dedication: to being done with the first year of college! to finishing AP exams! &, most importantly, to brushing teeth!
disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling.
notes: Wow, we were blown away by all of the positive reception. Bravo to you for your kind words, & we hope you continue to enjoy.
Sonya adds: & when I ever get married, I can only ever hope that it is half as amazing as Will & Elizabeth's wedding. At least Jack Sparrow learned his lesson about kissing [other people's] girls.
Selene notes: tissue boxes are a girl's best friend, especially when watching all-too-sad movies about death and lists. and on that note, listing is amazing.
Hermione Jean Granger did not get taken advantage of without some kind of witty retribution.
Witty, painful retribution - she knew where to hit so it would hurt.
Knowledge is power, yes?
Deftly winding the pale blue sheets around her like a rudimentary toga, Hermione slipped from the bed. Her first step was a little wobbly; she would never admit how weak at the knees she'd felt or, oh, how much it hurt to stand on her two feet. But, the pain and weakness aside, she pulled her thoughts together and took stock of where she was.
It was clearly a man's room-that much she could tell. Which, she supposed, was a rather redundant thing to notice seeing as how there was a twinge between her legs indicating sex...with a male. She peered around the room speculatively, searching. "Now, where-" her muttered words were interrupted as she spotted her wand sticking out of her bag next to her discarded undergarments.
Gingerly bending down, she picked up the wand quickly, summoning the rest of her clothing to her with a quick accio. She dropped the sheet quickly, pulling on her panties as she inspected the rest of the room. The window's heavy draperies were drawn back and from the view, she could see that she was perhaps a few floors up in a flat in a part of London that didn't look familiar to her.
And then it registered, finally, that the drapes were drawn back and that while she might know where she was, but pedestrians gazing upward might know whose room this was...and who she was.
This was just too much.
She pulled the silky jade dress back over her head hastily, backing away from the window and walking over to the ajar door that appeared to lead to an adjoining bathroom. Peering inside to make sure no one was there, she shuffled inside, staring at her appearance in the mirror, a little harebrained. Along the edge of the vanity was the bottle of chocolate body paint...and then, laying innocently next to it, an unopened toothbrush package and a tube of toothpaste.
Considerate, she supposed, as she squeezed the mint toothpaste on the brush and began scrubbing at her teeth. There was a certain joy in brushing teeth, she swore. A certain cleanliness that came with it. A feeling of freshness.
That was almost a muggle toothpaste commercial, she idly thought as she spat in the sink.
She washed out her mouth, finger combed her hair, grabbed her bag and her wand and pushed out of the bathroom back into the bedroom. With great care, she approached the door which she assumed led to the rest of the flat. Pressing her ear up against it, she strained to hear movement. Not wanting to even know who this person was and just leave this experience in the past, she stood, frozen, listening for signs of life.
Upon finding none, she turned the knob carefully and edged out the door and into a hallway...which led, one way, to the living room and the other to a well furnished kitchen-with gorgeous oak cabinets, she noted distractedly. She hesitated, before walking swiftly towards the kitchen with a sense of heightened efficiency, grabbing an orange from the bowl on the counter, and was so very close to turning back around to leave when she heard the footfalls.
Freezing as a wave of anxiety passed over her, her muscles locked her in place, hoping for the footsteps to pass. But as she heard the knob turn, she pivoted, already in flight mode.
She ran as mutedly as her bare feet would take her, realizing belatedly that she hadn't put her shoes on and that they were still lying in the bedroom where the rest of her clothes had lain. But it was much too late for that, she thought. There was no time to get her shoes, and there was even less time to perform a spell to take her shoes with her. In the process of dodging the tasteful couch, she hit her leg clumsily against the coffee table, hissing as pain shot up her leg.
Not fast enough. Not lithe enough. Not enough.
The door pulled open as she bent down reflexively to clutch at her leg in pain, and without her own volition she peered up, her eyes catching those of Draco Malfoy's.
The last thought she had before she released her leg, bolting for the door, running as if her life depended on it (which, in her defense, it sort of did; who knows what a demented ex-Death Eater would do to her?) was the startling realization that, mother of Merlin, she had sex.
That, in itself, wasn't too horrible. It was bad, but she's was an adult and was fully responsible. But as if that wasn't bad enough, she had sex with Malfoy.
With Malfoy.
Hermione wasn't one for vulgar language, but, if she were to be quite honest with herself, she was fucked.
(And the irony of it all was that it was, quite literally, true.)
How life loved to torment her.