned in and whispered in his ear, “Do you not trust me?”
Of course he trusted her. But Weasley? What would he do with her? To her?
He was loath to relinquish Hermione, but she had allowed Weasley to take her hand. Draco’s fingers trailed all the way to the tips of hers as she was dragged away, and he clamped his jaw for the pang in his heart. His breaths tumbled.
Draco spent the night searching for curls in the crowd; but Hermione was nowhere to be found.
It was sunrise when he was summoned to his father's quarters.
Lucius’ face was twisted into a sneer. “I have been told that you’ve been consorting with a muggle.”
“She is a witch.”
Weasley—the rat. A threat to kill Draco was one thing—he was an adept dueller—but running to his father was dangerous for all involved. The wizard had maintained their family’s position in society with a ruthless wand.
“You know your duty, Draco. I will not have our bloodline sullied; you need a fitting wife.”
“I have found a fitting wife. Hermione is everything I need and want and dream.”
His father’s sneer fell, but disgust remained at his mouth. “I shall rephrase: that Weasley artist will need to source himself a new muse.”
Draco felt a blow of grief as though a hex across his heart. “What did you do?” His voice was pale and unlike his own.
Lucius smiled, but it was fleeting. A swift show of pleasure. “Oh, and I believe this is yours.” A silver ring slid out from his pocket and floated neatly into Draco’s palm.
He swallowed, throat suddenly dry. “Tell me where she is,” he sieved through a tight jaw.
Lucius smirked.
Draco brandished his wand but his father was quicker, and he met the wall with a sharp crack to his head.
*
When Weasley finished the artwork commissioned to hang in the Malfoy villa, Draco ordered the elves to rid of it. He couldn’t see her again; not like this.
*
The years turned over as Draco searched for Hermione. He couldn’t even find the painted form that he had carelessly discarded. He spent so long searching that he was disavowed by his family and labelled mad by his friends. But, perhaps he was?
Written works warned that ingesting unicorn blood led to a cursed life, but Draco reasoned his existence was already cursed. He lived longer than any other in Florence. In Italy. A long life that, to others, appeared unspent. The wealthy Malfoy, who had been destined for grandeur, ended childless and wifeless, whittling away his life in a hovel as he searched for answers. Answers to what? No one understood. In the seventeenth century, no one remembered Hermione Granger.
With his prolonged life all but passed by, Draco emerged with a golden thread around his neck; it held a small apparatus on the end. But no matter what spells and incantations he recited, no matter the materials he sourced or the brightest minds he inquired, the Time Turner only took him forwards for several hours before sending him back to the same loveless time.
Then one day he went forward, and couldn’t seem to go back.
—
The museum is closing in fifteen minutes, says the announcement, and the man counts seventy-three thousand and one times that he has heard this warning.
“Mum,” hisses a small boy, his finger pointing. “That man is a ghost.”
His mother laughs in the same way she always does when her four-year-old’s imagination gets the best of him. “Don’t be silly, there’s nothing there and there’s no such thing.”
As the muggles file from the room, the lamps dim and the din settles, and the man sits on a bench directly before a painting. The Birth of Venus. A naked woman stands upon a shell, with a wind god gently propelling her to shore; a perfect representation of the divine qualities of beauty and love. She is engaging and ethereal. She depicts the face of Hermione Granger.
The man recalls the night of Carnevale. The night he wishes he’d knotted their fingers and led her through the hills of Sesto Fiorentino, straight to Venice, or to anywhere else in this forsaken world. He remembers the beautiful curve of her lips as she held their twined hands to her heart; mourns the way her honey-coloured eyes had set alight with love. Regrets not stealing one more kiss.
Draco, a ghost of the man he was, walks the museum every night and pauses at only one painting.