I know, I know. I'm blowing through these chapters alarmingly quickly. Perhaps too quickly? Now that I've got the story planned out this time, I've actually gotten a few chapters ahead, but I'm considering spacing them out to about once a week, in case that's a more reasonable update schedule than sporadically throughout the day and night. Opinions?
Please leave me a review if you are so inclined!
DISCLAIMER: None of this is mine except for the actual words
Draco had lain in bed that night, awake and alone, knowing that his best friend and a dirty Mudblood were just across the bathroom having it off. Probably loudly. Probably with silencing charms on every inch of the room. Draco found himself wondering if she was loud in the sack, if she used dirty words, if she demanded to be the one in charge. He rolled his eyes. That certainly fit her character. Not that he'd mind, of course. Might be rather interesting to—Draco expelled the thought from his mind with a quick shake of his head. There would be none of that. Though he'd have loved to pretend he was angry and disgusted, his prominent erection was giving him a difficult time of it. He'd wanked three times before forcing himself to sleep, and when he woke up he'd wanked twice more.
Hermione in bed with a Slytherin.
Nevermind that the Slytherin wasn't exactly him, per se. Blaise was a Slytherin, and a Pureblood, and an arrogant little prick. He and Draco were nearly interchangeable, if you were only able to get past the empathy and the natural caring that Blaise possessed and Draco lacked. Even her friends knew, Draco mused, and Blaise still hadn't been jinxed to oblivion. He smirked. Those bloody Gryffindors were too trusting for their own bloody good. Perhaps, if a Slytherin had already won their hearts so easily, it wouldn't be so hard for old Draco to sneak in and sample the little princess for himself.
After all, Blaise had told him to give her a try.
And so, as he spent the day seated directly behind the witch, eyes searing holes through her robes as she preoccupied him once again with her captivating indifference, Draco made up his mind.
There was only one thing to do.
"Granger!" Draco called out. He watched with satisfaction as she jumped a foot into the air, shoulders shooting up beside her ears.
"Yes?" she answered wearily, glancing around to see if anyone was watching their exchange.
"What's the matter, Granger, embarrassed to be seen with me?" Draco mocked, closing the gap between them. Hermione rolled her eyes, clutching her textbook to her chest and tapping her foot against the cold stone in annoyance.
"Not in the slightest," she answered coolly. "I was just under the impression that we'd had a deal, that's all."
"And what, exactly, was that?" Draco crooned, taking another step towards her. Hermione gave him a pointed look of confusion, as if he were positively mad, and made a matching step in the opposite direction.
"That you would leave me bloody well alone," she shot back defiantly, perching her hand upon her hip in typical Hermione fashion. Draco grinned and she sighed exasperatedly. "Honestly, Malfoy, what is it? It can't be our duties, since we've been perfectly capable of managing them without speaking thus far."
"No," Malfoy responded slowly.
"What, then?" she pressed, her foot tapping still in annoyance. "Help with your studies?" she scoffed.
He scoffed in return. They both knew perfectly well how good his marks were.
"Come to apologize for how horrible you've been?" He rolled his eyes and raised his eyebrows at her in a mocking gesture.
"Then what is it, Malfoy?" Hermione inquired impatiently. She sneered at him and took a half-step closer, breaching his personal space as she leaned up to whisper. "Come to talk to me about girls?" Their sudden proximity sent a not-altogether unpleasant shiver down his spine, but he recovered quickly, forcing his expression from one of eager surprise into one of cool nonchalance as she retracted her lips from the skin at the side of his neck.
She searched his face for a reaction, determination etched into her features, and then huffed her amusement, rolled her eyes, and turned prissily away with her nose in the air.
Draco caught her about the wrist instantly, spinning her to face him as her mouth opened in shock. He gripped both shoulders and held her still, his nose mere inches from hers.
"Yes, actually," he drawled, voice dropping to its lowest registers. To his extreme pleasure, she shivered and shut her eyes, turning her head to the side and unconsciously exposing her neck.
"Let go of me, Malfoy," Hermione bit, thrashing her arm about in an effort to wrench it from his grasp. She stayed unpanicked, he noticed, though they were currently in a rather crowded hallway and he had her hands pinned against the wall as she struggled against him. She seemed mostly annoyed. Non threatened. Passing students assumed they were in some sort of Head Students' quarrel—must be common, with two such headstrong characters—and paid them no mind, save for a sidelong glance.
"So you've heard, then?" he asked softly, cocking his head to one side. He was unable to keep the triumphant grin from spilling across his features and Hermione stilled herself, glaring at him with animalistic ferocity.
"Of course I've heard," she answered. Draco was surprised at the levelness of her voice.
"And what did you think?" he murmured, leaning his head down to nuzzle the side of her neck.
Hermione kneed him sharply in the upper thigh and he doubled over, groaning in pain and anger.
"I didn't think anything at all," she answered flatly, stepping out from behind him and crossing her arms. "What you do is none of my business."
"Bitch!" Draco managed to gasp. She tutted at him, shaking her head lightly.
"Is that all you wanted? To ask if I can hear your barbarous grunts from the Common Room behind my door?" Here she added a few gorilla-like noises, leaning in closer to mock him fiercely. Draco colored slightly but ignored her.
"That's not all you heard," he dismissed, rubbing at his leg as he stood up and regained his composure. Now it was Hermione's turn to blush.
"What d'you mean?" she asked stupidly, her shoulders retracting away from him.
"Come, now, Granger," Draco cooed, doing his damnedest to ooze that scintillating Malfoy charm from every pore in his body. He stepped towards her again, chest first, pressing into her before she was able to scuttle fearfully away. "Surely you must be curious?" he hummed against her, his fingers coming up to play lightly behind her ear. She recoiled but did not pull away, and he searched her face with lazy half-lidded eyes, a smirk at his lips. She met his gaze with malice, chest heaving in the narrowing space between them. "Surely, even a pretty little prude like you must wonder what exactly it is I do to those witches, hm?" he coaxed. A rough red blotch spread its way from her neck across to her cheeks, and Hermione broke eye contact for a fraction of a second, eyelashes fluttering, before meeting him once again. "That's a good girl," he murmured, and he felt Hermione stiffen as his head bent down to her neck once more.
"Just what on earth do you think you're—" Hermione whispered icily, but Draco continued as if he hadn't heard.
"Besides," he smirked, his breath hot as he pressed first his cheek, then his nose, against her tender flesh. "I've found recently that you're not quite the prude you'd like us all to believe, after all."
He felt, rather than heard, the hard crack of his back against stone, and he winced as he rubbed the back of his head, stars exploding behind his eyelids.
"What do you mean?" Hermione demanded. As he blinked her back into focus he was dimly aware of the point of her wand at his jugular vein. Draco snickered.
"Come on, love, there's no need for that," he assured, encircling her hand with his own and drawing the wand away from himself. "We're just having a conversation."
"What do you mean?" she asked again, snatching her hand away from his, defiant as ever. Draco huffed impatiently and experimentally tested a grab at her waist. She brushed it away.
"I just meant that I've heard of your little escapades, too, Granger, and I must say I was a bit…surprised? As I'm sure anyone who knows you would be," he added with a flippant gesture of his hand.
Hermione lowered her wand and scoffed at him. "Oh, is that what you think?" she sneered, clearly incensed.
"But I must say," he continued, pawing at her hips as she twisted away from him, "if a Pureblood was able to touch your filthy skin without soiling himself, then I dare say it mustn't be too bad, hm?"
A sharp tearing sensation blasted through Draco's fingers and up to his left shoulder and he cried out in pain and alarm. He jumped away from her and, with a shaking hand, tore his robes back. She'd burned him! She'd bloody burned him, the crazy bint! He gaped open-mouthed at the scar she'd left behind: a bright, white map of tissue imprinted at the front of his left forearm.
"OW!" Draco roared in indignation, brandishing his new disfigurement in front of her face. "You nasty little bitch! You Mudblood! You pathetic excuse for a witch! You filthy Muggle!"
Hermione had turned her back and was pacing in wide circles, one hand in her bushy hair, the other clutching her wand so tightly her knuckles had turned white.
"Oh, BLOODY romantic, Malfoy, that's what you are!" she screeched at him. She applauded dramatically, shifting her weight onto one leg, skin flushed with fury. "Exactly what I want to hear, exactly the way to woo a girl, bravo!" she yelled, her movements erratic and frenzied. "Oh, it wouldn't be so bad to touch my 'filthy skin,' would it? Oh, thank you so much, Malfoy, thank you!" she laughed dangerously. He recoiled slightly and she whirled around to face him. "You're a fucking freak is what you are!" she shrilled, voice rising dangerously close to that dying chinchilla decibel level he loathed. He winced and covered one ear in response. She punctuated the following with furious stamps of her foot, bellowing through the corridor: "If you ever think for one instant that I'd ever in my life have any sexual attraction to a prejudiced—loathsome—ignorant—vile—bloody foul little toad like you, then please, by all means, tell me immediately so I can have you sent away forever to St. Mungo's where you belong!"
Draco watched, stupefied, as her chest rose and fell, her skin damp with perspiration, her breathing ragged and her eyes dark, cheeks burning bright red with passion. She inhaled deeply before continuing, her voice steady and even.
"You're lucky my Muggle mother raised such a good witch," Hermione bit, venom dripping from her words, "because there's nothing I'd like more right now than to wring your neck. Wandless. The way a Mudblood would do it."
Draco didn't remember her leaving.
He didn't even remember leaving himself.
All he remembered was being in double potions, hours later, and finding himself curiously unable to muster more than one concealed glance at the girl every five or six minutes. Something unfamiliar had wound itself into the pit of his stomach, and his ears singed (along with the burn on his left arm) whenever he dared a peek at the Gryffindor in front of him.