A/N:
A big hug to Adel for helping me to beta this.
Love yer, darlsie.
Even though you eyerolled certain parts of it.
Review!
(Oneshot)
Draco Tells All
Library, Hogwarts,
The Age of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's Return.
"Why did you hate me anyway, Draco?" The question was uttered in hushed tones, not out of trepidation and uncertainty for the answer, but because of the fact that they were in the library.
He stifled a long-suffering sigh and leant back from the table, his Advance Arithmacy homework forgotten. He ran a hand through his hair, free-falling over his brow now that she had him coaxed away from his previously-essential bottle of gel. Fiddling with his six-foot-long Potions essay on the advantages and disadvantages of using Doxy venom as an anaesthetic, he refused to meet her eyes as he mumbled out an indistinct reply.
"What was that, Draco? I didn't quite catch it." Her voice was now plated with steel. She pulled his Potions essay away from his fidgety hand, rolled it up and paced it on the far end of their table, way out of his reach. He shoved his hair out of his eyes, shooting her his darkest glare. "What the hell did you do that for?"
She didn't even blink once. Damn. He used to be able to crack through her calm with a caustically uttered Mudblood. "I did that to stop you distracting yourself and answer my question. Well, Draco?"
"Well, what?" He muttered sulkily. She merely raised a brow in amusement and waited. He growled inside his head at her patient expression. Oh, so she thought that he would satisfy her every whim? He'd show her that no one can ever control him. He would never be so... so... weak as to do anything just to please her. He would never—He wouldn't ever—
He would. God, he was so... pussy-whipped. He heaved a deep sigh and dropped his head into his hands limiting his gaze to the table and the table only. He'd probably blurt out the truth like some bloody nitwit if he looked up even a second.
After what felt like hours ticked by, he tightened his jaw, and decided to use one of the tactics in Sun Tzu's The Art of War –which was their Muggle Studies textbook last term: Tactic VII. Manoeuvring. 'Tactical manoeuvring consists in turning the devious into the direct, and misfortune into gain.' And vice versa. No way in hell was he going to tell her the truth about that. "Don't you have to patrol the hallways, Head Girl?"
She merely cocked her head to one side and stared at him. Her gaze was piercing. He stared at the mingled piles of their textbook instead. "It's Wednesday, Draco. I only patrol on Tuesdays and Thursday nights, remember? If there's anyone patrolling tonight, it's you, Mister Prefect. Aren't you and Pansy assigned to the second floor corridors?"
"I paid Potty to patrol with her tonight," he blurted out before realising that she had gave him an opening to escape, and he, like the idiot that he was, sealed it shut without thinking. Stupid git. Oh, wait a minute, that's the Weasel's title.
She sniffed at him before saying in a deceptively mild voice, "Really, Draco, I wish you'll stop pushing Pansy onto Harry. She may be interested, but he most certainly is not."
"What? ScarH— I mean, Potter, sorry, love, old habits do die hard." He rectified at the sight of her glare. Merlin, but the woman could win McGonagall in a glaring competition any day. "Anyway, as I was saying, Potter may not know it, but he's practically humming with sexual tension—"
"Sexual tension!" The reason for his high level of sexual tension sputtered.
"—erytime time she enters his field of sight." He continued doggedly, ignoring the fact that she was starting to resemble a tomato more and more by the minute. Thank God she'd forgotten her question for the time being. Now, if he could just distract her until they go off to bed (respectively, to his everlasting disappointment)... "Besides, how else can you explain that he accepted only five galleons from me to patrol with her for three hours? Bet you ten galleons that he'll try to snog her tonight."
"Five galleons? What? I-I-I—" Finally. It had been a long time since he had reduced her to a loss of words. He leant back against his chair, savouring his victory.
"Also," he smirked, moving in for the kill, "How can you explain the hard-on that he always sport whenever she's rubbing against him?"
"Draco Malfoy. Kindly—Kindly do not discuss such things about my best friend with me!" Her voice was shrilled but hushed, out of fear that that Pince woman would hear them and throw them out of the library. "It's—disgusting!"
"Your wish is my command, darling," He intoned in as corny a voice as he could muster. Merlin's beard, how he wished he had that Creevey boy's kamera with him now; her facial expression was absolutely priceless. He reached out a hand across the table to toy with a stray curl of her hair that flew out of the Muggle contraption she had wound her gorgeous hair up with. She slapped his hand away in annoyance.
"What's the matter, love?" He sighed in exasperation. Women. Honest to Merlin, he just didn't understand them sometimes. All right, most of the time.
She simply glared at him even more fiercely. Hmm, if looks could kill...
She crossed her arms and hissed at him, "You made that up, didn't you? You're just trying to distract me so that you wouldn't get to answer my question. It's just a question. What, you can't even answer a question for your girlfriend?"
He groaned mentally and searched for ways to evade the impending tears and accusations. No such luck; he could see that her bottom lip was starting to quiver, and her eyes were oddly bright. He scrambled madly for something consoling to say, but his mouth wouldn't obey his mind, and what came out was, "All right, Hermione, I'll answer your question! Just—Please, don't cry."
Oh, sod it.
The tears and quiver were instantly gone. She leant forward; as eager as a five-year-old on Christmas day. "Well?"
Why, of all the—! He sighed and gave up. His little Muggle-born witch would always best him. She was now even better at Slytherin tactics than he was. He might as well accept it. "The thing is, Hermione, I... well... I..."
She made an impatient sound in her throat. Her bottom lip started quivering again. He said it in one single breath, " ThethingisIfanciedyouthenandIwasjealousokay?"
"What?" The quiver had vanished—again. Now she looked amused. "I didn't catch that, Draco. You were speaking with the speed of a bullet train."
"Bull—what?" She merely ignored his question and continued looking at him expectantly. He looked away towards the bookshelves behind her. She cocked her head to one side. He fiddled with his hands. She drummed the table with her fingers. He switched his gaze to the bookshelves to his left. She propped her head up with a hand. He turned away from the bookshelves and stared at his feet. She sighed loudly and started drumming her fingers again. He thought he saw a scruff mark on his shoe—
"Draco Malfoy! Are you going to repeat your reply or not?" She hissed impatiently at him. He thought of saying 'No', and saw that he must have said that out loud because her expression grew thunderous and she started muttering viciously to herself. Pushing her chair back roughly, she began packing up her things brusquely, earning them a few glares from the library Gargoyle. He grabbed her hand in desperation, afraid that he had really gotten her mad this time. "Hermione—"
"Don't touch me!" Her tone was ugly, but he could hear a tinge of hurt beneath it. He dropped her hand immediately. As she turned to go, he said in a voice just loud enough to for her to hear, "I fancied you then, all right?"
She paused in the middle of striding away, but didn't turn around. He took it as a sign for him to continue. "I-I saw you before you changed into your school robes on the train ride in first year. You were –am – the most beautiful thing I had ever and will ever see, and I was— am— smitten. Then you befriended Sca—I mean, Potter and Weasley, and I was just infuriated, so I decided to—to hurt you as much as possible because— Well, you chose them and not me."
She turned around slowly and dropped back into her chair. It was a while until she spoke again, and when she did, there was a tinge of amusement in her voice again. "Do you mean that you were jealous?"
"No!" He protested out of instinct. "I wasn't—I mean, I—No, I just—"
One look at her face and he sighed. "All right. Yes, I was. Are you happy now?"
"I knew it!" She crowed. He snorted and shot her a sardonic glance that spoke volumes. It was now her turn to fidget. "I mean, well, I didn't know the exact reason, of course, but, honest to Merlin, I knew it was something embarrassing. I did!"
He growled at her half-heartedly, relieved on the inside that her eyes had resembled pools of melted chocolate inside of the sharp amber glass they were moments ago. She strode around the table –his witch always strode; never sauntered, never slink; she was too practical for that— and dropped herself into his lap. "So someone was jealous even in our first year, then? And someone fancied me since he was eleven years old, hmm?"
He rolled his eyes at her and muttered, "If I had known that you'd be crowing like this after you knew my reason, Mudblood, believe me, I would have never told you about it. Never."
She merely linked her arms around his neck and squirmed in his lap slightly, searching for a comfortable position. "You can't scare me with that, Ferret. Or should I call you Dragon? So... you've realty been in love with me since first year? That's... so sweet."
"I am not sweet. Handsome, yes. Intelligent, yes. Sexy, yes. The boy your mother always warns you about, yes. But never sweet. And I wouldn't call it love, darling," He retorted. "It was more like lust. I had wet dreams about you for almost three years until I learnt the meaning of self-control. But I couldn't control the random hard-ons I had whenever we were insulting each other."
"Yes, you are sweet. Stop denying it. And do stop being so vulgar, would you?" She gasped and smacked his shoulder lightly. Falling silent again, she sifted her hands through his white-blond hair. His hair was one of her biggest weaknesses. "So... you were in lust with me? Even when you were calling me Mudblood and giving me beaver teeth?"
"I was being immature, okay? Do you honestly think that a twelve-year-old would face his crush head on and tell the girl who had bested him in everything that he likes her? How humiliating would that be?" His groan was filled with irritation and amusement at the same time. She leant her head against his shoulder, and he twirled one of her coffee-coloured curls around his finger. A pianist's hands, that was what she had always called his fingers. Long, strong and elegant. She pressed a kiss against his right cheek. "I used to cry over the fact that you were so nasty to me in first year. But then I got used to it."
Guilt filled his face as he leant his forehead against hers. "Merlin, I'm so sorry for all I did to you, Hermione. You know that, don't you? I wasn't thinking... I was just—stupid. Young and stupid."
She pressed another kiss onto his left cheek. "It's okay, Ferret... I know. I know. We were both silly and childish... When I think back to those days; I don't know, but I see an uncanny resemblance between us and Pride and Prejudice."
"What, you mean that Muggle book you made me read in sixth year?" Disgust flooded into his eyes when she affirmed with a nod. He tossed his head back and sneered, looking so much like his younger self that she was almost scared that he'd hex her. He didn't, of course. "Hermione! That Darcy bloke; you aren't seriously comparing me with him, are you? Merlin, he's the greatest sissy if I've ever seen one! What kind of git has to wait for his aunt to come screeching to him that his object of affections like him to take action? I'm nothing like him; I had to pursue you for nearly seven months last year, remember?"
"All right, you're more macho than him, does that satisfy you?" She placed both of her hands onto his check and grinned at him. He gave a disgruntled grunt and continued scowling. She dropped a kiss onto his compressed lips. "It's just our situation; my family embarrasses you ('Does not!'), I hated you, you loved—all right, lusted after me but pretended to hate me ('Yeah, but at least I didn't say you were ugly.'). And— you did. Yes, you did. And... We argued, you kissed me, I pushed you away, you were bitter, and there were huge piles of misunderstandings between us. If that isn't an uncanny resemblance, I don't know what it is."
There was a beat of silence, and then:
"Well. Darcy didn't kiss Elizabeth when he proposed." He rubbed his chin in contemplation. She rolled her eyes at him as she jabbed her fingers into his ribs, making him shout with involuntary laughter that was quickly muffled by her hand (whilst shooting a panicked glance towards the librarian's desk). "That was because it was in the eighteenth century, you ignorant prat! Of course he can't kiss her! It'll be improper."
He simply sighed and nuzzled her neck. "I can never win in an argument with you, can I?"
She merely smiled and informed him that they weren't in an argument, but simply, a discussion.
He pulled her closer and did what he was best at; he kissed the words out of her until she was too breathless and jelly-like to discuss with him.
Much later, much, much later, after Madam Gargoyle ('Draco, stop being so mean to Madam Pince!') had retired and gave her keys to his Head Girl to lock up the library, they still sat at their table, surrounded by their homework and textbooks, too wrapped up in each other and unwilling to move.
It was when the moon had drifted behind inky clouds, dimming their corner noticeably and leaving the jar of blue fire she had conjured as their only light source; it was then he spoke.
"You know I love you, don't you, Mudblood?"
She curved her palm around his jaw and spoke into his ear. "And I you, Ferret. Never doubt what I feel for you."
"Merlin, sometimes I wish—how I wish..." His voice grew softer and tighter, as he struggled with his emotions. The mood had turned serious, and both their thoughts turned towards the darker matters that occupied everyone's mind these days— that—that thing that had brainwashed his father.
She held him tighter, as though she could shelter them both from the evils of the outside world. He kissed the underside of her jaw "It's okay, Draco, it's okay. I feel it too."
He shuddered and snaked his arms around her waist and pulled her head into the crook of his neck. She smoothed her hand over his hair in a soothing gesture. "It hurts, Hermione. So much. If anything happens to you, if Voldemort manages to—to—"
"I know... I know. I'll be careful. So must you." Their mouths met and messages unspoken were exchanged, words were swallowed, feelings were conveyed silently through one of the most primitive forms of communication.
He pulled away and stroked a finger over her forehead, her eyebrows, down her nose and over her cheek. "I won't be able to go on. You know that, don't you? If you... If you..."
"I won't. And neither would you. Your father... You're safe from him. And Harry, Ron... They'll stand up for you too, if necessary. You're one of us now, Draco. One of us." She laced their hands together and pressed her lips gently against his knuckles; he stared at her in love, despair, fear and anguish for her safety.
"You are my everything."
This was whispered softly, so softly that she almost hadn't heard it before the night snatched it away. But heard she did, and she released their hands to slip her arms around him again.
She was his everything, but he was her life.
A/N: Like it, review it. I'm trying a slightly different writing style here. Heh. And yes, I do know the ending is sappy.