Since his encounter with enchanted mistletoe in the Atrium of the Ministry a few days ago, Draco has made it a point to learn everything he can about Ginny Weasley. She’d accused him of knowing nothing about the Ministry of Magic despite his extended presence there, and she’d been right.

Draco’s job is very important, but it doesn’t require much knowledge or many skills, so he has never bothered to learn the composition of each department or identify changes of power.

Deep in the Department of Mysteries, an office connects the Time and Thought Chambers. It’s where Memory is studied and also houses copies of every document drafted inside or sent to the Ministry of Magic. Contracts, memos, newsletters, personal correspondence, shopping and to-do lists—if it’s written on parchment, a magical copy is immediately and magically archived in the Department of Mysteries. Draco’s job is to monitor the Archive and hand-deliver archival requests to the Minister of Magic, the only person with clearance to make requests from the Archive.

After the mistletoe incident, Draco scoured the Archive for any mention of Ginny Weasley. He found a birth certificate, Hogwarts rosters from all eight years she attended school, a letter sent to the Ministry by Professor McGonagall to inform the Minister of Weasley’s abduction into the Chamber of Secrets. Another letter informing the Minister of her safe retrieval. A memo describing Weasley’s actions and injuries in the battle that took place inside the Department of Mysteries. OWL scores, NEWT scores, a certificate of completion upon leaving Hogwarts. An employment contract when she was hired as an Auror. Another when she was promoted to Head of the Auror Department. (He sees that she is the youngest to lead the department in Ministry history, but it appears she received the job when several members of the department were arrested for corruption and Potter turned down the opportunity.)

He had devoured as much of her life story as he could, and all the while, he had wondered why it mattered to him.

They’d kissed. It was a spectacular kiss, but they’d been forced into it and it didn’t mean anything. That doesn’t mean Draco doesn’t want to do it again.

A blank piece of parchment on top of one of the stacks that clutter the floor around his desk begins to fill with words, and Draco pauses his perusal of Weasley’s promotion contract to watch the words scribble themselves across the page. As soon as the words rest, Draco turns to the rows and rows of filing cabinets that fill the room and begins the tedious process of interpreting the vague request to find some information that might be useful to the Minister.

Hours later, he emerges from the Archive and grabs a lift. The lift stops one floor up at the Atrium to retrieve new passengers, and Draco’s vision tunnels when the doors open. Ginny Weasley has just stepped out of a Floo and turns toward the security gates. A flash of her red hair peeks between the bars of the gates, enticing him with its brightness.

The grill begins to close, and before he can second guess himself, Draco shoves his way out of the full lift. He makes a beeline for Weasley to meet her on his side of the security gate.

She glances up as her wand is returned to her by the attendant, but she noticeably freezes when she spots Draco, only feet away. Then, as if as drawn to him as he is to her, she slowly approaches him.

The people around them give them a wide berth, as if sensing they would prefer to be alone. With the illusion of privacy, they keep their voices low and intimate.

“You ran away from our last encounter,” Weasley says, a smile trembling at the corners of her lips. As though she would prefer to scowl but can’t bring herself to.

“I didn’t fancy being hexed by Potter.”

“Harry is a non-issue,” she says, scowling now. Hmm, she really doesn’t like being associated with Potter. This pleases him more than it should. Or maybe just as much as it should…. Why shouldn’t Draco be glad that she wants nothing to do with Potter anymore?

She tilts her chin up a little higher, and Draco realizes how small she is, how far she has to crane her neck to meet his eyes. This feels familiar in some ways and brand new in others. Once upon a time, he’d restrained her from behind while the Carrows had thrown Unforgivables at her. She’d seemed such an impossibly small target back then, when Draco had also been in the line of fire. In that way, her size feels intimately familiar. But she faces him now, meets his eye, the opposite position she’d held in her detention days, and the experience is new, thrilling, and terrifying all at once to have those eyes on him.

This is a woman who was abducted by Salazar Slytherin’s monster and saw the inside of the Chamber of Secrets. This is a woman who led a rebellion when Potter wasn’t around to lead it for her. This is the youngest leader of the Aurors in history, and perhaps she got the job because there hadn’t been anyone else with more experience to take it, but all the reports he’d read in the Archive suggested she’d met the challenge and exceeded expectations.

She is a force to be reckoned with, and she wants nothing to do with Potter. Instead, she’s staring at Draco, almost smiling at Draco, as if she, too, wants to repeat their kiss from several days ago.

“By choice?” Draco asks, wanting to hear her say the words.

“Hmm?”

“Is Potter a non-issue by choice? Was there a choice?”

Her eyes glitter with calculation. Her lips purse in thought. Draco measures his breaths and sculpts his expression into mild curiosity, trying to hide how much he needs to know the answer. But inside his chest, his heart pounds against his ribs in anticipation.

“Yes, by choice,” Weasley says. “My choice.”

“Before or after you became the youngest Head of the Auror Department?”

Her eyes narrow. “You asked about me.”

“No,” he answers truthfully, his lips thinning into a smug smile.

“You did someresearch.”

“Some,” he agrees.

During their back and forth, they draw closer together. Close enough that if Draco shifts his stance slightly, their fingers will brush. Close enough that if he only lowers his head, he could kiss her again. The top of her head, her forehead, her cheek, her mouth. Wherever he wants, he could do it.

“Before.”

“Hmm?” Draco asks.

Her grin strengthens, goes from trembly to sincere. “Harry became a non-issue long before I became the head of the department.”

Back in their school days, he had loved competing with Potter. Nothing had brought him as much joy as when Draco triumphed over him, rare as those moments had been. But Draco had grown up, and in the time it had taken him to do that, he’d finally learned that some people are winners and some are losers. In any competition between Draco and Potter, Draco usually came out the loser, so it was better not to compete at all.

He’s glad he won’t have to compete with Potter for her.

At this point, there is no further distance to cover. If they move any closer, they’ll be in each other’s arms.

Draco wonders whether this new attraction to Weasley is natural or a by-product of the enchanted mistletoe lingering all these days later. Something isn’t right about his fascination, about the flush in his cheeks, about his rapidly beating heart. What if he’s under the effects of magical mistletoe right now?

He looks up, halfway expecting to see the blasted plant hanging there, and then he freezes.

The blasted plant is hanging there!

Weasley looks up, too, and then groans. “Oh no….”

The bubble that he and Weasley had found themselves in now makes sense. It was caused by the people passing by avoiding the mistletoe, and Draco and Weasley had walked right into it.

Draco frowns, uncertain of the mood he’d sensed when she’d passed through the security gates. “Don’t pretend you don’t want to kiss me. I felt how you reacted last time. I see the way you’re looking at me now.”

“It’s not that,” she says, her voice low. “I don’t like not having a choice. I don’t like not being in control.”

A quiet, surprised breath escapes Draco’s mouth. Heat begins to consume him at the idea of Weasley being in control. After his initial physical reaction to her explanation, Draco understands her concern. Not having a choice—it’s an evil Draco experienced during the war, and it’s an evil he never wants to repeat.

But they do have a choice now. They can choose to kiss, or they can ask a bystander to alert the Magical Maintenance crew to free them. They still have a choice.

Draco places his hands on her hips and holds her against him. They are so close, he hears every stutter of her breath, he feels it against his heart, penetrating through his clothes, through skin and muscle and bone. She’s so small it makes him want to be careful with her, so when he lowers his head, he plants an equally small, gentle kiss against her lips. It’s a fleeting kiss, testing the waters, tasting them, trying to get a sense of whether her presumed lack of choice will deter her from deepening it.

It doesn’t.

Her response is immediate as she reaches up and takes his lips by force.

For a moment, he’s shocked by her fervor, but it’s only a momentary lapse. He’s as invested as she is, as hungry as she is, and he pours all of the attraction he’s felt over the last several days, all the want and yearning, into her.

It’s hot, it’s wet, it’s completely inappropriate for the workplace, especially for the entrance of the Ministry where so many people arrive and depart. But Draco doesn’t care. He only cares about the scent of her hair in his nose, the taste of her tongue against his, her greedy hands clutching his back, her all-encompassing warmth.

When it ends, he’s filled with regret, but there’s something in her eyes that says this second kiss won’t be their last. Maybe next time they won’t wait to get trapped under enchanted mistletoe again.

As long as they are both willing, Draco will make sure they have plenty of opportunities in the future for more kissing.

It will always be their choice.

Author notes:

This chapter was originally written/posted on Tumblr on 12/22/19 in response to a request from cheekytorah-laceybauthor. The prompt was "A small, fleeting kiss - which is immediately followed by a passionate, hungry kiss." This is all for now. Thank you for reading!