Mid-May 1998
N.E.W.T.s are almost upon them, and Hermione spends much of her time in the library, revising. She hasn't seen Malfoy except in classes since their last run-in two weeks ago, but then her rounds have been turned over to a sixth year Prefect to allow her more time for her studies, and so she hasn't had much of an opportunity to wander onto one of his secret reading spots – if he still maintains them, that is.
That's why, when the First Folio appears on the table beside her one day, accompanied by a familiar set of hands, she sighs in something akin to relief.
Malfoy slaps the pile of books at her elbow and whistles with amazement. "What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?"
Hermione gives Malfoy an arch look over her shoulder. "Funny. Benedick you are not, either – although it is nice to know you're reading the comedies, not just the historicals and the tragedies." She nudges her chin at the book he lays a possessive hand upon. "Any chance I might see that back where it belongs any time soon?"
His grin is slow and does silly, inappropriate things to her traitorous heart.
"Think I'll keep it. Does that bother you?"
"O, what men dare do! What men may do! What men daily do, not knowing what they do!" she quotes Much Ado About Nothing, appearing unfazed despite the fact his words imply a long-term ownership… which hints he'll be around a while. This slightly mollifies her worries where he is concerned.
As he takes back in his arms the book she's beginning to (improperly) consider his, he chuckles down at her. "If I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in my heart to bestow it all of your worship."
What a sweet-talker.
What rubbish.
"You, sir, are an impertinent, flap-mouthed measel," she huffs.
"And you, lady, are a saucy, dizzy-eyed strumpet."
She gasps and stares up at him. "I am not!"
His gaze is heated and wicked, filled with impish pleasure. "No, you're not," he admits. "What a shame."
Before she can formulate a come-back, Cormac McLaggen rounds the aisle. A repeat seventh-year student for reasons Hermione still is unclear about (that knowledge is kept strictly confidential by the school board and staff, but she suspects it is because McLaggen failed the majority of his N.E.W.T.s due to contracting Dragon Pox the previous May), he frequently bothers her for 'homework advise' – which is really code for sexually harassing her.
From the way he slows and the expression on his face, it is obvious that McLaggen is taken aback seeing her talking with another boy – a Slytherin and a Malfoy, especially. That doesn't stop him from approaching and attempting to establish what he wrongly assumes is his territory where Hermione is concerned, however. "Hey, Granger," he smoothly greets with a fox's smile. "Wanna help me with my Transfiguration?"
She sighs and turns back to her own reading. "You'd be better off practicing your Charms."
Yes, the double entendre is intentional.
"Excuse us, will you?" Cormac addresses Malfoy in an impolite, dismissive manner.
Hermione glances up at Draco, but his concentration is focussed on her Housemate. That familiar scornful-haughty expression he's worn off and on for years–the one that makes him appear to turn his nose up, as if he's smelled something foul in the air–darkens his features once again. It is a face she'd hoped never to see again, but it seems McLaggen has triggered it… and so she knows what comes next.
"Of course. Wouldn't want to stand in the way of unrequited love," he sneers and tosses McLaggen a nasty smirk before walking off.
Cormac seems unaffected by the insult and calls to his rival's retreating back, "Who says it's unrequited?"
Hermione's had enough! McLaggen's stalking and his crude innuendo has reached a boiling point, and that he's interrupted a potentially interesting conversation that she might have had with Malfoy only aggravates her all the more.
She stands up and faces her annoying Housemate.
Her slap is loud in the hushed library.
Someone nearby sniggers.
End-May 1998
With N.E.W.T.s finished, Hermione has time to breathe… and to think. Which is never a good occupation when a war hovers upon one's door.
She is restless and nervous, and Ron and Harry are not helping. All they discuss is who will join their cause, who will run or hide, and who will be Voldemort's to command. Malfoy is, of course, expected to be amongst the latter, and her friends will not consider otherwise, no matter her arguments.
Keeping Draco's confidence has been difficult. She wants to shout at them that he's planning to go undercover and betray his father's Master, but a part of her worries that will jeopardize his life. What if she tells the wrong person and their mind is read with Legilimency?
What if she says nothing however and Malfoy is killed in battle by an Order member by mistake? The thought haunts her, and she wrestles with her conscience as to what is the right course of action this time.
Wandering the castle, continuing to fulfill her duty as Head Girl until the last helps to distract her more morbid thoughts. She catches several couples out after curfew and sends them on their way. House points aren't exchanged, and her bark lacks bite tonight. In all honesty, her heart just isn't in it.
She finds Draco sitting at one of the round tables in the Divination Classroom, drinking what appears to be a steaming cup of tea – and he is reading the First Folio by the light of his wand. Quietly, she shuts and locks the door and casts a Muffliato over the room, to assure their conversation can't be heard by outsiders. Tonight, she decides, she will attempt to talk him out of his mission once more.
A small smile hovers over his mouth as she walks up to his table, but he doesn't look at her, his gaze fixed on the book in his hands.
"May I join you?"
His smile blooms into a grin. "You're going to do it whether I want you to or not."
"True," she concedes, and takes the seat next to him, plunking her bottom into the chair. There's no pause; she comes right out with what she wants to say. "I really want you to reconsider your plan."
"And I want McLaggen to drop dead," he zips back. "We can't always get what we want. Although I hear you slapped him as hard as you slapped me that one time, so that does much to alleviate my need to murder him."
"Draco," she sighs, and presses two fingers to her forehead, frustrated by his flippancy over such a serious matter.
Just his name passing her lips is enough to gird him into action. He sets down the First Folio, and scoots his chair so that it abuts hers. With his knees splayed wide to either side of his seat, he leans forward and places a hand on the back of her chair, shoving his face into hers. "Forget trying to sway me and answer me this instead: what is this… unnatural hold you seem to have over me?"
Their eyes meet and her breath catches. "I should ask you the same thing."
As if drawn forward against his will, he closes in on her. "I think I get it. You're her, aren't you? You're the Muse of fire." His heavy-lidded gaze drops to her mouth again. "My Muse."
Muse? Is he perhaps speaking of the opening line from Henry V – that unknown inspiration the Chorus cries out for, which they believe will save their play?
Her eyes dart to the open book on the table, and she sees that, yes, it is opened to that exact first page of the story.
"Are you saying I'm your… salvation?"
She means it as a halfhearted joke, but the serious, concentrated look on his face has her reconsidering a smile.
"Maybe. Probably," he replies. "I'm not sure. I only know this… what we're doing is the most dangerous thing I've ever done."
"Me, too," Hermione admits. And she does. She recognises how foolish it is seeking him out time and again, allowing her curiosity to direct her closer, considering things about him that she really oughtn't. This driving need to understand him, however, to unlock each of his coded secrets is a kind of madness that has overtaken her this year, and now it is too late to put this doom back into Pandora's Box.
Glancing up at him, she can't decide if he is the fool rebel, Jack Cade, or the ambitious Sir Pierce of Exton, or the nihilistic Hamlet, or if is he all of those combined? And what is her part in his play? Does he perceive her to be the virtuous, but ill-fated Hermione from The Winter's Tale, the hellion Katherina, or–dare she even consider it?–his forbidden Juliet? A corner of her heart fears knowing the answer, and yet…
"But I don't want to end this," she reveals. Perhaps unwisely but honesty, her daring side provokes her to tell all. She tosses her thoughts and feelings at his feet, just as she had at Ron after the whole Lavender incident, and waits to see what happens. That hadn't ended so well for her, but perhaps this time might not be such a tragic crash and burn. "I don't want to not find you reading that book. I don't want its stories and its messages to disappear from your life. I…" Recalling Dumbledore's words, she reaches out and places a hand over his. "I don't want to stop talking to you like this."
He seems tortured by her declaration, teetering on the edge of an abyss she can't fathom, much less save him from falling into. "You're supposed to tell me to bugger off," he hisses in gentle rebuke. "To slap my face and push me away. To hate me for… for everything I've done."
It's as close to an apology she's likely to ever get for their past.
She'll take it. "I don't want to do those things."
He stares at her mouth again. "I almost wish you would."
"Why?"
With resigned determination, he moves in and there is no question this time what he plans. "Because your forgiveness changes everything."
Hermione shuts her eyes. It seems an interminable wait before she feels him against her, however, and then his cold lips do not go where she anticipates. They brush against the smooth expanse of her throat rather than cover her mouth. She's not sure if she's more disappointed than relieved, or vice-versa.
"What you do to me," he confesses in a soft, but fervent voice into her ear. "What you make me think. How you make me feel! You and that bloody book! I've tried so hard not to–" He falters and expels a defeated sigh, his anger seeming to blow away like leaves under a strong, north wind.
As is their custom, she verbally nudges him. "Not to what?"
She doesn't think he's going to answer at first, but then he surprises her again.
"Give in."
"I wish you would," she admits.
"Maybe I will."
With a soft brush of skin, his mouth caresses over a spot above her racing blood's pulse that causes Hermione to tremble from head to toe. He does it again, and again, until the kissing becomes open-mouthed and wet, until his tongue laps velvety-smooth over her responsive flesh. When his teeth nip her, marking the territory, an unexpected moan slips from between her lips.
The sound of her consent is all he needs to hear. The hand resting on the back of the chair lifts and tangles in her curls, holding her head captive as he changes the angle. He slips the other arm around her waist and pulls her forward onto him. She is half on her chair and half on his, sitting between his wide legs. With gentle suckling and licks and kisses, he explores the sensitivity of her skin at her throat, then her ear, following an invisible path under her jaw, until at last, he turns her head and claims her mouth.
His kiss is devastating and Hermione reels at its power over her. It washes over her like a wave of heat, liquefying her bones, compelling her surrender to the inevitable. She does, without hesitation.
Draco groans with approval as she gives in, and it is a sound unlike any she's ever heard a male make: something between pain and arousal, and 'thank God'. Solid shoulders bunch and move under her hands as he stands and lifts her from the waist. Their mouths do not unlock as he takes her to the floor.
Using the wand still clenched in her hand, he moves various chair pillows around so they cushion their bodies against the hard floor, and then he un-wraps her like a fine present, revealing and discovering every inch of her with wonder and gentleness. How careful he is, and yet at the same time, how passionate! When he enters her, he slides deep and true, filling her with the fine heft of him and having her as no one has before or will ever again.
He pauses, waits for her signal that all is well, and then he drops his head into her shoulder and goes for it, stroking boldly, powerfully into her. As they move together, uniting and withdrawing, it is all Hermione can do to catch her breath.
Her heart in her mouth, she lives the experience, refusing to let her brain ruin this moment. Anon, there will be time for doubts.
It seems forever that they make love, and yet it is still too soon for her when he finishes, gasping against her cheek. She cradles him in her arms in the aftermath, sore but pleasantly so, and tries not to let go of the moment.
Later, when they are redressed, there are no words of love and she leaves before him. It is only when she is back in her dormitory minutes later, lying under her familiar blankets, that the enormity of their recklessness hits home: between her thighs, she can still feel his warm, sticky seed.
Beginning-June 1998
School ends without any resolution to this strange, new relationship she and Draco secretly cultivate.
In the two weeks since their first sexual encounter, he has made it his mission to hunt her down at random opportunities and to remind her of his hold over her. He pulls her into shadowy nooks, corners her against window sills, and takes her as he finds her. He recites something of Shakespeare's wisdom or romance in her ear every time he slides home into her welcoming embrace - and yes, she is always willing no matter the madness of it all. More than willing, actually.
As the days pass and the touches become more frantic, she finds that falling in love with Draco Malfoy has been an easier task to accomplish than she'd thought possible. To her great disappointment, however, he no longer carries around the First Folio. In fact, she is shocked to find it now, this last day of school, back on the shelf that is its home. He has cast it aside.
Will he do the same with her after today?
She gets her answer as he rounds the corner in a quick stride, coming at her like a freight train. He must have known she would be here, this last day, waiting for him, and now he has come for her for one final confrontation.
It goes differently than she expects. Rather than a shouting match, his mouth is on hers before she can utter his name, and then she is pressed against the wall so she cannot escape him. As he ravages her, all she can wonder is if Romeo's kiss had stolen Juliet's heart as thoroughly as Draco Malfoy's steals hers, and she finally understands the absolute desperation that drove the protagonists of that story to their doom.
As one of Draco's hands slips down over her thigh, raising her skirt, a throat clears behind him. They both freeze.
"Hermione, Professor McGonagall is looking for you."
Harry.
Oh, God!
Draco turns his head to look over his shoulder, snarling. "For fuck's sake, Potter, would fifteen extra minutes have killed you?"
The Invisibility Cloak falls away, revealing Harry nearby. "No, but it may kill you. Your father's at Hogsmeade already. He's waiting there for you to take you home."
Draco swears up a storm under his breath. "You're sure?"
Harry pushes his glasses back up onto his nose and nods. "Bill sent his Patronus with the message a few minutes ago."
"Fuck." Draco turns back to her. "I have to go. Just…" He looks at her with mountain ranges full of regret. "Just keep your head down, Granger, and don't take any unnecessary risks. I mean it."
"Wait- What's going on here?" she asks, sure she's missing something. From the looks tossed back and forth between Draco and her best friend, it almost seems as if they're in collusion. Does Harry already know of Draco's plans? Is he helping him?
Harry holds a hand out to her. "Come on, Hermione. We'll take the carriage together to the village."
"One more minute, for Salazar's sake!" Draco growls at her friend, and grabs her harder around the waist. He presses his forehead to hers, stares her in the eye, and looks to confess something important. His mouth opens, but what he whispers is not what she expected either: "Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much."
She can't appreciate his confession of feelings for her, as she's too sad by knowing what it means – that he's bidding her farewell. "You're not going to reconsider your plan, are you?" she murmurs, heartbroken.
He shakes his head once, confirming her worst fear.
"Then, this is goodbye."
He nods once.
It's unfair! It's foolish! It's wrong! She wants to shout as much at him, but it's clear from the iron in his gaze and the steel in his spine that he's made up his mind. Nothing she says now will sway him. All she can do is pray he survives what's coming – that they both do, and that when it's all over, there will be something left for them to salvage for themselves and for this thing between them.
Gripping him tightly, she kisses him with everything inside that she has to give. He responds with an equal passion. Their lips meld, joining them as their bodies have done just the night before. In those brief seconds, she tries to memorise the feel of his hard body against her bookish one, the exact flavour of the mint on his tongue, and the way they breathe each other in as their mouths reluctantly part as the kiss ends.
Tears wavering before her eyes, she begs him in a choked voice, "Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied."
His answer is a last, quick kiss… and then he lets her go and is out of sight before she can call him back.
Pressing hands firmly over her mouth, she muffles a lamenting wail, her loss so overwhelming it nearly staggers her. It isn't until Harry takes her into his arms that her knees give out and she lets herself fall.
June 1998-July 2002
It is a long war.
At the official start of it, she gives Harry the seashells Dumbledore had given her and tells him to use them as his Protean Charmed items for communication with Draco. Her best friend takes them from her trembling hand and she never sees them again.
Over the years, she hears of Draco's exploits on occasion, but she doesn't actually see him again… until the end.
TO BE CONCLUDED...
Author's Notes:
Please review!
Dramionelove's Adopt-A-Prompt Fest (dramionelove . livejournal . com) is still going on. Please check out all the new art & fanfic and leave a review, if you would!