A/N:Hello and welcome to A Promise In The Dark :) I haven't written anything for a while so apologies if I'm a bit rusty! I'd love to know your thoughts so please review - especially as I have quite a few of the chapters written up already and am eager to post them! I know where I'm going with this story and there is an over-arching plan, so hopefully there won't be any long waits between uploads!
Summary:"How long do you think we can keep this up?" she asked as she traced lazy patterns across his chest. "It's called fatal attraction for a reason, Granger." The imminent war seems to have brought two unlikely people together, but how long will it last with things getting more and more complicated by the second? Dramione :) Not compatible with HBP or DH. Please R&R!
Quick Note:I have chosen to not talk a lot about the intricacies of Harry's battle with Voldermort in this story. The war is hugely important and the roles the characters play are crucial to the plot. However, I'm sort of disregarding the last two books and dipping in and out of certain details to make everything slot together - this will make more sense as the chapters unfold :)
Disclaimer:I own nothing but the plot!
"What are you doing?"
She winced at how weak her voice sounded in the candlelight. Great. Now was not the time for desperate words and meaningful gestures. Not that that was her intention, but she couldn't deny how it sounded – how it would look to him. She felt his arm tense under her touch and immediately cursed herself. The atmosphere was always fragile after they finished, and she had only made things more delicate. He exhaled. She held her breath.
"Getting dressed. Dinner's in five minutes."
His words were clipped; stern and void of emotion. Not unlike him, but so far removed from his passionate, incoherent murmurs she could still hear echoes of. It was always in moments like this that she found herself wondering where his gentleness evaporated to. Not that gentle was a particularly fitting term for him, but compared to the iciness radiating off of him now, it felt appropriate. A heartbeat ago he was all sensual caresses and whispered pleas. Now she knew she'd be lucky to get a warm smile out of him for the rest of the evening.
"We only just finished."
Her statement was unnecessary, and yet she felt silence would have been even worse. Her voice sounded so small, and she wasn't surprised that she could practically feel the irritation rolling off him in waves. She unconsciously balled her hands into tight fists as the air thickened with tension. It was going to be one of those evenings.
"We are not going over this again, Granger."
His order was punctuated by the stealth at which he detached himself from her and shoved his boxers on, taking a moment only to locate the rest of his attire. Hermione wrenched her eyes away from his body and forced herself to follow suit. She knew that he wasn't being unreasonable; if she was perfectly honest, she knew that it was her who was making the whole thing more complicated than it needed to be. She had set the tone of this entire arrangement three weeks ago, and it wasn't fair of her to try and alter them for no logical reason. She didn't want him to cuddle up with her after sex; she didn't want him to hold her hand or whisper sweet nothings in her ear. She certainly didn't want to fall asleep in his arms, with his shallow breathing and heartbeat soothing her into slumber. He was not someone she could become attached to; it would defeat the whole point. But she couldn't deny that sharing a maximum of ten blissful seconds of peace before he scrambled to cover up their actions was beginning to take its toll on her. It was a messing with her head to go from something so intimate to something so detached in the space of a vulnerable few moments.
"Here."
She looked up as he handed her her bra, and she tried to ignore the way his eyes swept over her exposed skin hungrily. She tactfully turned away from him to grab her shirt and pull up her skirt, feeling his gaze burn through her skin.
"When will I see you next?" she asked nonchalantly, knowing what the answer would be before he even opened his mouth.
"Don't know. I'll contact you."
The familiarity of his words was an odd comfort. In some ways it made things exciting – having to anticipate when the next time she'd feel his touch would be. But the main reason she appreciated the situation's uncertainty was the lack of commitment it connoted. They were on the brink of war – their attentions were pulled in different demanding directions. This thing between them demanded nothing from them when they were going about their everyday lives. It was a welcome relief, and something she didn't take for granted.
By the time she'd dressed and turned around he was already at the door. She took her time walking over to him, eyes lingering on his blank expression. When they'd first started their intimate encounters she'd often wondered what went on inside his head; so many daydreams spent trying to decipher the inner workings of Draco Malfoy's mind. But the longer this continued, the more she found herself adamantly feeling the opposite. She could think of nothing worse than finding out what he really thought of her – what he really felt towards her. She didn't think anything had changed all that dramatically; the sneers and looks of utter disgust continued in public, and she wasn't stupid enough to think he saw her any differently. She had made her peace with that, and it made things a tad easier.
But she couldn't ignore the fact that she saw him on a far more human level, and it unnerved her to no end. He was under an immense amount of strain and pressure – just like herself – and there was no way to escape from it. The war and the responsibilities it was forcing them to carry weighed heavily upon them; it plagued their dreams and their reality and there was no way out. They never talked about it – they didn't need to and they didn't want to. She didn't even know what side he was truly on, and she was hoping it would never get to a point where it mattered – although there was an underlying truth here she was nowhere near ready to acknowledge. But they both needed release; a temporary euphoric bliss that took them miles away from every horrible, awful thing in their lives. The fact that they found it in each other was so ridiculously ludicrous that it actually made things work like a charm. Practical absurdity was what she chose to call it. She had no idea what name he'd give it if she asked.
"I'll go out first. Wait five minutes and walk the long way round."
Now it was his turn to make the unnecessary statement, and she rolled her eyes. It amused her that he felt the need to clarify their exit paths every time, but a glance at his stern expression told her that he needed to say it more than she needed to hear it. In a lot of ways it was another element of normality that he was desperate to cling to. She offered him a wan smile as he gently tugged on a stray curl of her hair – a rare display of something, on his part – before opening the door and silently slipping out into the hallway.
Hermione took a moment to survey the room. The Room of Requirement had proven to be a useful location at their disposal, and she had lost count of the amount of times she had arranged to meet him here. As she glanced back at the bed, she felt a sense of calm wash over her. Her entire day had been spent getting a head start on two extensive assignments, before being interrupted by a distraught Harry whose dreams about Voldermort were becoming more and more sinister. The all-consuming fear for her best friend's life, as well as the constant threat of the unknown, was all she could ever think about, and a quick fumble with Draco Malfoy had taken the edge off perfectly. It hadn't fixed or solved anything had been fixed; everything was still very much a complicated, dangerous mess. But she felt as though her mind had been cleared enough to begin to think rationally.
She took a deep breath and noticed how the room smelt distinctly of them. She tried to hold onto it for as long as she could, knowing that it could be days before she was alone with him again. She didn't know when exactly she'd become so dependent on her sworn enemy, and she didn't know how long it would last for. All she could say was that she knew she'd be craving his touch in a matter of hours, and a small part of her knew he'd be just as eager for her.
It was unhealthy. It was dangerous. It was stupid. It could get them both killed.
But as she stepped out of the door and sauntered down the corridor, she knew she wasn't about to give it up for anything.
~.:.~
He could smell her.
Draco was sat at the Slytherin table, half-heartedly picking at his potatoes and glaring down at his plate in an attempt to drown out the nonsensical drabble of Crabbe and Goyle. He could see Pansy's hand inching towards his thigh and he subtly shifted away from her, not having the energy to engage in any sort of contact with another human being – let alone her. His encounter with Granger had ended on a note that had done nothing but piss him off, and any form of calm he'd managed to obtain had quickly disappeared. He had enough to occupy his mind already without the bushy-haired brunette dancing around his mind all the time, and it was beginning to require more and more effort to force her out. It certainly didn't help that he could still smell her on him; it was like she had seeped under his skin and he couldn't get rid of her no matter how hard he scrubbed. If he closed his eyes he knew he'd be able to feel her light touches and the silkiness of her skin.
He stabbed at his food and willed his mind to banish those thoughts before he'd need to shift again to disguise a different sort of problem. He didn't know what to make of her – of them – and it was bothering him to no end. The whole thing was a messy entanglement that he couldn't remember entering into, and certainly couldn't imagine eradicating. He still despised her to no end – her sexual prowess only serving to fuel his hatred towards her, because her appeal made her all the more irritating. She was born inferior to him; he knew that, which he supposed meant he still believed it. But that hadn't stopped him ogling her in Diagon Alley that summer when he'd seen her leafing through a book in Flourish And Blotts. It's not like she'd changed that much from sixth year; as far as he could see at the time the only difference was that she had finally grown into her body – her curves peeking out underneath her jeans and jumper, giving her a slender outline that he couldn't stop looking at. Turns out she hadn't needed much to make herself noticeable. Her hair was less of a mane of frizz and more of an arrangement of soft, albeit unruly, curls, and her face had become more defined – a likely natural reaction to a lack of sleep, regular meals and adulthood.
It was a fleeting moment, one he never thought he'd remember, and yet it seemed to have changed everything for him. Because for the following couple of months that image of her crept into his thoughts often. He chalked it up to fatigue on his part; he was around the same type of girl all the time – high society pureblooded women with high cheek bones and time to kill. He figured he was just intrigued by something different; nothing to worry about.
He looked up as the sound of her laughter reached his ears. She was beaming at Weasley and Potter with such unguarded happiness he couldn't help but scowl. He was so annoyed at yet another reminder of the absurdity of the situation: it should have been enough for him to draw a line in the sand, force her to go back to her normality and enable him to embrace his. Her place was in the middle of those two idiots, not in his bed. And whilst he wasn't exactly sure where his place was, he sure as hell wasn't likely to figure it out with her wrapped around him.
It was only when he snuck a second glance at her that he realised how impossible drawing a line under all of this actually was. Because behind the laughter there was a hardness etched onto her face; the niggling feeling that it was such a temporary bittersweet moment of silliness that would mean nothing to them that night when the nightmares unfolded. She was just as plagued as he was, and knowing that made walking away from it all the more difficult.
Pansy's hand found the upper part of his thigh and he rolled his eyes. For a girl fully aware of the Dark Lord and his impending plans for their futures, she was unnervingly unaffected. He used to envy this about her, and it was the main reason why he'd maintained a physical relationship with her on and off for so long. She looked at the entire situation so two-dimensionally. The future, which filled him with so much confliction, fear and dread, was something so easy to embrace for her he often found himself trying to adopt the same attitude. This came to an abrupt halt, however, when Granger had forced her way into his life. Suddenly, the façade was gone and he couldn't slip back into it no matter how hard he tried.
He saw her again on The Hogwarts Express, patrolling the compartments with Weasley by her side. He was drawn to the fact that she looked exactly as he felt; exhausted, strained – tired of life. He met her eyes and scowled, infuriated by her presence with no real reason as to why. He noted the way her eyes flickered to life for a fleeting second, the anger and indignation clawing inside her to make an appearance. He couldn't help the feeling of pride that bubbled up inside of him; he still enraged her, just as she still enraged him. He hadn't felt that kind of familiarity in so long – it was soothing in an uncomfortable way. After feeling trapped in a robotic rhythm for so long, he couldn't help but want to grasp onto that feeling with every fibre of his being.
It was this primal urge that convinced him that maybe, just maybe, that feeling of familiarity was the key to his own self-preservation. He needed to feel more like himself. And she seemed to be the only thing that could offer him that. It was this urge that spat at him throughout the feast that evening, teasing him with thoughts of peace and momentary salvation. It ripped through him until he found himself infiltrating her route back to Gryffindor tower after she'd finished patrolling with a Ravenclaw prefect, and pulling her into an abandoned classroom. She put up a fair fight – cruel words spilling from her lips and washing over him, fuelling his own scathing retorts until they were both out of breath and exhausted.
He remembered the way that she'd softened her glare and taken the time to really look at him, the intensity of her stare making him feel more unguarded than he had in a long time. He didn't like the way she seemed to be scrutinising him, trying to figure out the meaning behind this alien encounter. He could see the realisation hit her – she wasn't deemed the brightest witch of her age for nothing – and he knew that how she reacted would change their dynamic forever. Because he'd unwillingly revealed a small part of himself – the only part he knew she'd be able to relate to. He hadn't done it for her benefit; it was purely selfish on his part, but also a necessity he couldn't afford to go without.
She'd been the one to cross the distance between them. She'd kept her eyes locked on his, and the closer she got, the more blatant her desire became. He'd been instantly aroused at the look of sheer want in her eyes. She stopped inches away from him, not allowing herself to take that final step – needing him to confirm she wasn't crazy or alone in this.
He'd obliged her and lowered his head to kiss her first. It was firm, free of pretence and romance. It wasn't long before he'd taken her face in his hands and their tongues were battling for dominance. Her fingers wove through his hair and she'd moaned the second his hands had swept over her body, pulling her closer so that she could feel exactly how much he wanted this. He was the one who sat her down on top of a desk and tore her knickers off in a fluid motion, his lips never leaving her skin. But she'd been the one to demand more. She gripped him to her and met him thrust for thrust until she was just as spent as he.
She'd been the one to pull away from him first, a faint blush adorning her skin as she hastened to fix her appearance. That set the tone for the way their encounters ended, and he had been grateful that she didn't expect anything from him. It was embarrassing for them both – although he couldn't fathom the reasoning for this on her behalf – and dressing it up as something it clearly wasn't would not bring them anything but trouble.
She was the one who sought him out again.
"Meet me in the dungeons right after curfew."
Pansy's voice was barely above a whisper and Draco found himself ripped from his thoughts. He barely spared her a glance as he got up and strode out of the hall, needing to be away from the world. He could feel Granger's eyes follow him for a split second, and whilst he was inherently smug at the knowledge that he was on her mind, the practical half of him knew this wasn't good. The longer this went on, the more impossible it was going to become, and it would get harder to contain.
The truth was though, he could see no end in sight. And at that point in time, he wasn't sure that he wanted there to be one.