A/N Many thanks for your reviews, follows and fav, it means the world to me.
This chapter has been beta'ed by my friend Louise 3.
Prompt # 5 The next day
Hermione couldn't utter a single word. She was stunned. It was so out of her character to act like that.
She rushed to her bathroom to erase all evidence of what happened the night before. She opened the tap of her shower and waited a few seconds for the water to be at the desired temperature before going under the spray. She raised her face to the shower head and greeted the hot jet with happiness.
She didn't want to think thoroughly about what had happened yet. Not with her mind fogged up by the alcohol vapours and her cramped body, still marked by what had undoubtedly taken place the night before.
She remained in her shower for what seemed an eternity, the hot water running down her body as she lazily carded her fingers through her hair in a vain attempt to unknot it. Sighing with ease as she gradually felt the tension leave her body, she grabbed the shampoo, poured a portion into the palm of her hand, and applied it to her hair.
She gently rubbed, savouring the sensuality of the moment, when suddenly, like lightning breaking the stillness of a summer sky, a flashing memory assailed her mind: hands, large and powerful encircling her waist, going up, barely grazing the underside of her breasts with his thumbs and then caressing her neck while a mouth was against hers, kissing her roughly.
Surprised, Hermione suddenly opened her eyes and almost slipped on the tiled floor. It was the firsts memories of the previous night that had come back to her and she would have almost blushed as the sensations were so vivid.
Jerking herself out of her stupor, Hermione quickly finished her washing and got out of the shower stall. She wrapped herself into a warm and fluffy towel.
Still shrouded in the damp heat of her shower, Hermione let herself fall on her bed. She closed her eyes, hoping to conjure new memories, but nothing but a blur came to her. Her memories seemed buried beneath layers of lead.
Sighing in frustration, Hermione decided that it was best to analyse things calmly.
What she knew was limited to a few things: she had celebrated last night the victory of Ginny's Quidditch team, she remembered having a few drinks and finally, she woke up after spending the night with a stranger.
There was no doubt that they had sex given the used condoms that Hermione had seen when picking up her belongings and the hickeys covering her body.
She thought she could almost recognize her ... partner from his teeth. Indeed, the bruise that was blooming on her clavicle had a very distinct shape and she wondered if there was a spell to hide that kind of thing.
Hermione didn't know how to react. Sleeping with a stranger wasn't something she would have done if she had been sober, but after all, if she had done once her inhibitions were down, she had nothing to be ashamed of. It was an impulse, a desire, nothing more, nothing less.
What really bothered her was that absence of memories. This void outside that single little flashback she had in the shower.
She wondered how everything happened. Had she accosted a stranger? Had she thrown herself at someone she already knew? Or worse, had she had sex with a friend?
She didn't know and that was what bothered her the most. Not knowing was something that was unfamiliar to her and was paradoxically both exhilarating and really unpleasant.
The only thing that relieved Hermione was that, at least, on the man's back there was no freckles. To sleep with a Weasley or worse, with Ron again, would have shattered their barely relinked friendship and would have been a disaster.
Try as she might, Hermione had no idea who she had spent the night with. For obvious physical reasons, she had eliminated the Weasley men, Lee and Dean. But there were so many people at the party, she could have ended up with Neville or Seamus who had been drinking with her, as well as with a complete stranger ...
And Hermione was too embarrassed by her intoxicated behaviour to dare to ask one of her friends about who she may have flirted with.
No, she thought, the best thing was to leave that night in its rightful place: in oblivion.
Neither consequences nor memories. Like that night never happened.