A/N My prompt for the competition is the first line. It had a 5,000 word limit. Please note - this is a Voldemort-free world :)

Every Halloween Hermione and Draco rendezvous at the Shrieking Shack. While their classmates indulge in lollies and ghost stories – Hermione and Draco indulge in a little game of their own. 'Shriek or shack.'

Hermione sits on the not-that-clean and creaking floorboards in the Shack's bedroom, legs crossed, arms crossed, glaring at the boy – no, man – NO! – boy! sitting opposite her. She unravels an arm and pulls the hem of her skirt down.

The boy – no, he's definitely a man now – snorts in laughter. 'Tell, me, Granger,' Draco drawls, 'which of the following statements do you prefer? I'll let you pick. A - 'It's not like I haven't seen what's under a girl's skirt before;' or B - 'As if I'd be interested in anything you kept beneath yours.''

She rolls her eyes and tosses her head of glorious curls. 'Don't you think we're a little old for trick or treatery?' she says. 'I know I am.'

'Shack or Shriekery,' Draco reminds her. 'Not trick or treatery. Or are you telling me you'd prefer going around Hogwarts dressed as a slut witch, demanding lollies with menaces?'

She shudders, thinking of the maniac gleams in Ron and Harry's eyes as they left the Gryffindor Common Room for the festivities.

'We're still no further into figuring out why the Shack does this to us every year,' she grumps. 'For the last six years we've received a summons, and we end up playing bizarre games that require us to be civil to each other. Then midnight strikes, and we go back to hating each other for the other three hundred and sixty-four and a half days of the year.' She ponders for a second. 'Or three hundred and sixty-five and a half days on leap years.'

Draco rolls his eyes at the enormity of Granger's enormous brain. Anyway –

'I don't hate you,' he mutters, inspecting the seam of his trousers with great intensity.

Hermione's comeback – 'Sure, and bats fly from my arse' – dies on her lips. He didn't taunt. He didn't joke. He didn't overstate. It sounded almost as if…

… he meant it?

'Well,' she says defensively, 'if you don't hate me – which you've done a fantastic job of convincing me of, by the way – then what do you think of me?'

He raises his head, and his grey eyes glint silver. 'Oh, no,' he says emphatically. 'I'm not telling you anything unless those cards make me.'

Ah, yes.

The cards.

Every Halloween they've spent at Hogwarts, this unlikely pair sit in the Shrieking Shack and pull a card from the top of a mysterious deck. Once placed on the floor, the blank card shimmers, and a question or instruction appears for the player. That player has to answer the question or do what the card wants (the 'Shack' part of the game), or they can take a swig from the Shrieker – an opaque bottle containing a liquid with no smell. Sometimes it's Butterbeer. Last year, it was Firewhiskey.

Or it could also be something very shriek-inducing, indeed.

They play Muggle Paper, Scissors, Rock to determine the starter. However, Draco's smirk only flies at half-mast when his rock bashes Hermione's scissors.

'Ow!' she complains, holding her fingers to her mouth. 'Why d'you have to be so violent?'

He ignores her. 'Let's get this over with, then,' he sighs, and selects the topmost card, yellowing and wrinkly with age.

In the flickering light of the masses of the candles lighting the dilapidated room, it says:

Strip to the waist.

'What the everlasting fuck?' Draco snarls. 'There's no bloody way.'

The Shrieker shimmers into view beside the deck.

'Malfoy, please reconsider,' Hermione says, nibbling her fingernails nervously. 'Is it really worth having something potentially horrible happening to you?'

He sneers. 'I bet you've been gagging to see my body for years, haven't you?'

She snorts. 'As if,' she lies. 'Anyway, it's not like it's asked you to show your… uh… um' –

'Penis, Granger,' he says with exaggerated patience. 'P-E-N-I-S.'

'Yes, thank you, your penis. It only wants to see your concave, pimply, pale-ass chest. So just do it and stop being such a drama queen!'

Draco glares at her, then grabs the bottle and downs the contents in one.

Her jaw hits the floor.

Okay. Maybe she shouldn't have goaded him.

'Well?' she asks after a short silence. 'What was it?'

He wipes his mouth. 'I can tell you what it wasn't,' he says lightly. 'Butterbeer. Or Firewhiskey.'

Her heart starts jack-hammering. How can he just sit there so calmly?

'How do you feel?' she asks carefully.

He rubs the back of his neck. 'Okay, so far,' he says.

Then his entire body shivers.

Hermione's hands fly to her mouth, her eyes wide. 'Oh Godric, please be okay…' she prays.

With alarm in his eyes, he leaps up, furiously scratching at his back. 'Merlin's tits, my back feels like it's crawling with fire ants!'

He tears off his robe and yanks his vest over his head in nanoseconds. His face contorts into pain while he tries to wrench his tie off. 'Don't just fucking sit there, Granger, help!' he shouts, desperation edging his voice.

She leaps up and very nearly shouts 'Divesto!' before remembering it would remove all his clothes, and even Malfoy deserves a little dignity now and then. He pulls so hard on his tie that the knot becomes hopelessly tight, so she dashes over and lasers through the material with the tip of her wand while he rips his shirt off, buttons bouncing everywhere.

He sinks to his knees, sweat beading his brow and darkening his blonde hair, scratching furiously anywhere on his back that he could reach. 'What the hell is it, Granger?' he gasps. 'It's like they're under my skin!'

She scoots around and studies his back. 'There's nothing there,' she says, trying her best to sound soothing. 'It must be a mind' –

Suddenly, Draco roars in pain. Hermione screams and rears back in fright, landing on her bum. She scoots away.

Large red lines appear on his light-honeyed skin, which quickly well with blood. Shaking and horrified, Hermione raises her wand –

The lines burst open, and thousands of angry red ants erupt from the long lesions, crawling over Draco's back, arms and legs, making for the floor and freedom. They repeatedly sting his flesh as they trample past. He screams until his voice is hoarse, trying to scrabble away on his hands and legs from the ants, but more keep pouring out of his body.

Her face white with horror, Hermione steadies her wand with two hands and aims it at Draco's back. 'Finite Incantatem! she calls out.

Nothing happens. 'FINITE INCANTATEM! she screams.

Not a single ant notices or cares.

'Granger, please, for the love of Merlin, help me!' Draco begs in his raw voice. His grey eyes are almost white with terror and pain.

Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God thinks Hermione wildly. What the hell can I try now? Omigod, how can he bear this?

WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO?

She slaps herself mentally, then physically. She stands up, takes a deep breath and closes her eyes.

How to get rid of ants?

Herbology class.

Spells for insecticides.

Come on, Granger. Think!

The answer shimmers in her head like an out-of-focus TV picture. Desperately, she reaches for it in her mind, but it stubbornly stays unclear.

He's in agony, can't you see that? she screams to the image. Help him!

And there it was.

She jabs her wand into the air three times. 'Evanesco formicae!' she yells at the seething mountain of ants, now almost obscuring Draco from her view.

In the blink of an eye, the ants disappear.

He sprawls on the floor, trying, with shaking arms, to pull himself up. His back is unmarred. Just how it was before.

Hermione dashes over to him and kneels down. She pulls him up and wraps her arms around him, holding him tight. Her breath clatters in her lungs.

Draco feels her tears of fright and relief fall on his skin. Slowly, he puts his arms around her waist and holds her shaking body in silence.

She saved him.

One more reason to love her.

Despite being ordered to hate her.

They're back on the floor, sitting opposite each other with the cards between them. They've drunk deeply from an ever-filling bottle of water Hermione had in her bag. Draco keeps his now-buttonless shirt off. The Shack obviously wants him to 'strip to the waist,' so that's how he will stay.

Crazy, fucked-in-the-head Shack, he mutters to himself.

'The Shrieks have never been that bad before,' Hermione says in a dull voice.

Draco nods tiredly. 'What do you think will happen if we don't play?' he asks.

She shrugs. 'The Shack probably won't let us out.'

His mouth falls open. 'What, it's prepared to let us starve to death, instead?'

'Probably. But I think it wants us to play this game more. If we stick to the cards until midnight, we can go. Surely.'

Their eyes meet.

Hermione reaches for the next card.

For the next hour, the Shack behaves itself.

Recite the school song backwards

List the twelves uses of dragon's blood

What is etched on the surface of Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem?

And so on.

Then, Hermione draws a card:

Remove all your clothes down to your underwear.

Her haunted eyes meet Draco's. Then she stands up on wobbly legs.

'No.' Draco's voice is steel. 'Don't do it if you don't want to.'

'I won't drink from that bottle,' she replies faintly. Her robe hits the floor.

'Hell.' He turns his back to her.

'Malfoy.' Her voice is broken. 'You'll have to see me sooner or later.'

He gathers in the biggest breath he possibly can. Slowly, he lets it out and swivels around, his eyes on the floor.

Time stretches into what feels like eternity.

Eventually, the temptation becomes too great, and he looks up.

She's removed everything except for her delicate ivory-coloured bra and panties. Her face is obscured by her chocolate-rich curls. Finally, she looks up. Her cheeks are gorgeously pink.

'I don't want to hear it,' she snaps, falling gracefully to the floor.

Draco's throat is blisteringly dry. It takes every ounce of will power he has to school his features into a blank face. When he stomped through the tunnel under the Whomping Willow to the Shack earlier this evening, he had no sodding idea that he'd be trying not to eye-worship Granger's beautiful, near-naked body. Her firm, curvy breasts, half-hidden by her lace bra, which almost glows against her tanned skin. Her trim waist, beautiful hips. Her long, slim legs, delicate ankles and bare feet, with toes painted a rose-coloured pink.

He hoped like hell his stone-hard erection was shielded from her view.

'Can you' – his voice cracks and he clears his throat. Looking somewhere over her shoulder, he tries again. 'Can you pass the water? Please?'

Hermione digs around in her bag and passes it to him in silence, focussing on the fall of his light-blonde hair over his forehead.

He takes a long swig and feels marginally more in control. 'My turn,' he says unnecessarily. He picks up a card.

Name five types of tree found in the Forbidden Forest

He breathes a sigh of relief, and they play on.

About two hours have passed. They break for a short while, snacking on some fruit mince pies and apples, courtesy of Hermione, planner extraordinaire. Conversation is short and stilted. Eye contact is avoided.

At least the Shack is pleasantly heated.

They hear the wind pick up outside, forcing the recently de-leaved trees to knock their spiny fingers against the ramshackle house.

They return to the game, and Hermione turns a card over.

Tell him who you love

She rears back, frightened. Her huge, scared eyes meet his.

He doesn't want to hear who it is. No doubt it's either Pothead or the Weasel. Dumb or Much Dumber. His upper lip curls into a sneer, and he's about to protect his hurting heart with a bitingly witty insult when she suddenly shouts 'No! I won't do it!'

The Shrieker shimmers into view once more.

'Granger, don't be stupid,' Draco says, his heart racing. 'Just tell me. I promise I won't tell anyone.'

Tears pool in her eyes. 'I won't tell you!' she says fiercely. She lifts her head and looks about wildly. 'Do you hear me, Shack?' she screams. 'I'd rather die!'

'Shit! Granger, are you out of your bloody mind?' Draco rises to his knees, thoroughly alarmed. 'That's the last thing you should say to the Shack!'

She sniffled. 'I can't tell you,' she says despairingly.

'Yes, you can,' he says with honest conviction. 'I promise I won't laugh, make jokes, be sarcastic, tease you about your taste in blokes – nothing. I will sit here and shut the fuck up. Now please, just tell me who you love.'

The tears spill from her eyes, and his heart aches for her. 'I can't tell you,' she repeats.

'Granger.' This shit is getting serious, and Draco is struggling to keep calm. His mercurial eyes focus on her wretched face. 'You have to try.'

She wipes the tears from her cheeks, and looks up once more at him.

He aches to hold her. To take her pain and make it his.

She releases a shaking breath.

'No,' she whispers.

And before he can even blink, she grabs the bottle and drinks from it.

Draco explodes in rage.

'What the utter fuck did you just do?' he yells, leaping over the cards. He grabs Hermione by her shoulders and shakes her. 'You stupid, stupid bitch!'

She stares at him, frightened.

Slytherin's pickled balls!

Calm down, Draco, he thinks. Just calm the fuck down.

He loosens his grip on her shoulders to a gentle hold. 'Granger,' he says evenly, kneeling in front of her. 'You have to throw up. Make yourself sick.'

Her eyes turn glassy in front of his horrified stare.

'Oh, shit,' he moans, casting about desperately for something – anything – that might help. 'What if I can't help you?' he shouts, showing her his shaking hands.

He sinks to the floor in front of her and buries his head in his hands. 'Why the hell couldn't you just tell me?' he groans.

He hears movement, and looks up. Hermione is standing. He gets up and looks at her face.

Her eyes are empty, and his heart fills with ice.

'Granger?' he asks uncertainly. 'Can you hear me?'

She looks through him like he isn't there.

'Hermione?'

It's the first time he's said her name out loud. Gods, to be in any other circumstance other than this! 'Hermione! Snap out of it!' He clicks his fingers in front of her.

She turns away from him and walks serenely to the almost-busted staircase.

Draco lurches after her, but as he passes the mouldy, musty four-poster bed, the draperies lash out and wrap around his arms and legs, dragging him back and fastening him tight against one of the posts.

'What the FUCK?' Draco roars, struggling furiously. Hell. He hasn't even got his wand.

'I'm gonna fucking kill you, Shack!' he hollers in red-hot rage, watching helplessly as Hermione ascends the stairs, one bare foot after the other, uncaring of splinters or dirt or soft, rotted wood crumbling underneath.

She reaches the top of the stairs on the second floor without incident, but Draco's heart is still in his mouth. Originally, the stairs on each landing exited onto a wrap-around balcony with a wooden rail fence guarding the edge overlooking the floors below.

Now, given the Shack's advanced rate of decay, there is almost nothing but debris and dust.

'Oh gods, no,' Draco whispers as Hermione takes step after measured step to the edge. 'HERMIONE!' he shouts as loud as he can. 'For the love of Godric, please snap out of it!'

But his plea falls on deaf ears.

She reaches the edge and stops.

Why has she stopped? Draco wonders wildly. Is she waiting for something? Oh, who fucking cares?

Still tried to the bedpost, he tries another tack. 'Why are you doing this?' he shouts to the Shack's dingy, water-ruined ceiling, far above. 'For the love of Merlin, let her go!'

Her toes curl around the edge of the balcony, sending Draco into a panicked frenzy. He tries with all his might to break free of the drapes, but the wretched, careworn things hold him tightly.

In desperation, he closes his eyes, frantically wracking his brain for an idea. Anything.

All he has left is the truth.

Hermione lifts a foot.

'Don't kill her!' he shouts. 'I love her! I don't care if she loves someone else! I just – I just want her to be happy! Please don't do this!'

She topples from the edge.

'HERMIONE!' he roars in grief and disbelief, unable to tear his eyes away from the macabre, beautiful, horrific sight of her tumbling through the air.

Suddenly, the drapes unravel, and he is free. Too far away from his wand, he half-sprints, half-stumbles across the floor -

- and catches her safely in his arms.

He sinks to the floor, holding his precious load tightly. His heart is hammering at a mile a minute. Hermione's eyes are closed, and she doesn't respond to his clumsy actions.

'Hermione?' he whispers, touching her cheek with the back of his fingers. She's warm, thank Salazar, at least. 'Please wake up and yell at me.'

He looks around wildly, and discovers his discarded cloak a short distance away. He unwraps an arm and reaches for it, snagging it with his fingers. He drags it back and wraps it around her with his shaking hands.

'Please wake up, love,' he begs on a whisper.

Her eyelids flutter, then open. 'Malfoy?' she croaks.

The ice in his heart thaws. 'Thank Merlin,' he sighs, and lowers his forehead to hers. 'You scared the ever-loving shit of out me!' he hisses.

She frees a hand from her cloak cocoon and touches his cheek. 'I could hear you,' she whispers. 'When I was under the spell. I could hear and see you. I tried to do what you wanted.' Her voice cracks.

'It's okay,' he says. 'You're okay now. That's what matters.' He pulls her hair back from her face and aches to kiss her.

'Do you really love me?' she asks in a small voice.

He swallows past the lump in his throat and licks his dry lips. 'Yes,' he said simply. 'Since Fourth Year. Maybe earlier. But my father hates Muggleborns. Especially ones that consistently outrank his son academically. I was told to keep my distance, but I couldn't. I felt like shit when I was bullying you, but at least I could look at you. Talk to you.'

He sighs. 'I know it's not what you want to hear. You're in love with someone else. I just want you to be happy, okay? And alive.'

She watches his lips move, then she bravely meets his eyes.

'It's you, Draco,' she says. 'The person I love is you.'

Draco does an excellent impression of a stunned mullet.

She … me?

Why couldn't she tell me?

Oh, right. The bullying.

'Draco?' she asks, unsure.

He closes his eyes, then opens them.

'I really, really, want to kiss you right now,' he warns.

She smiles. Just for him.

Neither of them are sure how they got to the bed. Or how it's no longer a musty, dusty, mouldy, trapping contraption with rotting wood and rusty springs, but a beautiful and pristine solid four-poster with clean sheets, pillows and blankets that feel rich and smooth against their skin.

They haven't parted since their first kiss on the floor. They taste and explore, first with lips, then with tongues. Hermione, whose prior kissing experience consists of ones offered by two callow, inexperienced youths, thrills at his obvious skill and the reactions he creates in her. To Draco, who tried to forget his obsession with Hermione alongside and inside the bodies of more than a few girls, she feels perfect to him. Tastes perfect to him.

It's not until she lies gently among the pillows, with Draco leaning over her, that both realise where they are.

'Wha-?' is all Draco can manage, looking around.

'Maybe this is what the Shack's wanted, all along,' she says. 'Maybe it's been trying to bring us together all these years.'

'That's far too damn subtle,' he mutters, and seals his lips over hers again.

'I never said why I love you,' Hermione says as he stretches out next to her, playing with a fat curl of her hair.

'It doesn't matter to me,' he smiles. 'You love me. That's all I need to know.'

She rolls her eyes, but with a smile, instead of a frown. 'It wasn't easy, you know.'

He kisses her forehead. 'Yeah. I'm sorry.'

'You challenge me. You're the only one who can. I used to daydream about us studying together in the library, talking about stuff no-one else understands or cares about. Then the daydreams became fantasies.' She blushes. 'You're extraordinarily hot, in case you didn't already know.'

He smirks and buffs his fingernails against his chest, making her laugh.

'I'd see you laughing with your friends, or helping the younger Slytherin students out. I knew you were more than what you presented to me.' She traces her fingers along his cheekbone. 'This feels right. Even if it's new.'

'It is right,' he agreed. 'Being a bastard to you was crushing something inside me. I hated making you cry. The sole, fleeting pleasure I got out of it was watching your eyes shine when you got mad at me instead.

'You're beautiful, Hermione, brave, tempestuous and phenomenally intelligent. I don't give a shit about your heritage or blood. You're perfect the way you are. And I'm so, incredibly sorry for each and every time I hurt you.'

She raises her lips to him for his kiss. He is forgiven.

Behind them, a card turns slowly in the air and lands on the floor.

Love each other.

'Hermione…' Draco breathes, sometime later. The light of the candles flicker on her shiny curls, in her deep, expressive eyes.

'Hmm...?'

'I want to' – he swallows and takes a breath.

She brushes his cheek with her thumb.

'I do, too.'

His heart soars with elation. But –

'Are you a virgin?' he asks gently.

She shakes her head, a little sadly. 'It was just once. I'm not very experienced.'

For a few seconds, he wants to rip the balls off the bastard who touched her and roast them over an open fire. Then she says 'I wished it was you. But I had no idea…' and thoughts of castration melt away.

'It's okay,' he smiles, kissing her nose. 'We have pasts where we both thought this would never happen. They don't matter now.'

He slides off the bed and stands on the dusty floor. He gets rid of his shoes and socks. His eyes glint silver while he undoes his belt and loosens his trousers. They fall to the floor as he hooks his thumbs under his underwear and works them down his legs.

Hermione's lips part when his erection works free from his clothing.

He retrieves his wand and climbs back onto the bed as the four-poster's drapes silently fall into place. They're in their own private world.

He touches her pelvis with his wand and whispers a contraception spell. Warmth shimmers through her body.

Hermione reaches behind her to undo her bra, but he stops her with a smile. 'Let me,' he says.

He kneels between her open legs, and slowly peels one bra strap down her shoulder, then the other. 'These are beautiful,' he breathes, indicating her bra and panties. 'You have lovely taste.'

She blushes and stutters her thanks, focussing on the path his lips are making, trailing over each shoulder, then down her sternum. She gasps as his tongue licks the mound of her breasts, then crests over each nipple through the lace. Her body rises to him of its own accord. She tilts her head back and her curls tumble down while he kisses and licks her neck. He unhooks her bra, and she lays down on the bed again while he slowly pulls the material free from her body.

He'd touched and tasted her breasts through the thin material, but still nothing could prepare him for the sight of her bare body. Dumbfounded, he just sits and stares until he eventually blinks, ending the spell. He reaches out and brushes each full breast with the back of his fingers, thrilling at her gasp. He looks at her flushed face. This time he knows her cheeks are pink from arousal, not embarrassment.

His tongue brushes over her breast, wetting her nipple. Her breathing becomes ragged. He pulls her nipple into his mouth, tugging with his lips, and her voice breaks on a cry of desire. Her hips move against him, and he can feel fluid draw from the head of his cock.

He works between both breasts, licking them and kneading them with his fingers. Not hard, not soft. Just a middle-of-the-range sensation that he'll work to perfection later as he makes love to her over and over again.

His fingertips brush the side of her panties, and he checks her flushed face.

'Yes,' she hisses, lifting her hips up so he can draw them down her long legs. She's wet, incredibly so, and he feels the first lurch of heated need claw inside him.

He kisses her while he gently slides a finger into her core. 'Oh fuck, yes,' he whispers against her lips. 'You feel incredible.'

'I want you, Draco.' Her eyes shine.

He settles between her legs. With his hand, he moves the head of his cock against her plump, wet lips and glistening pink clitoris. She wails and bucks against him, wanting more. Wanting him.

His cock is throbbing hard, and he can't wait any more. He looks up at her, trying to control his breathing. 'I'll do my best not to hurt you, love.'

She smiles tremulously. 'I know.'

He slides inside her heated body.

'Oh my GOD!' Hermione moans, gripping Draco's biceps as he lowers himself over her body. 'Omigod please move, you have to move, please…'

He withdraws most of the way, then surges inside her tight, wet cunt. It's like nothing he's ever felt before. He can't explain it. He builds up a rhythm that Hermione tries to match – clumsily at first, but she's a quick learner, of course. They stay this way for what feels like forever until he alters the angle of his pelvis and stimulates her clitoris with each thrust, making her entire body tremble.

'Draco,' she gasps, 'I – I think' –

'Come for me, love, come over me,' he whispers, putting everything he has into maintaining the rhythm.

Suddenly, she stares at him in shock, and her entire body tenses. Then she flings her head back and wails as tremors wash over her body and her cunt grips his cock almost painfully hard. Her channel floods with wetness, and metaphorically as well as literally, he's on his knees.

He can't go on.

His orgasm pulses in waves as he comes hard inside her body. As if from a distance, he watches himself move above her.

Slowly, gently, he lowers himself to her heated skin.

They kiss, their bodies intimately tangled.

Hermione wakes. The candles are out. Through the bedcurtains, she can see slits of grey light pierce through the broken timber boards festooning the windows.

It's morning.

A long, slender hand moves slowly under the sheets, over the side of her breast, waist and hip. His body is up close behind her.

She turns her head. 'Hello,' she smiles sleepily.

The smile Draco returns is stunning. 'Hello,' he echoes. Then: 'I want to wake like this every morning. I mean it.'

'Me too,' she whispers, before they kiss.

Alas, real life beckons, and the lovers climb into their uniforms.

At the trapdoor to the tunnel entrance, she asks 'What will we do when we get back to school?'

He takes her hand, and says 'We'll be together. No matter what.'

As the trapdoor closes behind them, one last card flutters to the floor. It reads:

Be with each other, always.

The end.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed it!