Disclaimer: Property of J.K. Rowling.
Fruits of Gossip
Hermione Granger directed her gaze towards the chalkboard at the front of the classroom, her back ramrod straight, and willed her eyes to remain there for the rest of the period. Snape had just begun today's lesson, and she tried in vain to focus on the patronizing silk of his voice. It was ridiculous, really, just how much effort she had to put into not looking at that dimwitted prat.
So what if that wanker had matured into a walking Adonis? That didn't change the fact that one could clean his mouth out with some industrial-strength detergent, and it would still spew some of the foulest vulgarities ever known to man. She vaguely realized she was being a tad harsh, but her temper was quietly flaring, a conflagration ready to spontaneously consume a forest at the drop of a pin (she wished it would just go ahead and consume Malfoy).
Lips pursed in a no-nonsense manner, she continued her futile attempts to take notes. Never again would she opt to partake in Lavender and Parvati's girly gossip time. The last time she had joined their lewd conversations, they had discussed one suave flirt – that sable-haired, bright-eyed Blaise Zabini that Ginny was constantly pining after. They had gone on and on about how indescribably sexy his hands were. Parvati had sighed dreamily as she recalled long, maple fingers, beautiful and masculine in a way only a girl could appreciate.
When the topic of what that enticingly handsome boy could do with those fingers was broached, Hermione had excused herself with a slight blush and wandered off to the library. She was one of a select few who knew that Blaise Zabini, playboy extraordinaire, had a habit of using his striking pianist hands to bend the old, dusty spines of ancient tomes after dinner. That she was headed towards her sanctuary to subtly observe was a definite bonus; she knew the layout of the library like the she knew how to read.
And, admittedly, Lavender and Parvati had been right. That boy did have quite the set of hands; she didn't blame Ginny one bit for having it bad.
This time, however, she drew the line. The focus of their dialogue was just off limits to her; hell, she could very well say he was the bane of her existence and not feel guilty in the least. She had nearly died choking on the slice of shepherd's pie pilfered for her after-dinner snack when Lavender had spoken his name.
In addition, they were admiring his collarbones. His collarbones, for Merlin's sake! It couldn't have been something normal; his hair, his eyes, his bloody ears even! It just had to be some obscure part of his physique, like his Achilles heel or something random like that. She almost huffed aloud in a mixture of disgust and frustration as she continued to copy Snape's chicken-scratch handwriting, remembering just in time that she was still in the middle of Potions.
Hermione didn't want to think about Draco Malfoy's anything, least of all his damned collarbones.
She just couldn't help herself. His collarbones were capricious enough to be intriguing, unlike his Achilles heel. That they were always hidden beneath his school robes and his school uniform represented a test, and the Gryffindor (and the woman) in her wanted desperately to rise to the challenge of unearthing these supposedly sexy collarbones.
And there it was – the reason her eyes hadn't moved from Snape's boring Potions notes on gillyweed and its many uses, even though she could already recite at least ten from the top of her head. Malfoy had caught her staring at him from nearly across the classroom. She had been covertly trying to see if she could catch a glimpse of his collarbones through a lucky shift of fabric, and he'd seen her!
Hermione willed her blush to disperse as she wrote even faster, making it a point not to look back over at him for the rest of the period. Perhaps he hadn't noticed; perhaps he would shrug, let it go, and walk away.
Perhaps Ernie Macmillan didn't like boys.
Hermione Granger wasn't called the cleverest witch of her age for nothing. She knew it was hopeless the second Snape dismissed them and swept out of the room. In her half-frantic movements to get everything off her desk and into her book bag, she had managed to knock her open pot of ink onto the floor.
Her heart sank as she grabbed everything and shoved it into her already bulging satchel, momentarily watching as the ink coursed through the crevices of the stone floor. The dark blue liquid was soaking into niche in the aged rock, and she wanted to die. In addition, the room had nearly emptied by the time she had her wand out to clean up the mess, and now she was practically alone with the last person she would've chosen to see.
"Big mess you made there, Granger." He was hovering a few feet away, hip leaned casually against a desk. She tried not to notice the rakish set of his jaw or the jaunty curve of his mouth, choosing instead to glare at the spilt ink. Now is not the time, she chided herself in annoyance. Remember, walking Adonis, talking arsehole. He smirked at her mockingly, but his eyes were dancing, glinting like steel as they caught the light in the classroom.
"Can I help you?" Hermione centered her attention on scourgifying the ground a handful of times to make sure the ink was no longer visible. She didn't need Snape giving her detention the next day because he somehow found out that the unsightly stain on his floor was her doing. Plus, her timetable for tomorrow was filled to the brim, meaning she would probably miss dinner if given detention. She stared miserably at her failed attempt to take care of her mess, wracking her brain for any more cleaning spells that would fix it.
"Perhaps you'll answer a question for me." The blonde was tapping a pale finger to his clean-shaven chin when she leveled him with a shrewd look. The only thing she wanted to do at the moment was snatch up her things and run, but the Gryffindor in her told her she couldn't back down (and the woman in her told her she had to see this out).
"What'll you do for me?"
He looked genuinely surprised for a brief moment, but soon enough it was her turn. He straight out laughed at her, a light, disarming snort and chortle that she found strangely charming. Nothing about Draco Malfoy is charming, she scolded herself. She had to silently repeat that thought when he opened his arms in an accommodating gesture, looking every bit the Adonis as his head bowed slightly in a sarcastic tilt and his hair fell into his eyes.
"You may ask anything of me."
Her brow furrowed as she took a moment to consider his offer. Malfoy was being surprisingly civil towards her for the time being, and she figured she should take advantage of his good mood while it lasted. Slipping her wand back into the pocket of her robes, she reiterated, "Anything?"
"That is what I said."
Well, if that was the case. "Ask away, then."
He was regarding her with that amused spark in his eye again, and she lifted her chin defiantly in reply. "Tell me then, Granger," he drawled, moving from the desk he'd been leaning on to plop into another that was closer to her, "did you enjoy ogling me during class today?"
Hermione felt her blush all the way to her curly roots, and she sputtered in indignation. "I certainly did not!" The nerve of him! She'd all but forgotten about it with her dribbling inkpot and his spontaneous bout of civility.
"But you were ogling me, yes?" She wished she hadn't put away her wand earlier; right now, she wanted nothing more than to hex Draco bloody Malfoy and his pretty bloody face into the next millennium. She didn't have the option of reaching for it again, however. He was languidly twirling his own in between his fingers, as if daring her to just try. And he was laughing at her again.
Clearing her throat, she primly smoothed the front of her school robes as she picked off an imaginary piece of lint. What she wouldn't give for one of those Muggle Twix bars right now. "I believe you've used up your question, Malfoy. It's my turn."
He only arched a pale, winged eyebrow at her, his wand still spinning like a slow motion baton in his hand. Malfoy looked so cocky, settled in the chair with his other hand supporting the back of his head, elbow bent. Long legs stretched out from beneath the desk, ankles crossed, and she had to quash the urge to give him a good, solid kick to the shin.
"I want to see your collarbones," she told him, mustering all the sincerity she possibly could as she beamed at his confused expression. He was squinting at her like she'd gone mad, and she was trying with all her might to show him that she was totally serious about her request. After all, he'd said she could ask anything of him. He hadn't stipulated that she'd had to ask him an actual question in return.
Finally, after seemingly coming to the conclusion that she wasn't playing at a joke, he shook his head. "Leave it to you to ask something so absurdly bizarre." Regardless, he opened his robes and nimbly loosened his green- and silver-striped necktie, dropping it into the chair of the desk behind him. Off came his gray sweater vest, and she watched in rising anticipation as his fingers rose to undo the first few buttons of his white, long-sleeved Oxford.
Hermione wanted to slap him when he paused to shoot her a sultry look from beneath his white-blond fringe. He seemed to notice her impatience, and the time he took to unfasten those top three buttons was nothing if not torturous. The image her mind had conjured of his collarbones had haunted her since she'd heard about them a week and a half ago, and she was getting more anxious by the second.
Malfoy had only managed to disengage the very top button of his shirt, and she had to suppress the urge to kick him in the shin again while ripping her hair out in the process. She supposed he wouldn't appreciate a blossoming bruise, and she didn't quite want a bald spot anywhere on her head; not that her hair would have any problem covering it up.
"Antsy, Granger?"
And that was it. Hermione Granger had finally had enough of this slow, agonizing tease, and she made sure Malfoy knew it as she stomped her way over to stand directly in front of him in his half-reclined position in his desk.
"Move aside, you're too slow," she declared briskly, batting his hands away from his collar. He looked up at her with that same mocking smirk she'd become so accustomed to over the years, although there was a lot less mocking and a lot more smirking being done at the moment; as if he knew she would take it upon herself to free his collarbones from the confines of his clothes if he'd bided his time.
Within seconds, she'd done away with the last of those two blasted buttons, and she huffed in indignation. Fair was fair; he had asked her a question, and she had asked something in return. Her fingers fluttered over his pale skin in a flash of hesitation before she pulled at his collar, trying to expose the believed beauty of his collarbones. She really just had to know if it was true or not – the 'why' of it be damned – and she just could not see! The collar of his shirt was still blocking her view no matter how insistently she tugged, and she could feel herself becoming frustrated again.
"Three buttons not enough for you, love? How's four?" She gave him a sharp look as he undid the fourth button. "Or five?" Another came loose. His shirt was beginning to open up, and she could see the rise and fall of his lean chest with each breath that he took. She scrutinized his collarbones critically, trying to see what was so eye-catching about them that Lavender and Parvati were up until the wee hours of the morning discussing them. They weren't anything spectacular, she surmised; not awful to look at, but not much to inspect either.
She could also see the two long scars that ran parallel to each other, diagonally across his chest just beneath those esteemed collarbones, however. Her fingers traced the path of the longest one, down the hard slope of his chest until it ended halfway down the flat, muscular planes of his stomach. Hermione jolted when a pale hand closed around her own, and she met a gaze of molten silver with wide eyes. Malfoy was sitting up now, no longer lounging in the uncomfortable school chair, his shirt parted to reveal a most tantalizing view of his upper torso.
"I – I'm sorry," she stuttered, staring in abject horror as the wizard she'd practically been fondling stood from his chair, her hand still in his grasp.
"I didn't know you fancied me, Granger," he stated offhandedly, but his voice was low, and she felt fire coursing through her veins. It started at her face and moved down to her chest, and she knew that if she'd been naked, her entire body would've been blushing beet red.
"I don't!" Her tone was defensive, and she continued pulling at her hand, desperately willing him to let her go so she could run and hide for the next fortnight. She could imagine it now; she would only take meals in the Gryffindor common; Harry and Ron could bring her assignments—
Malfoy growled and used her captured hand to yank her closer, his head bowing as his other hand grappled for her other wrist. She hadn't thought she could flush any redder, but she was definitely proven wrong. His breath was on the shell of her ear, and she involuntary shuddered at the feeling. He pulled her flush against him, and she squeaked.
"Horrible liar, you are," he murmured into her hair, and he placed both of her hands firmly on his chest, fingertips splayed out over those collarbones she had so nonsensically wanted to see. She felt like the palms of her hands were being scalded. Hermione wet her lips as the fire in her body began to pool somewhere uncomfortably low in her belly, and she tried again to push away. Unsurprisingly, he didn't budge.
"Look, I—" She locked eyes with him, and her words died in her throat. His face was so unbelievably close to hers that she could feel the warmth of his breath against the tip of her lightly freckled nose, and – though she would deny this fact until the day she died – Hermione Granger went weak at the knees.
Draco felt her legs give out and grinned outright, bumping noses with the brunette witch as he angled her onto the surface of a nearby desk. It was the least that could happen to her after she ogled and groped him; all in one class period no less, and he told her just as much. His well-placed jibe seemed to stir her sleeping Gryffindor, and he went cross-eyed staring at the finger she jabbed in his face.
"Just you listen, Malfoy—"
There was no pause, no hesitation, no second thought as Draco Malfoy dipped his head and caught his classmate, cleverest witch of their age, with her mouth wide open; undoubtedly halting what would've been a long, drawn-out lecture on how Granger's inability to stand had nothing to do with him and more to do with so-and-so and something of a familiar nature.
His tongue slipped boldly into the cavern of her mouth and teased her with long, sure strokes. He paused only to tug at her bottom lip with his teeth, plunging into her mouth again afterwards like a man gasping for air.
As Draco pulled back, he couldn't help but admire his handiwork. Granger was perched somewhat precariously atop a wooden desk, eyes half-lidded, her pretty pink mouth wet and swollen from his kisses. Her skirt was hiked up enough for him to see a hint of white cotton panties, and her breath was coming out in pants. Sexy little bookworm, he thought in approval.
When her eyes opened fully again and she seemed to come to her senses, Draco pressed an openmouthed kiss to her ear and grinned roguishly at her. "Draco," he told her, his clear, gray eyes dancing. Ghosting a finger up her thigh, he almost laughed at the silent opening and closing of her mouth; she looked like a fish out of water.
"Library tomorrow, half-past seven, sharp. Be there."
And in no time, he was dressed and gone. She touched a finger to her lips, their swollenness the only evidence of her encounter with the bane of her existence; that and the green- and silver-striped necktie draped over a chair not far from her.
Adjusting her skirt, Hermione picked it up and considered it. Then, she stuffed it into the pocket of her robes next to her wand and grabbed her book bag, her empty pot of ink that had been left lying on the floor, and her Potions book.
Perhaps she should return his necktie? Oh, but she would enjoy it so much more if she made him work for it. "Draco," she tested aloud, allowing his name to roll off her tongue.
Hermione smiled to herself as she exited the room, spilt ink forgotten. If only Draco knew what he'd gotten himself into.