Next chapter! Still not JK Rowling - thought I should probably say. Special thanks to Brigitte Nons and c0lorless r0ses for your reviews - as ever, they are always appreciated :) enjoy!
"All right," she whispered, "you'd better stay here tonight."
Hermione's words seemed to ring in the air. For a moment, they just stared at each other, the heat slowly rising in Draco's face.
Surely…surely she didn't mean…
He coughed nervously. "You don't mean…in the same bed, do you?"
Hermione went scarlet. "Of course not! I…I don't…I have a boyfriend!"
"I know, I just thought…"
"My pyjamas have bears on them!" she spluttered, "bears, Draco! If I wanted to seduce you I would not be wearing these pyjamas!"
Briefly, Draco wondered if Hermione had a different set of pyjamas that she would have worn if she'd wanted to seduce him. He wouldn't have put it past the meticulously organised Gryffindor to have something like that set aside. They were probably, short, lacy, that sort of thing. Maybe with frills or some of that gauzy, see-through stuff Pansy used to drop hints about…
Draco shook his head a little, his cheeks burning. He did not want to think about Hermione Granger in frills, or lace, and especially not that see-through stuff, and yet the images would not stop flickering through his head…
"Don't be ridiculous!" she snapped, her face as red as his, "I'll sleep in the armchair and you can have the bed."
Draco, lost in the realm of uncomfortable fantasies that, he imagined, made up Hermione Granger's pyjama drawer, was brought back down to earth with a bump.
"No, I'm not kicking you out of your own bed," he said, a blush still burning in his cheeks, "I'll take the chair."
She pursed her lips at him and folded her arms. "Look, you're hurt, you're tired, and you've just spent God knows how long hovering outside my window in the freezing cold. You are a guest in my room, and you are sleeping in the bed."
"Well, you're a lady!"
She snorted with laughter. "And you're an idiot, but you're still sleeping in the bed."
"Granger, I am not an idiot and I am not sleeping in that bed!"
"Well, neither am I!"
They glared at each other, fists clenched. Hermione's brown eyes were glaring at him, the ends of her hair crackling with electricity, and in that moment Draco knew that she was never going to give in.
So he crossed the room in two strides and scooped her up into his arms. She gave a little yelp of surprise and snatched at his tie, his jumper, crumbling the fabric underneath her slim fingers as she tried to grab for support. He could feel the warmth of her back resting against his cold arm and tried very hard not to think about his other hand, which was trembling against her thigh…
Draco took a deep breath and stared straight ahead. He could not look her in the face. He knew, with absolute certainty, that bad things would happen if he looked at her face in this moment. He didn't know what those bad things would be, but he didn't intend to find out.
He almost ran over to the bed and dropped Hermione on the mattress as if she were burning. Then he darted back across the room and threw himself into the armchair before she had time to so much as throw a pillow at him. He slumped into the chair, smirking up at her, and saw to his astonishment that she was blushing.
"There," he said, the smirk still plastered across his face, "you're in bed, and I'm in bed. Pleasant dreams, Granger."
Hermione's pillow sailed across the room and hit him in the chest. She extinguished the lights with an exasperated groan and a wave of her wand and Draco was left in the dark, a blush rising in his cheeks and the memory of Hermione Granger's warm body still tingling on his fingers.
It was the screaming that woke him.
He started awake and for a moment, in the unfamiliar darkness, it was as if he was back in Malfoy Manor, and his Aunt Bellatrix was downstairs with a knife and a victim and the old, crippling fear came flooding back – but then he looked around, and saw the embers of the dying fire, and remembered where he was.
Hermione was having a nightmare. She was tossing and turning in the bed, whimpering and whining. Every so often she'd let out a little scream or a yelp of pain that faded back into the frantic muttering.
He crossed over to her bed. He placed his hand on her shoulder – it was hot and clammy – and shook her awake. She started awake at once, panting as if she'd just run a marathon and staring up at him with real fear in her eyes, but then she relaxed, and slumped back onto her pillows, shaking.
"Are you all right?" he whispered.
She nodded, covering her face with her hands. When she spoke, her voice was thick with tears. "It was…it was just a dream. A memory, really."
It finally dawned on him.
She'd been dreaming of Malfoy Manor. About what had happened under his own roof just months ago, when his own relative had tortured her. He had the same dream, sometimes, when Hermione's screams rang through his house…
"I'm sorry," he muttered.
She looked up at him through her fingers.
"I would've stopped her, if I could. I hated what she did to you. What they all did."
His hand was tangled in her hair, stroking it gently.
"I…I wish I could've done something to help."
She smiled up at him in the darkness. It was a broken, brave little thing, but it was still a smile, and it was his.
"I know. I could tell you didn't want to be there from the way you looked at us."
"It's not that," he muttered, "not being there wouldn't have been enough. It's bad enough that I saw it happen, but it should have never happened at all. Not to you."
For a long time he stood by Hermione's bedside, waiting for her to speak. She said nothing, but nor did she cry, or scream, or send him away, and so he stayed with her until her shoulder had stopped shaking and her breathing was slow and deep.
He sloped back over to the armchair, his heavy eyelids already drooping, and collapsed back into it, pulling his robe up to his chin like a blanket.
He almost missed the little voice in the darkness.
"Thank you, Draco."