Elusive Heartbeat
Disclaimer: None of the Harry Potter characters belong to me.
Summary: A collection of dramione drabbles from pivotal moments in their relationship.
I might do another chapter, if this does well and more comes to me. Hope you like it. Read and review, can' t wait to hear what you all think.
He wasn't always predictable.
She thinks the kiss would never have happened if she hadn't wandered after him in the bothersome rain trying to get the last word in when he insulted her in front of a few third years she'd been haranguing off the school grounds.
This wasn't exactly new. He started paying a special kind of attention to her after she had clocked him in the face; attention that would waver from angry bullying to silent stalking, and she was completely fed up by all of it.
They had wandered all the way into the becoming darkness of the forest; away from the school well into the thick fringes with him muttering something unsavoury under his breath and her punctuating contempt loud enough for him to hear, but when the rain started pouring, they had to pause any further inadvertent excursion into the forest by standing under a large willow with thick welcoming branches, and their wands pointed at each other maliciously.
Just when she was thinking of a particularly painful hex she could use on him there was a fierce crack of lightning overhead, and she all but bounded into his chest with impolite certainty.
She wonders why she did it. It wasn't as though it were Harry or Ron, either of which would have chuckled good naturedly at her naive fear of lightning and held her close in their safe, friendly embrace. This was Draco Malfoy, pure blood, prejudiced, and just plain cruel.
She waited for some remark, unbidden and completely bereft of sympathy; some scathing anecdote about know-it-all, filthy mudbloods who had the audacity to clutch at the robes of a Malfoy while lightning cracked with an indecent clarity above them, but it never came.
After a few moments of precarious silence she finds herself looking into two very still pools of icy blue looking back at her with surprise and speculation, and surmises that this is because they've never happened to be this close in physical proximity with each other before, apart from when she punched him in the face over a year ago, and even then, her fist had been a lot more closer to him than her entire shivering form was right now.
Close and far too personal for both of them.
Maybe it had been the way rain clung to both of their robes and the way it had softened their faces; the slickness having rearranged their expressions into something more or less neutral and less angry. From her close vantage point she could only see the curve of his lips and the imperceptible loosening of his jaw and wondered if he'd felt the quickening of her heart as they drew frighteningly closer under the tree landing their heated mouths on each other simultaneously.
The shock wasn't really the kiss itself, but the tenderness of it at the beginning and the intense unfamiliarity of their clumsy embrace to deepen it. They collided against the willow in their pursuit to stay upright and let their hands and tongues do rest of the damage. She wasn't entirely sure of how much further they would have gone if it hadn't stopped raining and the incandescent charm of those twinkling droplets hadn't worn off enough to bring them crashing back to reality.
In fact, she was pretty sure it had been her who had struggled apart first because when they separated, there had been a faintly dazed expression on his face laced with something like fear.
'You..' she managed to whisper coherently after gaining control of her tingling lips. He didn't say anything, but there was something dark and guarded in his face and eyes, and he just stood there looking unmistakably horrified like her when she frantically reached up and made sure her robes weren't unbuttoned before groping around for her wand.
It's only when he took he took a step in her some direction, maybe hers, that she snapped back in control and quickly pointed the wand at him without fumbling for words, 'This. Never. Happened...do you understand me? None of this ever happened!'
The only acknowledgement he gave her was with a superior lift of his chin with his hands by his sides and she isn't sure anymore what to do with him because of frazzled brain cells and loose hormones when she catches a glimpse of hunger in his eyes.
Hunger for her.
She turned around and ran back like a bat of a hell, not daring to look back even once.
It's not like she always knew the answer to everything.
Thankfully it's quiet and most the hallways are empty at this time after dinner.
She stands with her back against the wall, next to the fat lady's portrait while he's got her caged, with one of his hands against the wall, towering over her imperiously, and it gradually dawns on her that she has never been intimidated by his anger because most of it was a testament to his roots and the spoiled upbringing and she saw neither of those things as worrying enough.
But now, the way his eyes flashed rapidly and shifted from dark grey to something mercurial and burgeoning, she feels an uncalculated amount worry creep over her. Even without the hateful spit up of emotions she can tell he's furious with her dismissal of him because the tight grip on her arm isn't spitefully indifferent, and the way he focuses on her face is far was too intimate to be innocuous.
As a rational theorist she understands that tonight is a culmination of a few months worth of stolen moments; the bruising kisses, deliberate touches, wayward glances, and desperate love making every now and then. So, she doesn't try to pull her arm out of his grasp because physically he's much stronger and maybe she deserves the bruising grip just a little bit.
'What's the problem Granger...tell me... what is it?'
She's been avoiding him for the last two weeks after they're night in alcove under the astronomy tower. The rendezvous hadn't been her idea. He sent her an anonymous owl demanding her presence and she had gone to give him a good telling off for treating her like she owed him her presence at the drop of a wand. She went to tell him that she was not his to command, nor his to dominate when he saw fit. She was not his, period. They had ended up being too delirious with love making to do any actual talking and before she tried to escape he whispered an urgent question to her. One, she still has no answer for.
'I think you're the one with the problem Malfoy, now let go off my arm! Or I'll scream and you're going to end up regretting this.'
No one had ventured near the portrait hole yet and chances were they would possibly not be found out for another few clandestine minutes. Only, he seemed less than concerned with the possibility of some wayward Gryffindor stumbling upon them looking like they're locked in a fierce combat for wills. Still, more shock worthy was the irony was that she was the one positively ashamed of this; She and Him, of them, together, and exposed like this.
He growled something low in his throat, something that sounded noncommittal and disinterested in what she needed from him right now. 'That's right. I do have a problem Granger. I asked you a question two weeks ago, you haven't answered me.'
He was right. She hadn't answered him; she'd thought about his question between transfiguration and potions, during her friend's quiddich practices and between sips of butter beer in the common room while he burned her with his laser like gaze and covert shoulder nudges every time they passed each other by in potions under the watchful gaze of professor Snape.
But all that thinking had amounted to nothing precise and she hadn't been able to come up with an answer satisfying enough for either of them. And now he's angry because he isn't one for uncertainty, or vagueness, and the question he poses is perfectly logical, and deserving consideration from her she knows this.
Maybe the implications of the question are too hard to categorise and write off. Maybe the answer the question isn't an answer she can retrieve; its acceptance or rejection, and any certainty either way could be dangerous for different reasons.
He pressed himself closer to her, breathing in her reluctance, her chin still petulantly stuck up, refusing to bow down, 'So Granger, tell me...what are we doing? What is this ...between us?'
'Malfoy...I'm warning you.' She says steadily, her face flushed and her temper flitting just barely within its confines for now. Before he can angle his jaw any closer to her ear a shock of red appears behind them and she gives her blonde counterpart an indistinctive shove. They turn to see Ron's freckles fiercely glowering at both of them, 'What's going on? Is this prat bothering you Hermione?'
As Ron came closer, she noticed Draco's shoulders rising slightly with barely contained rage after exchanging an intimate look with her when she ignored the ultimatum in his eyes, 'Oh? I didn't know the mudblood is your and Potter's personal pet.'
Ron's wand twitched in his hand, his face coloured a startling scarlet before her vision blurred with tears of anger and some unnamed betrayal.
Ron and Draco drew their wands and there was a blinding explosion as both boys shouted hexes simultaneously. They spent the a few nights in the hospital wing; one with a fractured arm, and another with a broken nose and signed off eyebrows.
She had a knack for looking at the positives of everything.
He sat with his knees to chest and his back against the ruined walls, sighing in that pretentious way that has always annoyed her. 'Oh for Merlin's sake!. What do you want me to say Granger?. I'm the coward in the story, I'm not stupidly heroic...I don't make, you know- brave gestures like bloody Potter!'
She slid down against the wall next to him exhausted for the moment by their intense arguing, her knees felt much stronger when they were shouting at each other, 'but you love me...' it wasn't a question; she was stating a mere boring fact that had no ground breaking reality as of late. They both knew about feelings and emotional states. And they understood how any of these applied to them without any crass admissions. It worked for them and helped to keep their relationship safely in the dark.
Now, he looked at her incredulously, his patience wearing thin with every raging breath they both took in the broom closet, 'Yes, for a lack of better word...I am fond of your existence in my life. And I don't want that to change any time soon.'
She pulled a few loose strands of hair behind her ear, consciously aware of her heart racing at the slight desperation in his voice, 'Well...at least you aren't completely inarticulate about it.'
His frantic smoothing down of his hair suddenly stilled and subtle warmth radiated from his grey eyes, as they didn't speak for the next minutes savouring their brand of affection for each other. It wasn't a euphoric moment, but there was buoyancy that didn't quite exist before this moment and she wondered if leaving the broom closer would be a turning point for them.
'You can't ask your father to buy you a way out of Azkaban...' She says this lazily; sounding older than her years, wearier, and the dark lord had yet to attack the school.
'There is nothing that can be done, by you or me...this is destiny, however twisted and disturbing it may be. We always knew the day would come and i can't say no.'
Her mind starts racing again, tired of catching up with her breath, she hates how passive and defeated he is about all of this, 'I'll go and talk to Dumbledore. You are not going to that initiation ceremony and becoming a death eater! I won't allow it!'
'Yes Granger! Fantastic idea! Why didn't I think of that one? I'll do one better, why don't I go up to the dark lord and tell him it's all a mistake, i don't want to be a death eater because I'm harbouring love for a muggle born witch? ...Come to think of it, at least we'll get to die on the spot together. True romantic aren't you?!'
When she was sure the scathing tirade was over, she just raised an eyebrow and muttered a 'lumos' with her wand to see him better in the darkness when the light from his wand extinguished, 'I'm just trying to stop you from making a huge mistake!'
He shuts his eyes tightly, impatience seeping out of his in waves and she feels sunk when he next opens his mouth without looking at her.
'And I'm only trying to keep us both alive, why should that be of any importance to your precious moral compass?'
They're quiet afterwards for the longest time and wait for the storm to pass.
He could be unexpectedly emotional sometimes.
The explosion knocks her on the floor and buries her under a giant mountain of ancient books. When she tries to move, sharp pain spears right arm and she finds herself unable to move anything, or even try to grope around for her wand.
Dust and claustrophobia knocks the air out of her and just when she thinks she's going to be killed for her love of reading, in the ancient runes section of the library, she hears his hoarse whisper, 'Granger!'
He probably sees the mountain of broken shelves and books instead and assumes the worst because she can hear him shouting for her now, and isn't entirely sure whether it may be because of how muffled everything sounded to her from under the books, or her hearing partially damaged from the explosion so close to her, but his voice sounded curiously choked and embezzled with worry.
There's movement above her, and she's realises he's frantically digging through the landslide of books and curses exasperated, 'Just use your wand idiot!'
The movement above her stills and she's fairly certain he's heard her because after a few irate curses later she feels a gradual change in the weight on her and her painfully throbbing arm. The heavy collection of ancient runes slides off of her body in quick successive layers and she's gasps for breath, cradling her bad arm to her chest, unable to form enough breath to speak immediately.
'You're alive!...' He rasps, slightly wide eyed and shaken through the cloud of dust that surrounds them because of the explosion and due to the disturbance of the debris around them.
'Yes Malfoy, well done. Good observation. I'm more or less...alive.'
He doesn't respond to the sarcasm and they both sit silently, sucking in air, until she managed to catch the slight sheen in his eyes as he quickly looks away from her slightly affronted in the mêlée of destruction. 'Are...you...crying?' She manages to ask without dropping her jaw, and he only pauses for a few seconds before answering indignantly, 'No!...it's all the bloody dust.'
She's not sure whether he's more indignant at the insinuation that he felt strongly enough about her wellbeing or she is because another spasm of pain later she's snaps at him to help her up.
When she leans into him slightly her hearing returns with painful, clarity and she can hear rushed noises of students and teachers, duelling aurors and death eaters nearby, Draco looked paler than usual with some of his pristine white blonde hair matted to his forehead with dust and blood. And then she thought of her friends and her knees felt weak again, 'What about R-..'
Before she can finish he shushes her, dragging them both behind a concealing bookcase as a curse went flying overhead, 'Your precious Weasel and Potter are fine, they're looking for some far as fuck diadem, gave me this...'
He revealed a basilisk fang from his pocket and tightened his grip on her when they heard some poor soul succumb to a deadly curse.
'We need to get to Snake...' She mouthed softly as he shuddered leaning against the bookcase, 'Can't we just bloody leave it to those idiotic friends of yours?'
He could be brave when she wasn't.
The shock melts over their heated argument when he takes advantage of her breathlessness and shouts, 'Will you just marry me Granger?!', effectively cutting her off in mid rant, while she was colourfully insulting his lineage and his family's bigoted ways for the hundredth time.
Suddenly there's a deafening silence as they fight to get their heart rates under control and he studies hers almost despairingly, his eyes heated and flashing, as though he was expecting her implicit refusal on the matter. Their eyes meet across the empty expansive halls of the Ministry of Magic and she crosses her arms over her chest both breathless and defensive, delivering her answer with a potent glare at the frowning blonde, 'Alright then!'
Her answer seemed to have dislodged some of tension in the air because neither one of them had their fists clenched anymore. They stood around in another five minutes of absolute silence, until he finally decides to commit to bravery and walk over to her.
Maintaining a stoic expression, he presented her with the ring he had tightly clasped in his fist the entirety of 45 minutes they were yelling at each other.
She takes it from him without a word, inspecting the delicate ring like it were a magical object she were considering cataloguing, and he just watches her inspection with the quite distaste of a man unaccustomed to being tested or rejected, 'You know what? It's actually...not as pretentious as you are.' Her voice is strained with emotion, the good kind, and he releases a quite sigh of relief she didn't realize he'd been holding, 'you're welcome...I think.'
When he sidles closer, she wordlessly hands him the ring and offers him her hand, watching with gentle trepidation as he slides the ring on her finger.
'So...winter wedding?' he inquires, his hands lingering over hers disbelieving.
'Summer...' she advocates with a pleased smile, clasping his hand confidingly because she doesn't want some ghastly indoors wedding event orchestrated by the Malfoy family, full of uptight high born arseholes she has no patience for.
He shrugs indiscriminately before warning, 'Mother won't be happy about that.'