It was oddly satisfying to her, watching Draco almost inhale a bowl of porridge from across the Great Hall. Hermione watched as bits of oatmeal scattered his chin, the sides of his mouth, and the table right below the two. He was laughing at something a fellow Slytherin had said, and although she found open mouths full of food quite disgusting, his was what Lavender would call "cute."

She had been staring for much too long and Harry, who was sitting directly in front of her, had caught her gaze.

"Honestly, Hermione, what's so enticing over there that you can't even keep a straight conversation going?" he questioned, turning to look in the direction of her eyes. He of course saw right past Draco Malfoy; he wouldn't think for a second that she, Hermione Granger, would be looking at him.

Hermione's daze disintegrated, "Nothing, I just — I have a lot of homework I've got to catch up on. It's clouding my thoughts slightly."

Harry nodded in understanding, turned back to Ron and continue what seemed to be their previous conversation.

"Practice has me almost too weak to chew," he said to Ron, who was holding a piece of french toast inches away from his lips. "I've got back aches, as if I'm the same age as Dumbledore. Wood's over-working us. This is child labour!"

Hermione scoffed. "Don't talk to me about child labour, or any labour at all in fact, when your food's been prepared by house-elves."

Ron rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh, "They want to be slaves, for Merlin's sake!"

"No one wants to be a slave, Ron. You're just too ignorant to think anything of it since you're so used to it," Hermione explained. "You guys should honestly look into muggle history. You'll see we've had lots of experiences where what we were used to wasn't necessarily right."

"Muggles do have a hard time making good decisions," a voice said from behind her. "It's due to their brain size, I've heard."

Hermione noticed the unpleasant glance on Harry's face was a familiar one, one he only obtained when a certain Draco Malfoy was in his presents. And by the sound of the voice, the words and the demeanour, she knew before even turning around to look that it certainly was him.

"Draco," she said turning to face him. "Why don't you bugger off before I use one of the old muggle punishments on you."

"Ever heard of village stocks, Malfoy?" Harry snapped.

"Of course, mudblood's got to get her saviour involved," Draco snarled, Hermione could have sworn she caught a wink. "Looks good on you, though, Potter. Couldn't save your parents, so I'm sure you'd be glad to save the only other mudblood that actually likes you."

"Fuck off, Malfoy," Ron shouted.

Hermione winced. She felt like a child, being so sensitive to Ron's vulgarness. But she was raised to believe that if you couldn't argue without filthy swear words or violence, it was better not to argue at all.

"Tsk, tsk, Weasel. You'd might want to wash that mouth of yours. That is, if you can afford running water."

Harry jumped up from his seat. Ron's face, though pink as it might be, was inches away from Draco's. Hermione, still seated, was cold-sweating all over her body.

"Say another thing about money, Malfoy," Ron growled. "I'm daring you."

Draco looked down at Hermione, then at Harry, and then met back into Ron's eyes.

"I see I've done enough," he chuckled and walked away, Crabbe and Goyle following suit.

Harry stared blankly at Ron, whose forehead was trickled with beads of sweat; his cheeks were rouge and his knuckles were bone white. Hermione knew not to say anything just yet, so they sat in silence. Only when the rest of the Gryffindor table started to stand up and leave for class did she attempt to speak.

"I'll see you two later," she smiled. Neither Harry or Ron verbally replied, but Harry turned and gave a sympathetic smile.

Men can be so confusing, Hermione thought to herself on her way to Potions. She couldn't seem to understand why they needed to be so silent after an argument. Was it to cool off? Or was it to think about what had just happened more in-depth?

Hermione struggled to carry the textbooks, parchment and quill evenly in her arms as she walked through the halls, pushing through crowds of bustling students. Every so often, she'd be quickly nudged to the side, almost spilling her ink all over herself. She'd just as quickly regain composure — she was Hermione Granger, naturally, she always bounced back.

Somethings she couldn't bounce back from, though, were the words that spat from Draco's mouth. The word mudblood, she'd learnt in first year, was a derogatory insult for those of her kind. Those who had not a drop of wizard blood in them. To people like Draco, they were considered dirty, filthy, lower class, and she had not a say in how he felt at all. It wasn't an uncommon belief, either. That's not to say it was the majority, no. Many wizards and witches fell in love with muggles, thus creating the half-blood race. including people such as Harry Potter, whose mother was a muggle. But it was not uncommon, and arguing against the mistreatment of muggles and muggle-born witches and wizards would have a very unsatisfying result, if any result at all.

She'd spend the rest of class trying to understand why he believed all of those nasty things, watching him from across the classroom. She knew it was due to his heritage, and his parents instilling this belief, and many other negative ones, on him.

His family was part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, after all — 28 families which have strictly "pureblood" as of the 1930s — could she really see him thinking any different? Still, she weighed upon what he had said, and juggled back and forth between the reality of his hatred for her, and the fantasy she'd created: a world where Draco Malfoy would willingly shag her rotten.

Draco had caught her staring once or twice throughout her day-dream, smirking at her and returning his attention back to Professor Snape, who was irritably explaining the difference between a pinch and a sprinkle.

Hermione shivered. The cold basement air nipped at her bare body, causing her nipples to harden into small, rosy lumps. She'd matured, now bosomy and curvaceous, much unlike her former fifth year self. Goosebumps arose all over her cinnamon-coloured skin, and the hairs on her arms stood up tall. She let out a breath, which turned into a white vapour in front of her eyes, then evaporated.

She could hear noises from above the ceiling — thin enough for her to hear movements and mumbling, but thick enough for her to not be able to make out what's being said. If she concentrated hard enough, though, she could guess almost exactly where they were standing. Directly on top of her, she reckoned, a man was standing. A few feet across from him, a women or two. She could hear different octaves, but wasn't sure whether it was a women raising her voice, or a different voice entirely. The more people she made out, the more fearful she became.

Her body was pressed and chained against a stone wall, her feet barely levitating above the ground. The Malfoy Manor was equipped with things like this; trapping devices, dungeon cells. She was an unlucky candidate for these punishments.

There were no longer noises above her, Hermione noticed. She strained her ears trying to find any hint of movement, but there were none.

After moments, what seemed to her like hours, Hermione heard footsteps on the wooden basement steps. She peered into the direction of the noise, although she couldn't see through the darkness. She waited for the owner of these footsteps to step into the light emitting from a barred window, but there was none.

She felt a breath tickle the side of her cheek. A warm, blow against her soft skin. It smelled of spearmint toothpaste, which teased her nose. She hadn't smelled anything but mould and dampened concrete in almost two hours.

"Hermione Granger," the faceless voice cooed into her ear.

"Come into the light," she whimpered fearfully. She hated being made a fool of. She had already been embarrassed enough, strapped naked up against a wall. Not knowing who was staring directly at her made it all the more tantalizing.

She heard a laugh, a scuff of shoes on the ground, and soon a face was directly in her view.

Porcelain skin gleamed in front of her. It was not the skin she remembered so surely from fifth year. It was skin that had been bulked up. He'd always been athletic, she knew that, but the brawny man in front of her was almost unrecognizable. Almost, but not quite, because of the soft, yet messy blonde hair that swept over his grey eyes. These were uniquely his.

"Draco, you've got to tell these people to let me go," she pleaded. She had almost begun to cry, when she felt a soft hand touch the side of her face.

"They're not going to kill you, Granger."

"Then why am I here?"

"I put you here," he smiled.

"Okay," she muttered. "For what reason exactly?"

"Unlike me, it seems like you're unable to fight Legilimency. I take it Occlumency wasn't your forte, huh, Granger?"

Flashes of dirty fantasies danced in her mind. "Wh—what did you see?" she stammered.

"Why would I tell you," he taunted. "when I can show you?"

She stood still for a moment, repeating his words in her head. Had he seen what she believed he saw? Were they thinking of the same things?

His teeth brushed against in jawline, affirming her thought.

He licked and kissed his way from her collarbones to below her earlobe, which he nipped lightly. She whimpered through pursed lips. Taking this as a sign of consent, which Hermione had intended it as so, he frantically sucked on her neck and shoulder blades, leaving reddish-purple marks in a trail.

"Draco, please —"

"Shh, love. Let me tease you."

He followed the end of the trail down the middle of her, between her breasts, where he made a stop to suck on each of her nipples gently, down her stomach, and he landed directly above her vagina, then looked up at Hermione, her chocolate eyes peering back at him. She nodded and pleaded, pushing her hips forward as best she could.

His tongue stroked her clit. One small, quick lap, but it was enough to have her cry out. He grinned and took her clit between his lips and sucked.

Her moans echoed the basement walls, which only provoked Draco further. He stopped flicking his tongue in between her swollen lips and took his finger, sucked it quickly, and inserted it in her. She threw her head back against the wall in response. Draco watched as his finger disappeared, only to return soaked with her juices. She could feel his finger rubbing against her g-spot, sometimes lightly, as if by accident, sometimes she knew it had been on purpose. He watched her squeeze her eyes shut, her eyebrows furrowing together and her mouth slightly agape. He knew that she would soon soak his fingers in cum.

She could feel her stomach pulsating, a feeling quite familiar due to long nights in dormitories solely surrounded by women. A knot, begging to be undone, was forming in her abdomen. She was nearing closer to her orgasm. The mix between Draco's warm fingers wiggling and curling against her g-spot, and his soft tongue doing circles on her clit, lapping between her labia.

Suddenly, as if she had lost all ability to hear or see, her mind became cloudy. She felt static throughout her body. Shockwaves of pleasure rippled down, causing her to shake inside the cuffs on her wrists and legs. She cried out loudly, to Draco's content. He let her ride out her orgasm against his tongue, while he licked her clean, drinking down her orgasm.

Yet Hermione bizarre something unfamiliar about this orgasm, this experience as a whole, rather. While usually her cloudiness would have gone away, it remained still, even after her body regained composure. The cloudiness seemed to thicken, as a matter of fact, as if she was being transported through a stormy, grey cloud.

Suddenly, her eyes seemed to clear, and she was standing face to face with Draco Malfoy, his body returning to the one she was resentful of just hours before. They were in an empty potions classroom, one that was normally occupied by Professor Snape. Instead, Draco stood with a wand pointed at her face.

He had been reading her mind, controlling her thoughts. The basement, the sex, the orgasm; none of it had been real.

"Wow, Granger," he chuckled slyly. "Didn't know you had that locked away in that bushy hair of yours."