Prologue: Sunday evening, Malfoy Manor

The Grand Ballroom of Malfoy Manor’s filled with light—there are candles on the tables and in the wall sconces and floating beneath the stuccoed ceiling; there are Yule trees glittering with everlasting snow; there are garlands of evergreens twinkling with fairy lights; and, flanking the doors, there are green ice-dragons, breathing shards of frosty fire...

...

Moving in time to the music, Draco Malfoy takes a bottle of champagne from one of the coolers, scoops up a couple of glasses, and weaves his way through the dancing couples, heading for the doors.

He’s almost there, when a sturdy hand grabs his arm, and stops him in his tracks.

“Where are you going with those, Malfoy?”

Draco sighs. It’s the world’s second most annoying man. “What business is it of yours, Potter?”

“Hermione’s my best friend.”

“And she’s my fiancée,” says Draco, looking down at Potter’s sweaty paw, which is mauling a good seventy Galleons-worth of raw silk suit, “at least, for another ten days, and then she’ll be my wife—hence, the party. So, now that we’ve got that sorted—”

“Listen! If you’re sneaking off to meet one of your women—”

“One of my women?” Draco laughs. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“If you ever cheat on Hermione, Malfoy,” says Potter, “if you hurt her in any way, I’ll slice them off.”

“Nasty, Potter. Very nasty.” Draco wrenches himself free of The Bastard Who’s Lived Too Long, and continues on his way.

...

He closes the Library door and—holding the bottle and glasses in one hand—he pulls out his wand and seals it and, for good measure, casts a couple of silencing charms.

There’s no sign of her.

She must be hiding, the minx.

With mounting excitement, he scans the chamber—the alcoves, the bay windows—and then—Oh yes!—he spots her on the balcony.

She smiles down at him.

Seductively.

He climbs the spiral stairs.

She’s perching on a table, swinging her little feet.

He leans against a bookcase and—champagne forgotten—he looks at her.

Her robes are a deep burgundy red, and the tight velvet bodice—which is boned like a corset and edged with scarlet satin—lifts her breasts and displays them to perfection.

“Bloody hell, Granger,” he growls, “you have lovely tits.”

“You’re so romantic, Malfoy.”

Her hands are resting in her lap and she slides them down to her knees, grasps her skirts, and slowly inches them up her legs.

Oh, Merlin...

She’s wearing little black boots, like a Victorian lady’s, and jet black stockings, and...

Oh, fucking Merlin!

She’s wearing long, white Victorian drawers, which are gathered at the knees with black satin ribbons, and are—he has absolutely no doubt—completely crotchless.

“Well?” she says. “Are they as sexy in real life as they looked in the photographs?” (Working together on research projects for his father, they’ve discovered a lot of vintage pornography in the Malfoys’ Library).

Draco dumps the champagne on an empty shelf. “You, Granger, are the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

She reaches out, opening her legs for him and, when he comes to her, she wraps herself around him and pulls him close. “I thought you’d got lost, Malfoy.”

“Mm...” He leans down, and nuzzles her breasts. “I was having a nice little chat with your friend, Potter, and couldn’t get away.”

“Please, Draco,” she says, cradling him in her arms, “don’t insult Harry...”

“He was the one doing the insulting, Granger.” He runs the tip of his tongue up her cleavage.

“Oh, Malfoy…”

...

He owes it all to the Ministry of Magic (so he supposes he should give them a donation).

Because, if they hadn’t passed a Law for the Regulation of Magical Marriages, requiring all unmarried pure-bloods to marry half-bloods or Muggle-borns, he would never have proposed to Granger, and Granger would never have accepted him.

And if Granger hadn’t accepted him, she would never have tried—secretly—to cement their relationship with a complex cocktail of love potions and lust charms designed to take effect the first time he made love to her, and then seduced him the moment she’d got him alone.

And if she hadn’t seduced him—wearing, incidentally, the sexiest little pink satin and black lace push-up bra he’d ever seen (which she later admitted she’d bought specifically for the purpose)—he wouldn’t be where he is right now.

Between her luscious legs.

He slides his hands down to her hips and rips off a few million yards of burgundy silk skirt, leaving her wearing nothing but her corset, drawers, and stockings.

Fucking hell, that should be illegal...

Of course, even the brightest of witches can make mistakes, especially when she’s attempting too much magic too quickly and, for a moment—for many long, excruciating moments, actually—he’d thought that she’d hexed his balls to implode after sex, probably as some sort of revenge for the way he’d treated her at school—and, if he could have taken his hands off his cock at that point, he would have wrung her bloody little neck.

But it turned out that the pain was only—Only!—a side effect and, though it had briefly shaken his admiration for her—“You’re supposed to be good, and moral, Granger, and—and a lot less like me, for Merlin’s sake!”—once she’d convinced him that she’d meant well—“This is it, Draco—it’s you and me, together, for the rest of our lives; we have to make it work!”—he could hardly have held such Slytherin-worthy sneakiness against her.

Besides, he thinks, as his fingers confirm that her drawers are, indeed, crotchless, there’s nothing like getting fabulous sex whenever he wants it to make a man forgive and forget.

And the sex is fabulous.

It’s the best he’s ever had.

And he’s had a lot.

Granger swears that it has nothing to do with the charms—“They shouldn’t affect dimensions, or muscles, or—you know—lubrication, Malfoy,”—but, if the magic does eventually wear thin, he’ll just get her to cast the charms again.

Sometimes he thinks he’s died and gone to Muggle heaven.

...

His mouth finds hers and he gives her a long, tender kiss, which is her cue to unbutton his fly.

He feels her little hand free him from his shorts, and stroke him along his entire length—once, twice, three times—and then draw him down between her thighs. He’s big, and she’s quite small, so it takes a lot of gentle manoeuvring—of pressing forward, and waiting for her body to adjust—for him to enter her fully.

It can be frustrating but, tonight, it’s perfect. She’s holding him in her arms, and he’s filling her, and she’s all soft, and tight...

Her pussy’s like a velvet vise, he thinks. Oh yes...

“What did your father want?”

“GRANGER!”

“What?”

“You don’t talk about a man’s father at a time like this. Merlin!”

“I didn’t think anything could put the Slytherin Sex Maniac off his stride.”

“That’s ‘god’, Granger. Slytherin Sex God.”

She reaches down between them, giggling—from her, a giggle’s all kinds of delightful—and her fingers soon restore his good humour. “Oh, yes,” she whispers, “you are a god.”

He gathers her close and, occupying her teasing mouth with kisses, he slips back inside her.

...

They’ll taunt each other with words; sometimes they’re crude, and sometimes they’re angry but, once they start making love in earnest, they’re always serious. There are times when Draco has no idea where his own body ends and where Granger’s begins, times when he and she—man and woman—become one being.

He doesn’t know whether it’s his own heart or whether it’s her magic.

But when it’s right, like it is tonight, he really doesn’t care.

...

Afterwards, he Scourgifies himself, but her body needs gentler treatment, so he uses his wand to dampen his handkerchief, and gently cleans between her thighs.

“What did your father want?” she asks, leaning back, and watching him work.

“Nothing.” He wipes the handkerchief along her slit.

“Oh...” Her back arches, pushing her into his hand. Draco leans in and—fingers teasing her below—kisses her. “We did,” she gasps against his lips, “we did say—ah—no secrets between us, Malfoy. Remember?”

“You said no secrets between us, Granger, as I recall.”

She pulls away from him with a hiss and, folding her arms across her chest, pouts.

It’s adorably silly—especially since his hand’s still between her legs, so she’s technically at his mercy—but it works because, for some reason, she owns him.

“All right,” he sighs. “It’s nothing, really—when we go to Diagon Alley tomorrow, he wants me to deliver something for him. You can wait for me in Flourish and Blotts if you want—spend some of your book allowance.”

“What is it—this thing you have to deliver?”

“I don’t know. A letter of some sort.”

“Why doesn’t he owl it?”

“Oh, Granger, how should I know?”

“Did you even ask?”

“Of course not.”

“And you wonder why he still treats you like a child?”

“Don’t, Granger.” He balls the handkerchief and throws it down on the table.

“I just...” She grasps his hand. “I just want to be here for you, Draco.”

“I know.” He raises her hand to his mouth. “I do know that, Granger,” he murmurs. Then, “Come on. If we don’t get back to the party soon, Mother will send an owl. To shame us.”