3.
Tuesday 1st April, 1997
Hermione is severely glad that so far, she has managed to avoid being caught in any of the pranks that have taken over Hogwarts today. She suspects that everyone knows she would not react well to having some ridiculous joke played on her – she is just relieved Fred and George are no longer at Hogwarts, because she knows they wouldn't be afraid of her wrath. As it is, dinner has just concluded and she is still blissfully hex, jinx, or good old-fashioned Muggle-style prank free. She checks the Marauder's Map again once she gets out of the Great Hall, and sees that Malfoy has now disappeared off it. He must be in the Room then – good.
As she heads briskly toward the seventh floor, a feminine voice calls her name and she sighs and stops in her tracks. Luna is hurrying up the stairs towards Hermione, a wide smile on her face, and her long blonde hair replaced with long-stemmed tiny lilies. "Hello, Hermione. Lovely evening isn't it?" the younger witch greets Hermione, her tone cheerfully dreamy as always. Hermione swears to herself and then smiles back at Luna – she wants to get to the Room before Malfoy leaves, and not be held up by small-talk. Today might be the day she finally manages to catch Malfoy in the act, whatever it is he's doing. But she can't just brush Luna off, either.
"I suppose so. But Luna, who on earth did that to your hair?"
"Oh, I did," Luna says happily as the two girls start walking again, heading up the stairs side-by-side. "I thought that if people thought I'd already had a joke played on me, they'd leave me alone." It's actually quite a clever idea, and reminds Hermione why the odd girl is in Ravenclaw. Luna brushes a hand through the thin green stems sprouting from her head, admiring the tiny lilies that dangle at the ends. "It's quite pretty, don't you think?"
Hermione laughs softly to herself; she thinks it looks exceedingly strange, but doesn't say so, just comments neutrally, "It's a very good idea, Luna," because it is. Better to have something odd happen to you that you chose, rather than be like Dean who has gone to the infirmary because his eyes refuse to un-cross, or Ron who spent an hour this morning trapped in the boys' bathroom when someone glued him to the toilet, or Ginny who is walking around with purple hair and beard – the youngest Weasley told Hermione she rather likes the hair, but the beard is not appreciated.
Luna peels off from Hermione with a wave, and older witch continues up the stairs taking them two at a time, heading for the seventh floor. She has borrowed the Map with Harry and Ron's knowledge, telling them she wants to keep trying to find out what Malfoy is doing – which gets their full blessing, of course – and when he disappeared out of the Great Hall immediately after dinner, she checked it and saw him heading towards the seventh floor, not the dungeons. And now, he is apparently in the Room, doing whatever it is that involves a cabinet, dead mouse, a tie, knickers and a skirt. She chews on her lip, nervous. She has also borrowed the invisibility cloak from Harry, and hopes she can quietly gain access to the Room and spy on Malfoy from beneath the cloak, with him being none the wiser.
It takes her ten minutes to persuade the Room to open a small door for her to creep through under the cloak, and when she gets inside she sees past heaped piles of furniture and other oddments that Malfoy hasn't noticed the small door opening and closing silently. She watches him through a gap in the furniture, able to see his blonde head and shoulders. He is looking pale and worried, muttering under his breath. She moves enough that she can see him open the cabinet and remove a…dead bird? Hermione's heart throbs in her chest and her breath comes shallow and fast. She moves a little closer, and through a heap of precariously stacked chairs, can see his hand closed around a live bird, which he thrusts into the cabinet and shuts the door on, still muttering beneath his breath, sounding terrified and desperate.
He waits silently, and then after a few moments, opens the door again, and moans in despair, pulling out the same bird he'd put in there, which now appears dead, as far as Hermione can tell from her vantage point. He swears and kicks the cabinet and then sinks out of view, his face contorting. Hermione holds her breath as the sounds of wretched sobs fill the Room; Malfoy is crying as though his heart is going to break, and her own heart cannot help but wrench for him. Hermione doesn't like to see anyone suffer, not even Malfoy. Especially not with the way he has been acting lately; so civil, and unlike his usual self. She crouches down beneath the cloak and tries to block out the sound of his pitiful sobs, and focus on what on earth he might be trying to do with the cabinet.
Hermione loses herself in thought as she racks her brain for ideas, and her legs are stiff and sore from crouching when a different sound jerks her out of her own head. A whimper. She berates herself for letting her mind wander like that – she shouldn't be so in attentive. All right, she had the invisibility cloak to keep her from being discovered, but she still shouldn't let her guard down like that. Another muffled whimper is carried on the musty air, and Hermione's face goes hot. What…? She hears Malfoy curse aloud, and then his voice mutters, "Stupid Hufflepuff bitch. Worthless piece of fucking scum."
Hermione gasps and then claps a hand over her mouth, sneaking around the furniture quietly as possible. Does he have a girl in here? Is it that third year she saw? Is he…is he hurting her? Hermione's blood runs cold and she realises that she really doesn't want to believe that of Malfoy. Somehow her loathing of him has…vanished, and she's not sure why or when it is has happened, but she doesn't hate him anymore, not even a little. Some of the old feelings rush back in though, as she thinks of Malfoy hurting a poor third year Hufflepuff girl, taking out his bigoted hatred on her. She circles around behind piles of furniture, no longer able to see him from her previous vantage, her blood boiling as she though of Malfoy abusing another student like that. It's unbelievable, and if true, utterly awful and she will see him expelled for it, the bastard.
She moves out into the open nervously, and then she sees him. Malfoy is leaning back against an old ornate bookcase, staring at himself in the mirror. Hermione's eyes go round and she clamps her hand over her mouth to muffle the horrified gasp that breaks her lips. For a moment she is certain it is some twisted kind of April Fools joke, but it can't be. Oh Merlin. Draco Malfoy is fallen back against the bookcase in a girl's uniform with the Hufflepuff tie on, staring at himself in the mirror, his face a mask of pure loathing and his lips muttering insults and moaning pleasure, with the skirt rucked up and peach silk knickers pushed down, one hand fisted around his p-p-penis. Hermione nearly chokes on her own saliva, hands over her mouth, silently gibbering in her head, her cheeks so hot she feels like she's going to spontaneously combust. She tears her eyes away from the sight of him, but then unwillingly, inexorably, her gaze is pulled back.
His head is thrown back against the bookcase; hair dishevelled, cheeks pink with arousal, eyes slitted and glazed, teeth denting into his full bottom lip. His breath comes in little hitches and gasps as he mutters terrible, horrible things to himself, and Hermione is…aroused. She is undeniably, sickeningly, horrifyingly aroused by the sight of Malfoy wanking in girl's clothes and mocking himself cruelly. She cannot deny it, much as she longs to. The sight sets off an unwelcome throbbing twinge between the flesh between her legs, and her stomach curls and twists, her heart jitters in her chest. The flush in her cheeks, however, is all embarrassment. His penis – oh god, oh Merlin, Hermione is staring at Malfoy's penis – seems disconcertingly large from here, and his hand pumps up and down it in fierce, small movements, his hips snapping out as he stares into the mirror.
She wants to keep watching. She tells herself it is like a train wreck – so terrible one can't tear their eyes away, but that is a lie. There is something horribly, perversely attractive about Malfoy in this moment, although the things he's saying – what he's wearing makes Hermione want to cringe with sympathetic embarrassment. Oh Merlin. Hermione moans quietly to herself in horror. She wishes desperately that she had never come up here. That she had never paid any attention to Malfoy. His face is taut with strain, and he is gasping now, glazed and flushed with arousal, and Hermione is still watching. Oh this is so wrong, in so many ways.
But she cannot seem to look away – she is still in shock, stunned senseless by the scene in front of her. Malfoy's oxford shirt – his own, not a girl's – is unbuttoned, exposing an expanse of pale, smooth skin, his stomach concave – he looks like a greyhound, he is so thin, his ribs clearly visible beneath his flesh, his nipples a pale pink. Hermione gulps. The yellow and black Hufflepuff tie is knotted loosely around his neck, his feet are bare, his long legs leanly muscled and smattered with pale hair. He is unavoidably an attractive specimen if a trifle thin, and he is not half as ferrety as he used to be. But then her eyes reach Malfoy's skirt…the knickers, his penis…when Hermione's gaze casts over those, she loses all ability to think coherently, and begins silently gibbering again. She thinks she may start hyperventilating in a moment.
Malfoy is utterly vulnerable in this moment, all barriers down, and the self-loathing on his thin features is painful to see; it makes Hermione's heart hurt for him. In this moment, thinking himself completely alone, Malfoy is showing his true face and it is pain, shame, and a hungry, wild sort of greed. Hermione stands transfixed beneath the protective draping shelter of the cloak for a long moment, numbed and mind blanked by the enormity of what she sees. And then she realises belatedly what she is doing; how she is violating Malfoy with this intrusion, and she is horrified and disgusted by herself. Oh god. Hermione's brain snaps back into some semblance of working order, and she turns to flee in a daze.
In her haste to get away, Hermione trips over the curled edge of an old rug, and without thinking she grabs at a hatstand to regain her balance, and only succeeds in bringing it down with her. With an undignified, loud grunt of surprise, Hermione goes crashing to her face on the floor with the hatstand on top of her. She freezes, praying to the gods of fortune and luck that the cloak hasn't come off her and Malfoy will just assume the hatstand falling was not caused by a person but a natural slippage of furniture. If so, she can just lie here until he eventually leaves. Hermione has very little hopes on that score, though. Malfoy is not an idiot. Merlin, what a mess. She hears Malfoy make a horrified, choking sound as she prays to herself, and the sound of clothing moving. He must be changing, she thinks, and wonders what her chances are of getting to the door before Malfoy changes and finds her.
But within seconds – he must have used magic to change so quickly – his footsteps are running towards her. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. He's going to murder her. He's going to bloody murder her and stuff her body in that mysterious cabinet. Or something. The hatstand is lifted off her body and flung aside, and Hermione realises she is done for and rolls over quick as lightning, flinging off the cloak, her hand darting for her wand. But Malfoy's wand is already drawn, and he jabs it into her throat, staying her movements. And then he realises that it is her, and his features twist and fall with something that looks frighteningly like…betrayal? Horror? Despair? Fear? All of them, and more, as though he is ashamed she found him, as though he is disappointed she would spy on him. As though…
"Granger," he says in a husky voice that is shaking with rage, and Hermione whimpers, and shuts her eyes against him. But a hand grabs her by the shirt front and hauls her up, popping several buttons off her shirt, and her eyes fly open again, her hands flailing out. Malfoy shoves her up against a desk, and he is in trousers now, the tie gone, but his shirt is unbuttoned still and his feet still bare. His fringe flops forward into his eyes as he glares down at her, hand still fisted around her shirt, and his face is flushed and his eyes narrowed, the vein at his temple is pulsing. He shakes her like a dog shakes a rabbit in its jaws, and she gasps and whimpers again and the breath rattles out of her. He is so angry, but then so would she be, if he'd caught her doing the same sort of thing she'd…
"I'm sorry. I didn't know," she says pathetically, and his face shapes itself with sneering disgust. "Of course you didn't know! That was the fucking point Granger. Shit. Shit. Fucking shit." His eyes are flicking about, he is thinking hard, and Hermione doesn't know what he plans to do, and that scares her – and being scared makes her angry. "Let me go, Malfoy," she snaps and shoves at him, and he stumbles back half a step and then pushes forward again, using his body weight to press her against the desk. She fights him for a moment, but doesn't succeed in getting free, only succeeds in twisting against him in a way that reveals he is still erect, and a choked inhale rips through her, and for a moment their eyes connect. Malfoy licks his lips and his hips press outward slightly, into her lower belly, and his erection juts into her and Hermione gasps again. She feels light-headed, and frightened, and there is a pulsing heat between her legs that she is utterly confused and horrified by, but cannot deny.
"I won't tell anyone," she says breathlessly, as his cracked-glass grey eyes search over her face and settle on her lips. He clears his throat, and swallows, adam's apple bobbing. "How much did you see, Granger?"
She finds herself incapable of lying. "The dead bird," she says, her voice faint and vague. "The dead bird and the live one, and how it died, and you – the – well…"
"And you won't tell?" he asks scathingly, not believing her for a moment, and she can't blame him. Hermione blinks, lashes fluttering erratically, heart going like a freight train, his penis still erect and still digging into her, and she squirms with a perverse mix of want and revulsion, shoves at him but he is immoveable.
"I – I won't tell about your…" It is impossible to say. She stares at Malfoy helplessly, and he nods sharply, his mouth and jaw tightening. "About my repulsive, twisted predilections?"
"I believe Muggles mostly classify it as harmless kink, not repulsive predilections, Malfoy," Hermione says pertly, and remembers very sharply the loathing in him, the shame that still hovers there no matter how much he tries to hide it, and adds brusquely, "And there's absolutely nothing wrong with it."
"Oh, really, Granger? Well, the rest of the wizarding world doesn't agree with you, and I don't trust you to keep your big mouth shut when it's my reputation on the line. And I can't let you go about telling anyone about the cabinet, anyway."
She shoves at him ineffectively, and he jabs his wand against the side of her neck, his other hand still fisted in her shirt, his penis still erect. Hermione would wonder about the impressive single-mindedness of teenage boys and their hormones, except she is still aroused too, in a confused, frightened, muddled sort of way. A third of her brain is still gibbering at her, another third is frightened and angry, and the last third wants to kiss those full lips just inches from her. Hermione's hands grip his shoulders and she pictures him again, his head fallen back and his breath hitching and shuddering, and her fingers climb their way up to his hair, threading through the fine white blonde locks tenderly while Malfoy stares at her in frozen shock.
She is utterly mad. She has gone around the bend. She has completely lost it. She needs to be shipped off to St Mungo's, post-haste.
Malfoy bends his head down, towards Hermione, and she tilts her face up, and when their lips meet a shock runs through both of them, and her hands fist in his hair and he drops his wand with a clatter and clutches her to him almost frantically. His mouth is hot and he parts her lips expertly, tongue slipping into the wet warmth of her mouth, tracing the blunt edges of her teeth and swirling around her tongue, sending toe-curling, shuddering wrenches of arousal through her. She doesn't know what the hell she is doing, but Malfoy is moaning into her mouth, and one of his hands clutches her bum, and the other is flattened hard between her shoulder blades holding her close, and his lips are drawing the sweetest pleasure out of her.
Malfoy tastes how he smells – like spices and a clean, damp heat, and Hermione is tangled with him, mindless and helpless, pressed against the desk with his erection pressing into her and her fingers knotted in his hair, and it is good. It is a good madness that she welcomes, throwing caution and reason and everything but this to the winds, wrapped in Malfoy's arms, kissing Malfoy's mouth so wantonly and so eagerly it should embarrass her but it doesn't. But then, too soon, he drags himself back and sucks in a shocked breath, and she is panting, and so is he, and they stare at each other for a frozen second, a little bit of sanity intruding on the moment, and Hermione remembers what she should be doing.
"Wha–" She licks her lips, chest heaving as she stares up at Malfoy, who looks like a different person, his grey eyes bright and his lips kiss-reddened, desire for her – her, this is madness – written all over his face. His fingers come up and trail down her cheek and along the line of her jaw, a strange, frightened sort of wonder in his eyes. It is too much. She can't – can't understand…anything. Hermione tries again, trying to be focused because she needs to know, "What is the cabinet for, Malfoy?"
His face goes dark and stony, his eyes thunderclouds and his swollen, so-deliciously-kissable-lips flatten and go hard, he shoves himself back from Hermione and scoops up his wand. She pulls hers automatically, getting her aim on him at the same time as he points his wand tip at her. "Stop!" she cries frantically, everything she knows about who Malfoy is now, running through her head. He is not the Malfoy she thought he was – is he? Hermione doesn't know. She doesn't know anything, anymore. Nothing at all. She is adrift and her conceptions of who Malfoy is are torn apart, and she doesn't quite know how it happened. Except she does.
That first 'please' he had said to her, when they'd run into each other in the corridor. His tears in the prefects' bathroom and the quiet 'thank you' he had given her. The distant civility he treated her with instead of his usual contempt. How he had helped her to the hospital wing. The afternoon they had passed reading companionably, and the choked way he said her name when she fled. All the faint near-smiles he had given her across the classroom or the Great Hall. The miserable terror and desperation that seemed to be eating him up from the inside out. The self-loathing on his face as he stared in the mirror before while he… That is how it happened. The little moments that made them both people in each others' eyes, all the little moments.
Hermione gasps for panicked breath. She should hate Malfoy, but she can't. She feels for him. Not just general human compassion, either, but desire and – and caring. This is utterly unacceptable, but it is fact and Hermione admits it to herself. But that doesn't change what Malfoy is doing in here with those creatures and the cabinet, why he cried when the bird came back dead. She knows it is not good; she can feel it is the sort of thing that cannot be good. It can't. There is no good that comes of locking animals in cabinets and taking them out a few minutes later, dead, with displaced organs. That is Dark magic, and Hermione's chest hurts.
"What is it for, Malfoy? The cabinet. I – I have to know. I have to."
"If you tell anyone about this, I'll – I'll –" Malfoy says, ignoring her question. His hands are on Hermione's shoulders like he wants to shake her, but instead they are petting at her helplessly and trembling, as if he is caught between desires. He doesn't quite look angry, he looks…torn. Confused. Horrified. His lips tremble and his eyes are fixed on her face, his threat trailing off into impotency. Hermione clutches her hands together in front of her, stifling the mad urge to touch Malfoy and calm him. She swallows dryly, throat feeling thick.
"I – I won't. I won't tell. I swear."
Malfoy frowns in swift bewilderment. "Why?" His voice is soft and rough, and Hermione can barely meet his eyes, her heart pounding and her head swimming. "Because…because…" Because of his misery and his odd almost kindnesses lately, but mostly because of the way it had felt when they'd kissed just now – the fact that they had kissed at all. Hermione's hands snap out and seize his still unbuttoned shirt, and she pushes up onto her toes – mad mad mad – and her lips press firm against his again. There is a frozen moment of indecision where his mouth is horribly unresponsive under hers, and then his fingers clamp down hard on her shoulders and his lips part.
Malfoy does not kiss like Hermione thought he would, although she doesn't know how she thought he'd kiss. He kisses with a trembling, barely controlled ferocity, his lips moving soft but insistent, his tongue teasing and dipping, his teeth nibbling, and his fingers digging bruises into her flesh. Hermione loses her breath and drags it in through her nose rather than part from him and end this moment, her tongue tangling with Malfoy's. He is so hot and so slick, and all clutching, half-angry desperation. Twining thrills run down her spine and arousal coils like a snake in her belly, writhing and greedy. She smells him, tastes him, feels him, and it is unlike anything she could have ever expected…and she likes it.
They kiss for mere moments although it feels endless while they are clung together, but then reality reasserts itself roughly and Draco's hands jerk back, and his mouth pulls away. For a brief second, Hermione feels utterly bereft – wants to go after his mouth and catch it again, but she shoves the wild urge down. They stand panting and staring at each other, Hermione's fingers flexing with the desire to wrap in the smooth, crisp fabric of his shirt again. She wrings her hands together instead, speechless and dizzied.
You tell, and I'll fucking –"
"I won't." Hermione licks her lips and stares at Malfoy, so frightened, so confused. She doesn't know what just happened, but it was momentous, and she has no idea how to cope with it at all. She narrows her eyes at him, trying to find her equilibrium by reverting to her snappish self. "I should tell; I should." She swallows hard. "But I won't."
Malfoy's face tightens, his lips whitening and lines appearing around his shadowed eyes. "Why did you do that?" he asks, and Hermione knows he means the touches to his shoulders and neck that ended with her fingers curled in his hair, and his lips meeting hers. Her eagerness and the moans that had broken from her mouth into his. And then there was her initiation of the second kiss and the fierce desire that had bubbled up inside her, from where she has no idea. Two kisses. Two of them. Oh Merlin, what has she done? Hermione sucks in a deep breath. She tells him the stark, unadorned truth.
"Because I wanted to."
Malfoy's face flashes over with pain and anger, and he turns and walks away toward his bag without another word. But she can't let him go, not like this. Hermione stamps her foot like a child, furious and shrill. "Don't you dare just walk away from me!" she half-shrieks, tears in her eyes, and he freezes. And then he grabs up his bag and turns around, walking back to her, his eyes dark in his white face. He stops a pace away from Hermione, looking coldly down at her, but she can see the trapped desperation lurking in his eyes behind the mask.
"Why the fuck not, Granger? Why would I stay here?"
She blinks back tears. "What…what was – is this? I – I can't – I don't –"
"You tell me," he demands sharp and low, and tears cloud Hermione's eyes, making Malfoy look wavery and indistinct. She doesn't know. There's nothing she can say. Malfoy nods, his features stony. "Exactly. Exactly," he says, his eyes dark and icy as he stares down at her. "This – this is nothing. Nothing at fucking all."
Hermione stands rooted to the ground as he turns and walks for the doors, his bag slung over one shoulder. A shudder tears through her and she wrenches in a jagged breath just as the doors open for him. "Malfoy!" she calls frantically, clutching the edge of the desk behind her with white-knuckled fingers, feeling faint. He ignores her. "Draco!" she yells and his feet halt for a split second, and then he is walking again, and he is gone, and Hermione is left a gasping wreck alone in the Room.
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