Dawn light streamed through the window, and it took Hermione a drowsy moment to remember where she was. Sitting up in her torn Yule Ball dress, she rubbed her sleepy eyes and stretched; her bra was mightily uncomfortable, so she took it off, leaving it on the bed, and then adjusted her dress to properly cover herself. Draco must've come into his room and opened the window, she thought. But Hermione's mind was changed when she saw an eagle owl sitting on the windowsill, a note tied with green ribbon in its beak. It eyed her silently with its golden eyes, so Hermione decided to go and get Malfoy.
Getting out of bed with his quilt wrapped around her shoulders, she padded across the hardwood floor and into the hallway, making her way downstairs, then into the Slytherin common room. No one was there, save the crackling fireplace and Draco, who had removed a whistling pot from the fire and was pouring the tea into two cups. Looking up, he saw her and extended a saucer towards her.
"Ah good – you're up," he observed, giving her the cup. "I just brewed this for you. Sugar? Cream?"
"Yes – cream, please," Hermione replied. Draco nodded and poured a generous dose of cream into her cup, which was just what Hermione liked, letting it billow out as a milky flower in her steaming beverage. She stirred it in and drank some, watching Draco set aside the cream and instead plop five cubes of sugar into his tea.
"You like sugar, huh?" Hermione asked, cupping her tea with both hands and blowing on it.
"I have quite the sweet tooth," Draco replied with a smile – he took a gentlemanly sip of tea and coughed, wincing. "Ooh, burned my tongue! Got to pace myself."
Hermione curled up on the green common room sofa, heating her hands with the warm cup of steaming tea; the piece of furniture smelled of patchouli oil. She thought the only thing missing was her purring ginger cat, Crookshanks. Malfoy sat down next to her and used his wand to play with the dead ashes in the fireplace, swirling them into amusing figures and pictures. One was an accurate portrayal of a sour Professor McGonagall, and another was the wizened face of Dumbledore; Draco made Dumbledore's eyebrows waggle amusingly, and Hermione chuckled. Then Draco let the ashes fall dead. He cleared his throat.
"So," he said. "I was thinking about yesterday night…"
"Yes?"
"And…I was wondering why you wanted to off yourself."
"Funny," Hermione replied, taking a sip of tea. "I was wondering why you wanted to save me."
"Answer me first, Granger." There was firmness in his voice, but none of his usual venom.
"It was all an accident," Hermione tried to laugh, thinking she was actually being quite successful at her attempt. "The wind and all. You don't need to take it so seriously."
"Don't lie, Granger," Draco said. "You get all breathy and quick when you lie. Please tell me the truth." At this close proximity, he noticed she smelled so good and sweet. It stirred something inside of him, but he gulped and kept his feeling down.
Hermione felt a knot in her stomach. "I don't know why I did it," she answered. "And I don't know why I'm telling you this, but I was alone. I've felt alone these past few days. And Ron really hasn't been a help at all, nor Harry with all this Tournament business he's gotten into."
"You? Alone?" Draco laughed. "Come off it, Granger. You've been in the newspaper at least every other day due to the Tournament. And you were asked out by Viktor Krumm to the Yule Ball. Viktor Krumm. The best Quidditch player to have ever existed."
"Well that doesn't mean I'm not lonely," she retorted. "Newspapers only serve gossip about me and Harry, me and Harry, me and bloody Harry Potter. And since Viktor Krumm asked me out, do you think I've been loved by all the girls I've ever known? They hate me for it! And besides, Viktor isn't even my type. He's burly and brusque and has not a bit of intellect in him…"
Draco eyed her gently and patted her knee. "I understand you now, Granger. I'm…sorry you've felt this way. Truly I am…"
"Don't you go spreading rumors about me though, Malfoy," Hermione said quickly. "All the newspaper fodder is enough. I don't want stories going about that I'm suicidal too. Teachers don't like unstable students."
Laughing, he set down his tea on the coffee table. "Is that what you care about most?" he snorted. "Your grades?"
Hermione gave him a dirty look, and he wished he hadn't added such a note of disdain to his voice. "So Malfoy," she said. "You never answered my question as to why you saved me."
Draco's stomach now knotted. "Because the school wouldn't be the same without you, Granger," he said, imitating Professor McGonagall in her strained, English accented voice. "Five hundred points for Gryffindor, just for Ms. Granger's wonderful achievements!"
Hermione sneered. "You're an ass when you don't want to show emotions, did you know that?"
"Yes, yes I did…and usually I'm an ass all the time," Draco responded. He noticed his hand hadn't moved from Hermione's knee. Hermione apparently noticed it too, for she slapped it away playfully.
"Well, sad to admit, you do make better company than Ron Weasley," she confided. "I just hope you won't be loose-tongued about my moment of weakness to everyone…Please Draco, promise me you won't tell?"
Hearing her say his name made him shiver, but he just smiled smoothly. "The only one I'll be loose with my tongue with is you, Granger," he remarked casually, standing and leaning against the fireplace. "And sad to admit, I think I'd feel awful if I spread some gossip about you. Just don't tell all of Hogwarts I saved you, alright?"
Suddenly, the door to the passageway jiggled, and Hermione jumped up in fright of being caught in the Slytherin common room alone with Draco Malfoy. Draco leapt forward to, throwing his quilt off her shoulders onto the sofa and ushering her towards the fireplace.
"Oh Merlin, Merlin," Hermione panted. "This can't actually be happening." A sweat broke out on her forehead. She heard voices just outside.
"Don't fret, girl," Draco assured; he handed Hermione a handful of powder, which she felt between her fingers to be fine as sand. "Throw this in the fireplace and jump inside, visualizing your dorm room fireplace. Do as I say, quick!"
Hermione grinned back at him. "Whatever can I do to repay you?"
"Meet me tomorrow in the courtyard at dawn," he whispered. "Now go, Granger!"
Hermione threw the powder down and jumped into the green flames it conjured, and before she knew it, she landed with a whump in her dorm room, flat on her ass. All her friends were asleep in their beds, and Ginny, who was now awake from Hermione's landing, sat up in bed and grinned.
"Graceful entrance, m'lady," Ginny giggled. "I won't ask where you've been, only that your dress it torn and you look disheveled. Did you and the Krumm have a little fun rumble?"
"No," Hermione laughed, getting up and straightening herself, beginning to remove the millions of bobby pins in her hair. She needed a shower and more tea. "I'm virtuous as Diana, you know that."
"Mhmm," Ginny mumbled, looking less than convinced. "And it appears too that your – ahem – brazier is absent."
"Oh, bloody hell!"Hermione swore, turning beet-red. She recalled she left her bra on Malfoy's bed, but there was nothing she could do about it now. The brainy Gryffindor girl just undressed and gathered her things for a shower. "I guess I have a lot of explaining to do, eh Gin?"
"You most certainly do!"
Draco breathed a sigh of relief as Hermione disappeared into the fireplace right before the door opened and all the Slytherin students poured in. Some just filed to their rooms, but Crabbe and Goyle gravitated immediately towards Malfoy.
"Looks like someone spent the night on the sofa," Goyle chuckled, motioning to the quilt on the sofa and biting off a piece of licorice he had kept in his robes pocket for Merlin knows how long.
Draco gave a hearty laugh and rubbed his neck. "Yes, hard night, you rats…I need to go off to bed now. Got a crick in my neck."
"Aw, come on, Draco," Crabbe whined. "You promised you'd go with us to Spintwitches to get some new Quidditch boots."
"You two go off to Hogsmeade without me…I need an extra few hours," Draco grinned, grabbing his quilt and walking up to his room. He did desperately need some sleep, especially if he was going to meet Hermione tomorrow morning. Draco closed the door to his room and turned to see his eagle owl, Persephone, sitting on the windowsill patiently, a letter in her beak. He stroked the owl's fuzzy head and cracked the seal of wax on his letter, reading it with the upmost attention and dread. The years of Persephone delivering sweets to Malfoy were over. Now all she delivered were letters from his father asking him how he was doing in Hogwarts...more like how he was doing on his Dark Lord's missions. Draco felt his heart grow heavier as he read the letter, but he stroked his owl's feathers and gave her a good-sized piece of rat jerky he kept in a little purple velvet bag by her cage. The creature deserved something, even if the letter was not satisfactory. Persephone thanked him with a throaty coo and flew away.
Placing his letter on the desk, Draco stripped off his shirt and went over to his bed, tired and aching. As he turned down the bedspread, he blushed with embarrassment. There was Hermione's bra, the color of pink coral, nestled in the sheets. He picked it up gingerly by its strap and looked at it curiously. Without having to press his nose to it or get closer to it at all, he could smell it. The piece of her clothing smelled just like her sweetness, her natural perfume, only amplified. Draco realized this cloth had been right against her skin, against the most intimate parts of her, and he flushed even harder. Carefully he folded her bra up, marveling at its softness, and placed it on the chair of his desk. Why on earth had she left it in his bed? To tempt him with a token? No, he thought. More likely Granger just forgot she took it off. That's all. She's a good girl, not like in any of your fantasies, Draco.
Draco crawled into bed and breathed slowly, so he could lull himself to sleep. He could smell her intoxicating scent on the pillow, and he could smell it in the sheets. Draco wound the sheets all around him, gasping with amazement, and he yearned for her with his entire body. He wondered what their scents smelled like together, fused and powerful. Draco's hands gripped the thin sheets till his knuckles turned white. Merlin, she smelled delicious.
A few days ago, he'd hated that Gryffindor girl. But now things had changed so quickly. Draco regretted calling her Mudblood and taunting her. He could see her now in her truest form. She was not unbreakable Granger. She was Hermione, with a heart true and precious. And how he wanted her.
As he fell asleep, he planned tomorrow out carefully, and then once he was satisfied, he let Hermione's sweet smell carry him into the abyss of blissful sleep.