10/11/15

10. The Middle of the Night

There'll be no value in the strength
of walls that I have grown
There'll be no comfort in the shade
of the shadows thrown
You may not trust the promises
of the change I'll show
But I'd be yours if you'd be mine

[Lover of the Light, Mumford and Sons]

Hermione went to Lupin the next morning, and asked to be put on active rotation. She didn't go to Harry; she knew he'd say no without even considering her request. He still wanted to protect her after what had happened at the Manor. God, it seemed so long ago now. The panic attacks had stopped, the dreams only came every few nights and altogether the memories had lost their most of their power over her. Remus would be reluctant, but out of all of the Order members in charge of the active duty rosters, Hermione thought he would be the most likely to say yes to her.

She had to get out of the damned house, away from Draco. She needed to clear her head, to breathe him out of her lungs and get her bearings back. Hermione was all fogged up, and she no longer knew which way was up. Or any direction at all. Maybe...maybe some time out of that dark cellar with only Malfoy's company would sort her out. Expunge the twinging thrill in her stomach that even the faintest thought of him gave her now, since the kiss.

The Kiss. All night Hermione had thought about it, to the point where in her own head it was capitalised and italicised. The Kiss. She couldn't keep thinking about it, and the best plan she could come up with to forget about it, forget about Draco, about everything...was to get back into the fight. She had spent far too long hiding away in the Order's headquarters, doing paperwork and research, playing at Healer assistant, and now, Draco, her own personal Project. No, no more. It was time for Hermione Jean Granger to actually contribute something solid to this war.

So she went to Lupin and pled her case, but he, damn him, called Harry in on the decision. And so it was that Hermione stood in the dining room with Draco somewhere beneath her feet, trying to focus on what was happening around her instead of on him.

"She's not a fighter." Hermione must have made a noise of protest, because Harry turned and looked at her.

"You aren't, 'Mione. You know that." She shook her head in disagreement, angry - all the more so because of the thoughts of Draco that trickled in inexorably; frightening, confusing, wrong thoughts. What would Harry say if he knew what she had done? She looked at Ron, sitting at the table even though he hadn't been invited to the meeting. Hermione knew what he would say, and she never wanted to hear those words coming from him. Never wanted to see the crumpled, betrayed look on his face that she would see if he knew she had kissed Draco Malfoy. The fucking ferret. The coward. The ex-Death Eater scum. She raised her voice at Harry.

"I know just as many offensive spells as you! You know that!"

Harry shook his head and Remus mirrored Harry's action. "That's not the same thing, Hermione. Harry's right."

Hermione set her jaw stubbornly. "There are people out there fighting who don't even know half the hexes and curses and charms I know, and who have less experience than me!"

"Hermione..." Harry's eyes were dulled by the constant tiredness he carried around with him these days, like his bones were sheathed in lead and every move was an effort. But he pleaded with her, and Hermione felt a twinge of guilt for making him feel bad. She resolutely ignored it.

"No. No, I can fight. I can be useful. I - I've hidden away here too long."

Remus' scarred face was gentle. "For a reason, Hermione. What if you freeze up in the field?"

"I won't." She crossed her arms over her chest and said it again. "I won't. I haven't had a - a moment in days now. And I won't." Remus and Harry looked at each other for a long moment, and Hermione wanted to grab them both by the hair and knock their heads together. She wasn't a child. They couldn't bloody stop her, they couldn't.

"I say let her do it." Hermione went still with shock as Ron spoke up. She swivelled her head to gawk at him. Out of the three men, she would have thought he would be the most vehemently against her getting out into the firing line. Harry was staring too, mouth agape and a look of betrayal on his face as Ron calmly undermined Harry's position.

"What? Ron!" Harry protested and Ron shrugged. Feet up on the dining room table - if his mother saw she'd kill him - and a glass of Muggle beer in hand, Ron looked hard and lean and grown up. A man. A battle-proven wizard, not at all the gangling youth he had been not much more than a few short - no, long, so long - months ago. Hermione stared at him. At his brightest blue eyes that were so keen and sharp he cut the air with them as he stared Harry down.

"I've got that raid coming up. I need all the people I can get."

Harry shook his head and Hermione stared at him. "No. No, not that. That's too risky. If - if - Hermione were going to go into active duty, she wouldn't be starting with that. It's too risky."

Ron didn't flinch away from Harry's stare, and there was a dynamic between them that hadn't been there a week ago - the last time Hermione had attended a meeting of the central Order members. "Exactly. It's a risky mission, and the more people I can get, the better the odds are in our favour. The less likely our people will get hurt, or, Merlin forbid, killed."

Hermione blinked. Suddenly it all seemed very real, and huge and very frightening. But she wasn't going to back down - no, just the opposite in fact.

"I can do it, Harry. Remus. Please. I want to contribute. I feel like I've been dead weight for months, and if Ron could use me..." Remus and Harry shared another long glance, and Hermione smiled quick and grateful at Ron. He grinned back, and there was a flash of the old, mischievous Ron behind those hard blue eyes and almost gaunt cheeks. Hermione's spine straightened, and she glared at a hesitant Harry.

"I can do it, Harry. You can't protect me just because I'm your friend."

Harry's teeth gritted. "Everyone here is my friend to some extent, and I send them out anyway, and sometimes...they don't come back in one piece. Or at all." Hermione shrank slightly, chastised by Harry's words and harsh tone, and Remus laid a hand on Harry's shoulder.

"We could send her out tomorrow night as a trial run. With Jordan, Wood and Chang. It's nothing major. Just reconnaissance." Harry frowned but thought about it, and Hermione's heart thudded quick and hopeful, hands clenched by her sides as she waited for Harry's answer.

"Fine. A trial run. And if she can't cope - if you freeze up, Hermione, or can't handle it out there, there's no shame in that. You don't have to be fighting to be useful. You do enough here," Harry said and Hermione couldn't help calling him out on his last words.

"What, Harry, what exactly do I do that's so indispensable?" Harry rubbed his hand over his spiky hair in frustration.

"God, Hermione. I don't know. You do loads. You help Mrs Weasley keep the house running, you decipher interrupted Death Eater communiqués, and help out with organising Order member rosters, and tutor Ginny, and assist Tricia, and..."

Okay, so Hermione did do a fair few unimportant if necessary tasks, despite the feeling she had lately that she spent most of her time with Draco. It was true that from the time she got up in the morning at dawn, until the time she went to bed at around midnight, Hermione was busy with one thing or another. And lately of course, the spare hours that had once been spent in completely uninterrupted relaxation had been spent in the cellar with Draco; which was more like another kind of work than relaxation at times.

"I don't care, Harry. I'm going. Not just the trial, all of it. Ron's mission, and every one after that where I could be useful. I can do this. I need to do this." And Harry must have heard the desperation in her voice, because although he looked like the decision pained him, he nodded.

"All right. I'll put you on Ron's team list for the upcoming mission."

"But only if you prove you can handle yourself tomorrow, and for the next two weeks, 'Mione. I'm not taking you out to get yourself or anyone else killed. I need to know you'll be okay out there," Ron said firmly. There was an undercurrent of the same protectiveness that blazed in Harry's voice in Ron's tone, and Hermione felt warm hearing it. She nodded immediately; that was a reasonable demand.

"Of course, Ron. I understand." But she knew she could do it, and she knew she would be part of the raid - Hermione Granger didn't fail at the things she set her mind to. A fierce blend of terror and excitement boiled in her bones. She looked around at the three men, a small, determined smile on her face as she thought about being part of the team, proving herself, being an asset. And for a while at least, she forgot about Draco.

"Walk quietly!" Cho Chang hissed at Hermione and she went red, not that anyone could see her blush in the dark, and tried to pick her steps more lightly. The four of them were creeping around the boundaries of a Death Eater property, where the Order believed a group of blood traitor families were being held alive. Hermione herself had deciphered the communiqué they had interrupted, and it was interesting to see what happened after the information had been decoded. If this reconnaissance confirmed that there was indeed Death Eater activity in the house and families held here, then the Order was going to raid it. But they needed confirmation, and details that only investigating the place firsthand could give them. They weren't going to go blasting in if the information turned out to have been wrong and they went in with wands firing at Muggles, or if it was a trap.

So Hermione, Lee Jordan, Oliver Wood and Cho Chang were creeping very quietly around the house. Lee, Cho and Hermione had the task of gathering as much information as they could by taking photos, testing the various wards that might be up so that they could bring them down quickly during the raid, and backing up Wood in case they were discovered. Wood was by himself, and had an invisibility potion so he could get in close - if the place didn't have alarm wards, which wasn't likely. Hermione felt clumsy, bumbling, useless and vaguely terrified. Her stomach felt tight and sick as a light went on in the house, and she saw a small figure open the door and come outside, a light quivering at the end of their wand.

"Freeze, Hermione." Cho hissed barely audibly and snatched at Hermione's arm and she froze in the crouched position that made her thighs and calves ache and burn, too terrified even to breathe. The figure went back inside the house after a few minutes and Hermione nearly collapsed as the tension ran out of her.

"Hush," Cho snapped again in Hermione's ear, hot breath tickling her skin. "You don't relax until the mission is over and we're back at Headquarters." Hermione straightened and focused her mind, nodded shortly. Her wand was tight in her sweat-slippery hand and her pulse was tapping quickly with adrenaline as she followed Cho and Lee around the perimeter of the large old house.

"Definitely wizards. The guard had a wand," Lee hissed to Cho, and the witch nodded agreement.

"Yeah, I think we've got the right place. Hermione, are you taking pictures?" Hermione mumbled a 'yes' through numbed lips as she zoomed in and took photos of the house, the silhouettes showing through the curtains, and the layout of the surrounding grounds. This was nothing like how Hermione thought it would be. Her sneakers were muddy, her fingers going numb with cold, her legs aching from crouching; and the other three seemed completely at home in this environment. They walked careful and silent, whispered in short threads of conversation and always understood each other, held their wands like they were ready and willing to do battle at any second. It had always been Hermione Granger who had been the best at everything, and now she felt like she was stumbling in the dark. Which she quite literally was, foot crunching on a twig that snapped with a sound that seemed utterly disproportionate to its size.

"Hermione, for Merlin's sake, be quiet," Cho hissed. She whispered an apology and tried desperately to be quieter, but it seemed like she was stepping on every twig the others avoided. She felt cold and frightened and was doing nothing but taking photos, and it seemed so pointless, so blasé in a way. It was nothing like how Hermione thought it would be. But then they got back to Headquarters unharmed, with the photos and a detailed list of the wards that were around the house, and information on how many people they had seen through the windows, and whether there were guards outside, and how alert they were at night - the questions ran on and on.

Kingsley, Remus, Harry, and Ron were at the debriefing; Kingsley and Lupin being the two senior Order members stationed permanently at Godric's Hollow. Hermione sat quiet as a mouse and tried to look unnoticeable, ashamed of how badly she had managed out in the field, stumbling all over the place and not knowing what on earth to do half the time. She was sure she was going to be told she wasn't up for fieldwork, and be trapped back at the house again. Then Oliver Wood said:

"Hermione did all right, didn't she - Cho, Lee?" They both nodded agreement, and Cho smiled at Hermione and Wood continued: "I think she'll do fine. Just needs a bit of practice is all." And Hermione grinned and flushed with pleased and nervous pride.

Three Weeks Later

Lights flashed through the air like Muggle laser lights at a rave and Hermione tripped on a clump of grass and fell on her face, wand skittering from her hand. "Oh shit, shit, shit!" she chanted frantically and scrambled forward still flat on her face in the muddy churned up grass, hand fumbling in the dark and flashing lights for the slim stick of wood that was the only thing standing between her and certain death.

"Diffindo!" The word came clearly to her ears from the low, distorted voice of a Death Eater and Hermione tried to twist and roll to avoid the spell. It didn't miss her but her panicked attempt had saved her life as the curse just clipped her thigh. She wailed like a wounded animal as pain from the wound roared into fiery, consuming life. She couldn't give into it, couldn't let it... Hermione scrambled and wriggled and her fingers scrabbled at the grass and she heard the Death Eater laughing and without looking up, knew the scum was laughing at her pitiful efforts to escape. Escape. Hah. Oh thank Merlin, yes! Her fingers closed over the smooth stick of her wand as a blue flash of light struck the turf just inches away from her fingers and dirt and grass exploded into the air.

"Stupefy!" Hermione screamed through hoarse dry lips as she scrambled back onto her arse in the mud, and aimed wildly in the direction the curse had come from. Her heart pounded in her ears and her breath came in choking heaves. She didn't want to die. There was a dull thud that she barely heard through the yells and screams and ear splitting cracks of spells shooting from wands. Hermione pushed herself up to her feet with trembling hands and ignoring the conflagration of pain in her thigh, made a wobbly-kneed limping dash towards the place the thud had come from. The masked Death Eater that had nearly killed her lay insensible on the grass.

Hermione cast an incarcerous on the stupefied Death Eater and sent up a shower of silver sparks; the Order's signal that a Death Eater had been disabled. The retrieval crew would see the sparks and apparate in from the nearby hillside to grab the Death Eater and deliver him to a holding cell. In the meantime - Hermione ducked as an orange flare shot through the air past her shoulder and crouching low, scrambled back into the thick of battle. In the meantime, she had to stay alive. The battlefield was chaos, but after the generous handful of battles she had fought in over the past two weeks, Hermione was...not used to it, she didn't think she would ever get used to the screams and the fear and the lurking shadow of death ready to snatch whomever he could. No, she wasn't used to it, but she no longer panicked the way she had on the first mission that had turned into a pitched fight.

Only about twenty or so people on each side, but the spells flew thick and fast in the air of the clearing and Hermione shot stunning and binding spells randomly at hooded figures as she staggered back toward Ron. She was limping and pitching like a drunken sailor, and every step sent waves of excruciating pain up her leg and into her back. But she kept going. And then she saw him. Ron was fighting like a man possessed, reductos, incendios, expulsos and diffindos roaring out of him, and two Death Eaters fell badly injured or dead in the face of his fury.

Hermione's sneakers slipped in the mud as her leg gave way under her, and she fell hard on her arse, jarring her spine, the breath whooshing out of her. She tried to get up but she felt so bloody dizzy, vision blurring. She looked down, and whimpered as she saw her left jeans leg was wet from hip to calf with her blood, black in the moonlight. "Ron!" she screamed and cast petrificus totalus at a Death Eater who marched toward her with wand raised and Avada Kedavra on his lips. The Death Eater got the first syllable out before he fell, stiff as a board, and Hermione heard breathy screams of terror coming from her mouth. That had been so close. Too bloody close. Hermione touched her wand to the gash in her leg and gabbled a healing spell, but the wound was too deep and a basic healing spell wasn't doing the job. She felt so dizzy.

"'Mione, shield!" Ron yelled and she looked up and cast a protego without thinking about it, just doing what he told her to, like a good soldier. A hex hit her shield a split second later, and then Ron was running toward her as a tall Death Eater approached with his wand pointed at her from across the clearing. Hermione blinked; the effort it took to hold the protego was draining her, and another spell hit it and it fluttered and failed.

"Protego..." she gasped again. She wanted to faint, her eyes going dark and spotty.

"Hermione!" Ron's face as he raced toward her and the Death Eater stalking closer was fury and hate, lit a rainbow of beautiful colours by the curses splitting the air. "Ron," she murmured and fell flat on her back in the mud, world spinning around her as her head cracked on a flat rock buried in the grass. Her protego sputtered and died. Through dazed ears Hermione could hear Ron screaming hexes and jinxes and curses, and twisted her neck so that she could see him, even flat on her back. Her head felt like it was a block of lead, heavy and dull, and her view of the world was a strange sideways one.

Ron was sprinting, boots pounding the grass, and flashes of colour burst from his wand but the Death Eater was blocking and dodging, still picking his way so fucking arrogantly toward Hermione. Then the Death Eater stopped walking and his wand was pointing right at Hermione. She thought maybe she was going to die. The Death Eater began to speak,

"Avada K-" And then a ferocious snarling curse ripped from Ron's throat and Hermione blinked and saw a yellowish flash hit the Death Eater before he could finish speaking the killing curse. The Death Eater doubled over, clutched his abdomen and groaned. A second later his guts exploded through his desperately grabbing hands and splattered the area for a metre around him, and he toppled. A wave of nausea seized Hermione, and she rolled her head to one side so she didn't choke on her own vomit and threw up weakly down her own cheek and all over the ground.

"Hermione!" Ron skidded to his knees by her side and slammed one hand over the wound on her thigh to try to stop the dark blood from spilling out, and the pain oh god the pain was awful and Hermione shuddered and flipped under his firm grip, screamed and bit down on her tongue. The last thing she saw before her eyes rolled back into her head and she passed into blissful oblivion was a shower of green signal sparks coming from Ron's shaking wand.

Medical Emergency.

"Anyway, I'm right as rain now. A few spells and Tricia had me back on my feet in a few hours. A bit stiff, maybe, but I'll be back to normal in a day or two." Hermione slid a glass of Muggle bourbon and coke over to Neville, who lifted it up and sniffed it cautiously. He tried it, smacked his lips together, smiled at the taste - took another sip.

"It's like nothing else, isn't it?" he said, understanding, and Hermione nodded, sipping at her own drink.

"It's fucking terrifying. But, you know, I feel so alive right now. More alive than I've ever felt." Neville nodded too.

"I know what you mean." He looked older, with dark hollows around his eyes and a haggard look to his face. They all looked that way, these days, to one extent or another. Hermione hadn't truly known the reality of this war until she had gone out to fight in it. The torture at the Manor and all that had gone before was nothing in comparison to this exhausting, soul-sucking business of all-out war. She just felt ashamed she had hidden away in Godric's Hollow for so long, and let others fight her battles while she nursed her trauma over what had happened at the Manor. It was still a dark jagged wound on her soul, but when she was out in the thick of a fight, that wound was meaningless, unimportant compared to the frantic fight to stay alive.

She licked her lips and drank some more; she understood now why Ron's teasing and grins came easier after a few drinks. The alcohol helped relax her, take the edge of her constant tension, helped dull the horror.

"So, are you glad to be out?" Hermione managed a smile at Neville as she shifted her heel on the chair her achy leg was propped up on. Neville had spent the last two months stationed in the Room of Requirement, and just today he had swapped out with Angelina Johnson.

"I like the place, don't get me wrong," he said mildly. "It...it understands me. I get it - how to use it to the best of its ability. But..." His eyes lowered to the gold paisley tablecloth and his finger traced the patterns there, nail bed ingrained with dirt. "The school. Hogwarts. It's hell now for any students who aren't in Slytherin. And there are so many Death Eaters and senior Slytherin students patrolling that we can't get the others out." There was stark horror on Neville's face and Hermione's throat choked up, and it was hard to swallow her next mouthful of bourbon and coke.

"We try to do what we can. And we've gotten a handful of students out over the past few weeks." He looked bleakly up at Hermione. "But just a handful. Hermione, there are dozens and dozens still trapped there. It's not enough." His eyes filled up with tears and Hermione looked down at her drink, dunked her index finger in and swirled the dark liquid, giving him an illusion of privacy at least.

"We can hear them scream, sometimes, during the Carrows' punishments. And other times too." Neville's voice was shaking and vague and nearly unrecognisable as his own, and Hermione flinched, fingers tightening around her glass.

"Neville... You do what you can," was all the sympathy she could offer him. She knew it was limp and weak, and not enough to stop Neville from feeling like a failure, but it was all she had. The last few weeks had taken a heavy toll on her, and she didn't have the energy left in her to be a shoulder to cry on. She sipped her drink and looked at her toes in their stripy socks on the chair. Part of Hermione welcomed the bone-deep tiredness, and the fear, the pain when she has gotten injured during the handful of battles she has been in. It all meant she was doing something.

Weeks went by without Hermione coming down to the cellar, and Draco felt half-mad from loneliness and nearly ready to claw at the walls to get out. He was going crazy - when the hell was the Order going to decide to let him out? Was he to just stay trapped down here the duration of the bloody war, however long that might be? His food was left for him by random people; the Weaselette, Potter, Creevy, Loony Lovegood, Mrs Weasley... The last two were the only ones who said anything to him, bringing his food down and leaving it on the table for him and exchanging nothing much more than hellos and goodbyes. Draco missed Hermione.

He knew why she wasn't coming down here anymore - he wasn't stupid. But he missed her, and not just because she kept him company, but also because he missed her, a fact that became easier to admit as the days ticked by. He was still fucking furious at her for just buggering off and abandoning him to insanity, though. As soon as he got out of here, he was going to track her down and lock her up alone for weeks on end. See how she liked it. And then when she had begged enough to be let out, Draco would join her and they could... It had only been a bloody kiss. It hadn't been the end of the world, no matter how unexpected or unwanted or brilliant it had been. It sure as hell didn't mean Hermione was allowed to just up and vanish on him. In the middle of the night he hated her. But perhaps Draco missed her company just marginally more than he hated her for running away on him.

He read Snuff and chuckled at some bits and set his mouth in a hard thin line at others, and sometimes he threw it down angrily and thought for a long time about why Hermione had wanted him to read it. And once it was finished Draco moved on to other books, and in reading them he thought perhaps he got to peek inside Hermione's head. There were old-fashioned romances, and Muggle ideas of what magic would be like, very British murder mysteries, the odd book about space and the future. There wasn't much to do but read, and so read he did. But reading - and fantasising about alternately murdering or ravishing Hermione - couldn't fill in all the hours; it couldn't relieve the dull loneliness of every second of every hour being spent alone, without another person in the world to speak to.

By his second week without Hermione's daily visits, Draco thought he would be overjoyed if Ronald fucking Weasley graced Draco with his presence for a game or ten of exploding snap. Or even that awful, dreary Muggle game, Rummikub, which Hermione loved so much. Merlin, when had he become so fucking pathetic?

Hermione hadn't thought about Draco Malfoy much at all in the past two weeks. There were occasional fleeting thoughts, but those were pushed away by thoughts of missions, past or upcoming, or were obliterated by exhausted sleep. Much as she couldn't be Neville's shoulder to cry on, Hermione also didn't have the energy to dwell on thoughts of Draco. It was all too muddled and frightening and somehow the war was less scary, and she didn't want to even begin contemplating why war was less frightening than the way it had felt when she had kissed Draco Malfoy.

So Hermione was shaken when she woke panting in the middle of the night with the dream-memory of his lips and teeth latched gently around one of her nipples, his tongue swirling wet and warm, and her hands fisted tight in his white-blonde hair. Despite the feelings the dream aroused in her that she wanted to pretend didn't exist, it had been a good dream. A very good dream. Her chest rose and fell hard and her skin felt too tight on her, and she wanted to do things to herself that she refused to do while thinking of Draco. Hermione threw off the blanket and opened her window, falling back onto the bed and fanning herself. She was hot and flushed and sticky, but lying stretched out with the cool air bathing her skin only made her nerve endings jangle worse.

She wondered briefly if Draco was doing all right, down in the cellar by himself, and she hoped that he was. Lying in bed with the cool night air on her face and chest and whisking down her legs, Hermione wondered if anyone spoke to him at all. If he was reading the books she left him. If he had seen his mother again. If he hated Hermione. Hermione wasn't sure if she wanted him to hate her or not; she thought not, but then what did it matter, really? She had stopped going to see him, stopped visiting. Why would she care if he hated her? But she did.

Hermione brushed her hair off her face and wondered if she was a terrible person and a coward for running away from him the night of The Kiss and not going back. But then she thought of the madness of the mission earlier that evening, and told herself that whatever she was, she wasn't a coward. But guilt still tap, tap, tapped sickly in her stomach, and try as she might, Hermione couldn't get back to sleep. Her stomach wrenched at her, and she felt very near tears. Not just because of Malfoy, but everything. Hermione realised with slow, sad weariness that she needed the shoulder to cry on that she couldn't give Neville.

Pathetically, even with everyone in the house; so many of her friends and surrogate family members and allies, Hermione couldn't think of anyone she wanted to wake and seek some comfort from. At this moment in the wee hours of the morning - the witching hour, her Nana used to call it - Hermione felt very alone. And then she thought of the dream, and a little tug started in the centre of her chest. Tug. Tug, tug, tug. She tried to ignore it, closing her eyes and curling into a ball. It didn't take long for Hermione to give up on the whole idea of sleep and get up, dragging on a thin tank top and pyjama shorts and slipping down through the cool, dark house. Her feet carried her inexorably toward the dining room, like she was a compass spinning helplessly around to point at his north.

She drifted down the hallway, feeling so light-headed from tiredness that it felt like she was floating. Hermione stepped lightly down the stairs, the tip of her wand trailing occasionally against the wall and leaving a twinkle of sparking accidental lights where it touched. She reached the dining room, and stood staring at the trapdoor for a long time. Her breath caught in her chest and she realised she was panting, gasping for air. There was a pressure inside her chest and it felt like her lungs couldn't inflate properly. She didn't want to open the trapdoor. Frightened. Terrified. A shiver of doubt snapped through her and she wondered what the hell she was even doing. But she didn't go back upstairs to bed, and that has to mean something. Hermione swallowed and shifted from one foot to the other, staring at the little wooden latches that opened it with glazed, huge eyes.

She didn't know why she was so scared about going down there - it was only Draco. She huffed a little laugh. Yes, Hermione, she thought, just Draco Malfoy. Malfoy. God, what are you thinking? The next five minutes were consumed in arguing with her uncooperative brain. Hermione catalogued all the good moments they had shared to retaliate against her brain, and they were pitifully few. But then she remembered the winsome smile Draco had flashed her around his forkful of eggs, and that, that, more than the kiss even, was what made her crouch and fumble with the latches on the trapdoor.

She was stuffed full of iron filings, shifting and itching under her skin, and he was the magnet drawing her in. Hermione lifted the trapdoor. She made her way quietly down the steep stairs, and froze for a moment when she saw him lying in bed, an open book by his outflung arm, the blankets kicked off his bare legs. Hermione gulped and kept descending the steps, nearly losing her footing a few times as she looked more at Draco in a long-sleeved tee shirt and jockey shorts than at where she put her feet. Her heart was beating so hard she thought it might burst straight out of her chest. What in the fuck are you doing? Hermione's rational mind screamed at her, all civility cast aside as she approached the sleeping wizard.

"Draco?" she called softly and he made an 'mmm'ing sound. "Draco?"

"Wha-?" There was alarm in his voice as his grey eyes snapped open, and then he saw her. "Hermione." Her name was all Draco said as he blinked owlishly at her, his voice curiously soft and happy, and then he sat up and glared, eyes narrowed.

"Where the hell have you come from, Granger?"

Hermione twined her fingers together nervously and shrugged. "I couldn't sleep." He stood up; looming a little and she swallowed and her mouth and throat felt suddenly dry.

"So you thought you'd deprive me of my beauty sleep too?" She shook her head and he just looked at her for a long, calculating moment. Hermione flushed under the weight of Draco's stare as it swept over her scantily clad body. He stepped in closer and their bodies nearly touched and his eyes were dark on hers, his tongue wetted his lips.

"I -" Hermione realised with a lurch that she didn't want to kiss him again, despite the aching feeling in the pit of her stomach and the way her lips wanted to meet his. She had lost her nerve somewhere between opening the trapdoor and Draco's eyes opening. Hermione dropped her eyes to the floor and Draco let out a whoosh of a breath and stepped back from her quickly, sat on the edge of the bed. There was a heavy silence.

"What's the matter, Granger?" Draco sounded tired but normal, and a happy feeling kindled in Hermione's stomach as he looked up at her. She wondered why she had avoided him for so long. If she had known they could avoid all the awkwardness around The Kiss with just a look and a sigh she might not have avoided him for so long. And yet, as she sat on the bed next to him, she felt glad she did. Without her avoidance, she would never have gotten so involved in the war.

"I've been fighting. It's, um -" She lied a little bit. "- Partly why I haven't been coming to see you anymore." He raised an eyebrow.

"Partly?"

She shot him a death glare.

"Not now, Malfoy," she warned him, but there was no malice in her voice. He smiled just the tiniest bit despite himself and the warm feeling in Hermione's tummy grew more. "I've been fighting," she repeated, and bit the inside of her cheek, pausing. "I've been out on six missions that have ended in skirmishes against Death Eaters." He blinked, faint surprise in his eyes, and then held his gaze steadily on hers. Iron filings, she thought half-incoherently to herself and waited for him to speak, but he didn't. Just watched her. So she filled in the space of the silence.

"It's scary, but I'm glad I'm doing it. Sitting around here... I just didn't feel like I was accomplishing anything. I was wasting my time, and now, now I'm actually helping. It's a good feeling."

Draco shifted on the bed. "Fighting the good, noble fight, Granger?" Hermione frowned at him, hurt by his flippant tone.

"I am, in point of fact. Just like everyone else in the Order of the Phoenix." He ignored her. "Are you shirty with me, Draco?" she asked at last, and kept her tone light so that he couldn't read anything too intimate into her question - although it was probably obvious anyway. He gave her a look that conveyed his opinion of her intelligence rather too clearly.

"What do you think, Granger?"

She glared back at him. "Why don't you just tell me."

Draco rolled his eyes and stood up. "If you can't figure out what's staring you in your bloody stupid face, then you don't deserve to know." Hermione huffed and jumped to her feet too. Why did nothing ever go the way she planned it, with Draco? She tried to apologise; something that she should have probably done first, but she had been too damn tired to think of it.

"I'm sorry I stopped coming down here. Really. I'm sorry." And she was. Draco's mouth turned down and his lips thinned out, eyes going to the floor.

"It's fine. It sounds like you had far more important things to do."

"Fighting is important!"

"And you've spent every minute of every day fighting? You couldn't have come to see me once?" It gave Hermione a gleeful, squishy feeling when she heard him say that even in an acerbic, petulant tone. She smirked to herself.

"Why do you care?"

He spluttered for a moment and the sight of Draco Malfoy speechless was extremely enjoyable no matter what the circumstance. "I've run out of books, and you didn't bring me any new ones," he said at last.

"I'll bring you some more then," Hermione said briskly.

"When?"

"Tomorrow. But only if you stop being a prat." He looked at her and fumed silently for a moment, grey eyes penetrating her as usual, and his mouth pouted almost childishly and Hermione found herself fascinated by how it makes him look.

"I've been stuck down here for weeks alone. I had gotten to the point of wishing the Weasel would come and taunt me, just to have someone to talk to other than myself. Forgive me if I'm a little snippy, Hermione."

"I'm sorry, I just..." Hermione had no idea how she was supposed to explain the reason as to why she had avoided Draco for so long without spontaneously combusting from embarrassment. Draco took pity on her, sitting back down on the bed with a sigh.

"We don't have to...talk right now," he said, with surprisingly gentle understanding. She joined him on the bed, sitting close enough that their thighs nearly touched, and after a moment's hesitation, his arm wrapped around Hermione's shoulders. It felt nice, and right somehow. Unthreatening and casual enough that she didn't shake it off.

"That's good," she told him sleepily. "Because I don't really feel like talking. I'm - 'm too tired." And then to prove her point, she yawned jaw-crackingly. Draco's arm stayed close around her shoulders, and Hermione felt herself start to fall into sleep her head drooping against his warm body of its own volition. Her iron filings had settled, and her compass point had brought her north, and a happy feeling suffused her sleepy mind.

"What?" Draco asked with a laugh hidden in his dry voice and Hermione clapped a hand over her mouth as she realised she had just mumbled her nonsense aloud. But she said nothing and he didn't ask again, and before long she relaxed and her weight slumped against him once more. Her breathing turned deep and steady, and even though it should have felt very wrong falling asleep on Draco Malfoy, it didn't. She wished she had done this days ago.

"I missed you," Draco said, thinking she was asleep, perhaps, and then he added dryly: "And someday I shall have my revenge and lock you in a wardrobe for a month, after bringing you a stack of two player board games, and see how you like it." And Hermione knew that he knew that she was awake and she smiled. And then, thoughts muddled and swirling but happy, she really did fall asleep.