Hermione Granger was humming softly to herself as she reshelved an enormous cart of books.

It had been a long day.

A most irritatingly grabby Russian descendant had come to the library and requested every single book his ancestors had ever submitted to the library. Hermione spent well over an hour going through the entire building, gathering up a treatise here, an ancient scroll there, until she had brought in a veritable mountain of texts. Then he'd informed her she could put them back. He had just wanted to ensure that the library was caring for them properly, he didn't want to actually read them.

Hermione had been sorely tempted to hex him, but she had plastered a fake smile on her face as she returned all the books to the library cart and proceeded to undertake the arduous task of reshelving them and resetting the necessary wards.

As she was sliding a narrow volume into its place on a shelf, a simpering giggle wafted in through the open door.

Hermione paused and rolled her eyes.

There was only one reason that anyone was giggling in the Library of Alexandria:

Draco Malfoy.

Shortly after he started working as a librarian, female descendants started popping in at unprecedented rates, giving pathetic excuses about their sudden need to look something up in that old scroll dear old Uncle Urkhard donated.

The real reason for their visits was that Draco Malfoy was, to put it mildly, the living personification of a witch's wet dream of an absent-minded professor—or absent-minded librarian, as it were.

—if librarians or professors were typically tall enough to be models with perfect Greek features and infamous wealth.

He was the most ridiculous librarian the world had ever seen.

He dressed in crisp, fitted, button-down shirts topped with cardigans rolled up past the elbows on the hot days and tweed jackets on the cold. He sported an unending supply of bow-ties that always seemed slightly askew and in need of straightening. His hair was slightly tousled so that a lock would fall over his eyes whenever he looked down at a book. Sometimes he even wore a pair of round spectacles, perched part-way down his nose, and had a habit of bashfully straightening them.

It was all a ruse.

He was possibly the least absent-minded individual on earth. His bow-ties were charmed to intermittently skew themselves. He spent ages getting his hair to look effortlessly tousled. And—he didn't even need glasses.

None of that stopped him from drifting through the library with a faraway expression or a pensively furrowed brow, as though he were in deep contemplation of the most complex secrets of the magical world. He always donned an expression of surprise when the inevitable witch appeared and tried to commandeer him into her reading room, protesting that he was new and barely trained, and pretending to have anxiety before allowing himself to be dragged off.

The witches' faces were often positively glazed with happiness as they departed.

It was ridiculous.

Another giggle wafted in.

Hermione glanced surreptitiously around and then shot a muffling charm at the door.

Left in peace and quiet once more, she resumed her reshelving.

She was mostly done when she arrived at a book that belonged on a shelf considerably above her head. She looked around for the step-stool that should have been nearby and couldn't see it anywhere.

She stood on her toes and tried to slip it in. It was just—

barely—

Ugh. She couldn't quite get it up into the slot.

She rose up on her toes and pressed herself up against the shelf, holding the spine with just the barest tips of her fingers and straining her arm up to try getting it into place.

Abruptly she found it plucked from her fingers and slotted into place by someone else.

A hard chest was pressing against her back, pinning her against the shelf.

"You really are just uselessly small," Draco said, his voice a soft drawl behind her. "You'd think the library would have a height requirement."

She rolled her eyes and tried to wriggle away from him.

"Don't you have a descendant you're retrieving books for?" she asked, her tone tart.

"No. She left. Thank Merlin," he said with a dramatic sigh. "I realize I'm only only twenty-five myself, but I'm really becoming concerned about the loose morals on the next generation. I do believe she was trying to seduce me."

"Really?" Hermione rolled her eyes again. "You mean she wasn't actually here to read her great aunt's runic treatise on removing warts with blood magic? I'm astonished." Hermione snorted.

He gave a low barking laugh. "Have you read it, Granger?"

"Of course. I've read everything in the Runes room." She said, sniffing and trying to elbow him away so she could resume her reshelving duties.

He caught her elbow before it managed to bury itself into his ribs.

"Of course you have." He chuckled, his breath ghosting over her neck. "You are seeming rather feisty today. What have I done now?"

Hermione glared up at him over her shoulder.

"You don't take this job seriously at all," she said, her voice flat.

"Not true," he said with wide eyes. "I'm utterly devoted to being a librarian."

Hermione looked away. "Well, Ignatius will be thrilled to hear that," she said dryly. "He asked me the other day whether you'd be willing to expand your contract from eight months into a regular three year one. Shall I tell him it's yes for you?"

"No!" Draco yelped the word and then sighed dramatically once more, still caging her against the shelf.

"Fine. Perhaps utterly devoted is too strong. I'm devoted to it, but only for the current benefits."

Hermione scoffed. "Really? Witches never threw themselves at you before you arrived here?"

"I wasn't referring to that," he muttered, his hands suddenly sliding along her body. "I was referring to you."

Hermione gasped slightly as one of his hands suddenly slid up her throat and tilted her head back so he could kiss her.

He drew back from her lips after a moment and studied her face with his pale, glittering eyes. "I'm married to you. Do you really think I'd bollock that up because some tart shows up and giggles every time I say anything?"

Hermione's irritation was fading away as his other hand moved up and began unbuttoning her shirt so he could slide his fingers over her skin.

"You were jealous," he suddenly said, sounding astonished by the realization.

Hermione felt her face warm. "Just a little. If the library was swarming with wizards trying to drag me into the reading rooms, would the fact we're married be enough to keep you from minding?"

"No," he pulled her against himself more possessively. "Sorry. I was just thinking it was funny. I wasn't thinking about how you might see it."

"It's fine," she said stiffly, trying again to resume reshelving.

"No, it's not," he refused to let her slip away. "And I don't want you to pretend it is."

As he said it he finished with her blouse's buttons and proceeded to pull the cups of her bra down under her breasts, exposing them to the cool air in the library. She gasped as his fingers slid lazily over her nipples, teasing them into rigid peaks.

"We—can't," she whimpered. "Someone could—catch us."

"You'll just have to be very quiet," he said, his voice a low purr in her ear.

She nodded obediently and he tangled his hand in her hair and turned her head so he could kiss her again. His cool grey eyes were dark with arousal as he stared down at her.

"I can't believe you were jealous," he said, his voice incredulous as he pulled the fabric of her skirt up and slid his hand between her legs. "Even my ancestors don't expect me to ever be able to get over you. You do realize, I spend most of my time talking about you to those witches."

"Wait—? What?" Hermione stared at him bewildered, having trouble thinking about anything but what his fingers were doing at that moment.

"You really didn't know this?" He suddenly looked amused. His quirked an eyebrow and smirked devilishly. "Our story is considered deeply romantic. Given that we were all star-crossed by the war, and then I fell for you in eighth year with no chance of winning you and resigned myself to being sad and lonely forever. The story of how Fate intervened and caused us to cross paths here, and then we got trapped together and married and fell in love, and now live together in this library—Apparently it's like something out of a bodice ripper. Witches eat it with a spoon. They want to hear all about it from the moment I fell for you and pined all those years."

"That's what you spend hours talking about?" She gasped as he slid his fingers into her core.

"Of course." His voice was lower and thick with arousal. "This may surprise you, but I'm something of a talker. I'm rather prone to going on and on about you."

"Oh..." whimpered Hermione.

"So, now that we've cleared up this little misunderstanding, if you don't mind," his voice was teasing, "please stop glaring at me whenever you see me in the foyer. You're convincing all the biddies that our relationship is on the rocks and I have to explain that that's how you always look at me, and then they always give me these knowing looks and pinch me in deeply unsettling locations upon my person."

"I—I thought you were flirting with them all," Hermione said, her voice thin as he pressed his fingers in deeper and her legs nearly gave out.

He snorted. "The only person I flirt with is Mordred, and that's for reasons of self-preservation."

"But—" Hermione was struggling to think clearly, "—what are all the muggle clothes and crooked bow-ties and spectacles for?"

He pinched her nipple so that she shuddered in his arms.

"For you," he said, eyeing her as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Witches who have books in this library are completely baffled by my clothes. They all think its bizarre."

He dipped his head down and chuckled in her ear. "My, my, Granger. You presumptuous little witch. Did you assume that just because you find me sexy like this getup that everybody does?"

"Only if they have eyes," Hermione said, but she blushed scarlet.

She had assumed that since she thought Draco looked positively edible in his librarian clothes that it was a universally shared appreciation.

Oh Merlin, she was terribly jealous about him.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I think I'm more possessive about you than I realized."

"It's alright. I'm very possessive of you too. That Russian was leering and touching you so much I threatened to feed him to the Opaleye if he didn't bugger off."

She stiffened, her eyes going wide. "Is that why he left so abruptly after making me spend so much time getting all those books for him?"

"Yes. He was planning on staying for a week. And it would have interfered gravely with this plan I had of catching you reshelving and ravishing you against a bookshelf while you try to keep quiet."

Hermione probably should have been really irked about his abuse of his librarian position but given that she was half stripped and minutes away from shagging him—which was, comparatively speaking, the greater abuse of position—his words simply made her dramatically wetter.

"Oh..." she keened as his mouth descended onto her neck and started kissing and nipping it while his played with her breasts. His fingers continued to slide inside her and his thumb moved in lazy circles over the sensitive cluster of nerves between her legs.

"Shhhh," he said against the shell of her ear.

She bit her lip and nodded but couldn't seem to keep all her moans in as he continued to tease her body until her legs finally gave out beneath her. He dragged her up into his arms.

"I'm going to take you against this shelf," he said, his voice a low growl in her ear. "You'll have to be very quiet and hold on."

Her head fell back against his chest and he pressed a searing kiss to her lips. Then, holding her firmly by the waist, he reached back and release his cock from his trousers and pressed it against her while sliding her knickers further out of the way.

He drew her up, pushed her legs a bit further apart, and impaled her on himself with a quick deep thrust.

A gasping moan promptly tore itself from Hermione's lips and his hand instantly clamped over her mouth to muffle further sound.

She shuddered against him as he started moving quickly inside her. His other hand lazily trailing over her exposed breasts and then down between her legs, as though the sensations weren't already overwhelming enough.

"You love breaking rules, don't you?" he said against her temple.

She was trembling in his arms.

Her entire front was entirely exposed and if anyone were to walk around the corner, there was no concealing what they were doing

In the quiet that blanketed the library, a single stray whimper could attract attention.

The thought aroused her.

She wasn't an exhibitionist, but there was something specifically about libraries; the staidness, the quiet, and the way that being around books awakened her mind. Having sex there exhilarated her the way flying on a broom and playing quidditch exhilarated other people. Every nerve in her body was on edge. Every synapse on her brain on fire. The intensity—

She was so close to coming.

"My little bookworm, I will never get tired of shagging you in here. I could have a thousand memories of this and I'd still want more." Draco's voice was a possessive growl.

Her breath through her nose was brushing over his fingers which were still locked over her jaw and mouth. Tiny gasps and moans she couldn't quite contain were humming against his palm.

The fingertips of his other hand were drawing light, languorous patterns over her pelvis, just barely skimming—never fully touching her where she wanted to be touched most.

She arched her hips, meeting his movement and trying to make contact, a whimper escaping her from frustration as he kept her suspended, just shy of the edge she was so close to reaching.

"You're mine," he said into her hair. "And when our contracts are done here in Alexandria, I'm going to take you home and I'm going to fuck you in my library so often we'll practically live there. And then, when there isn't a surface in it you haven't come on, I'm going to abuse my position as a governor at Hogwarts and I'm going sneak you in and shag you in the restricted section of the library there. And then—well..." he chuckled, "there are a great many libraries in the world and we wizarding folk do live for an awfully long time..."

Draco Malfoy was the most ridiculous person who existed in the entire world.

If anyone else said such a thing she'd snort at their hyperbole, but he probably meant to follow through with all of it.

It was terrifying and thrilling how much that fact managed to excite her.

Finally his fingers caressed between her legs and she instantly came, shaking and collapsing in his arms. A scream shuddered into a muffled wail against his palm.

He followed her a few thrusts later, slumping them both against the bookshelf for a moment before he straightened and slipped out of her.

Turning her around, he drew her up into his arms and kissed her deeply. A long, slow, sweet kiss.

Then he pulled away and looked down at her with lecherous glee.

"You're mine," he said with a roguish grin.

"And you're mine," she said, reaching up and straightening his perpetually crooked bow-tie for the hundredth time that day.

He smiled.

It was so smug it was nearly a smirk—but happier.

"Always."