Chapter 14
They stared at each other for a moment in the rain which had then subsided to a drizzle, then Hermione seemed to recover from her shock and hurried forward.
"Get inside! You're all soaked." She grabbed him by the arm and Draco, still a little dazed, allowed her to manoeuvre him through the gates and the door. Then he was inside her house, dripping wet, forming a puddle on her carpeted floor. Hermione pointed her wand at him; immediately he felt his clothes dry and a blanket of warmth enveloped him, removing the chill that had settled within him in the rain.
"Honestly, what were you thinking? Even wizards can die of hypothermia you know." She said in exasperation as if speaking to a child, but there was an unmistakable note of worry in her voice.
Draco allowed her to fuss over him. His eyes travelled over the length of her familiar figure hungrily; she was only dressed in a nightgown and the sight of her sent a jolt of longing rippling through him. Right now he was feeling like he was a ball of yarn and she was the cat playing round with it, unravelling him inside out.
"Draco?" Her tentative voice brought him back to reality.
He glanced at her, then at the room, recollecting his scattered thoughts.
"Nothing has changed here." He commented quietly, then added with his signature mischievous smile, "You're as messy as ever."
But everything has changed, Draco. Hermione wanted to say, but the words never came out. If Draco was going to act as if that brief episode of body-switching had never occurred between them, she could act in that nonchalant manner too, she thought. But she wasn't about to let him divert her attention elsewhere so easily.
"Why were you outside my house, Draco?"
He looked at her.
"It's a long story."
Well, that wasn't exactly an answer. Hermione struggled for patience. She was tired after an entire day of work, and she was not exactly in the best of moods.
"I ran away from home."
His sudden words startled her. There was something dark and vulnerable in those grey eyes that made her heart clench.
"Why? What happened?" She went towards him immediately.
"I had an argument with my parents. They weren't being reasonable, so I left." Draco gave a little shrug, attempting to display an air of indifference, but Hermione knew better. She could read the shadowed hurt in his grey eyes, and the way his lips were set into a tight line as if he was trying to stop some of the words that might tumble out of them any moment, because he was afraid of saying them.
"Come here." She took his hand and led him to the couch.
"Would you like something to drink? Is there anything you need?" She asked him after they both sat down.
Yes, I need you. He wanted to say. He needed her like a drowning man needing something to cling on to, a lifeline, a sliver of hope. But he was afraid that she would say no. If she rejected him now, he wouldn't know what to do. He realised that he had no one else to turn to.
"Draco?"
"I-" He took a breath, "I just wanted to live my life my way. My way. Why is it so difficult for them to understand?" He burst out suddenly. There was something about the way he said it made him sound like a child, a child who thirsted and hungered for freedom all this while after being given a taste of the green meadows and blue skies.
"Maybe, you should discuss whatever it is with them nicely…" Hermione tried to say, but he silenced her with a look.
"It never worked. And it never will. God, how I wish sometimes that I wasn't a Malfoy. That my entire life wouldn't be defined by the word Malfoy but not how I had lived as a person out of my own will. That somehow I wouldn't be remembered by the name of Malfoy but because of the things I did, the life I chose to live. I'm whining now, is it really childish of me to think like this?" He turned to Hermione with a self-deprecating smile on his lips.
"You're not childish. It's perfectly reasonable to feel this way." Hermione said. She would never think of him as a child. She couldn't. How could she, when he was towering over her the minute he stood before her in the rain and his body was like anything but a child's, a perfect male specimen that she longed for but would never be able to have. Hermione looked away abruptly, refusing to let her desire dominate her thoughts. Draco is in pain now, how could she let her desires be her main focus when she should be helping him, not admiring his body and marvelling over the fact that somehow her thoughts had conjured him out of nowhere, and now he was here, in her house, exactly where she dreamed of having him. But he's not yours to keep – he's out of bounds, a stern voice reminded her in her head.
"I bet things would've been very different for us if I weren't a Malfoy." He added in a whisper and leaned forward, startling her. He lifted a hand and toyed with a brown curl that had come off from her bun and was resting against her smooth white neck.
"Draco." Hermione wanted to say in a warning tone, but her voice came out breathless.
The way he looked at her made her shiver. It was just a light touch, his fingers had barely touched her skin as they curled around a lock of her hair, just a brush against it that felt lighter than air, but her skin felt warm instantly and light frissons of pleasure were skittering down her body.
"If only. But we can't choose, can we?" His words came out as a caress of warm air against her lips. He was merely inches away, and if she leaned forward slightly she would be able to taste those lips again.
"Draco, you're too close." She protested weakly. Her hands slid up to his chest in a feeble attempt to create some distance between their bodies but they didn't make a move to push him away. She was powerless against his seduction, the way his honey-like voice melted her when he said her name.
"Am I? Sometimes I feel like I'm not close enough. I want to get under your skin. I want to make you feel. Just like I do." He said in a low tone, then his lips descended on hers.
He tasted of warm rain and sin. His lips were gentle, soft and the way they moved against her was a teasing dance of warm touches and hungry caresses. It wasn't fair. She didn't want to feel this way, as though his lips had robbed the breath of her, and the only way she could continue breathing was through his kisses. A tear slid from the corner of her eye down her cheek.
What? Why was she… crying?
It took Hermione a few seconds to register the fact that tears were trickling from her eyes, and just like the way the rain had left trails on her glass window, they left similar stains on her cheeks.
"Hermione?" Draco realised abruptly that she was crying, startled. He drew back and cupped her face gently between his hands.
"Why are you crying?"
"Because- because this is all wrong." She turned away from him, wiping the wetness on her skin with her sleeve.
"What is wrong?" Draco was at a loss.
"What's wrong? You were engaged, for Merlin's sake!" The words burst out through her lips like a bubble popping into non-existence in mid-air suddenly. The colourful dream was over.
There was a long moment of silence as Draco stared at her, processing those words. He stood up from the couch and took a few steps backward.
"You knew? How?" He finally asked in a hoarse whisper.
"Does it matter?" Hermione spoke into her sleeve. She didn't look at him, she couldn't. She didn't want to see it, his reaction to the fact that he was engaged. She was afraid that the shock she heard in his voice was because that he deliberately tried to hide his engagement but she found out anyway. But really, does it matter? No matter what his true feelings were, the engagement was done.
"Was it father? You met him when you were in my body?" He asked.
Hermione nodded, her face was still turned away from him, as if she could not bear to see his face.
Merlin. So this was why she was so moody since that night. He realised. Everything seemed to fall into place now.
"And what did you say to him about my engagement?" He kept asking. Hermione wanted him to stop asking those questions as though he felt nothing about this. As if all he cared about was how she had affected his engagement in any way.
"Hermione?"
"I told him I would think about it, alright?"
"You what?" Draco felt as if someone had clubbed him in the head with a hammer once again.
"Are you insane? Why didn't you just tell him, there's no fucking way I would marry Astoria Greengrass?"
"What?" Hermione turned around finally.
"Merlin's beard. So that's why my father's been going at it again," Draco said in exasperation.
"So it's my fault now? But you never told me anything! How was I supposed to know how to reply your father? How was I supposed to know that you were not amenable to that match?" Hermione said in distress and anger. After all those days agonising over the fact that Draco was engaged and having her heart constantly be in turmoil, it turned out not to be true? Hermione wanted to cry again. Why was this so difficult?
"It's because you never tell me anything that this kind of misunderstanding happens." She cried out.
"For fuck's sake, I thought that I had told my father, it's over, I'm not doing it! How was I supposed to know that he would still be hung up over it! Besides, you didn't even bother to talk to me after finding out. If I have to be wrong for hiding things, you are in the wrong too!" Draco retorted, furious that Hermione had not believed in him enough to tell him anything.
"Enough. I've had enough. Leave, now." Hermione pointed to the door.
"Please! I need some time alone." She added when he didn't move.
"This is probably the stupidest things that had ever happened to me." Draco muttered under his breath and stalked to the door in large strides, but something happened then. There was a force that pulled him away from the door back into the couch where Hermione was – he felt as if he was sucked into a black hole and his entire body just flew towards Hermione like they were two opposite poles on a magnetic bar.
"What the fuck-" He swore but a white flash of light just blasted across the room and the only thought in his head before he became unconscious was: No fucking way. Not again.
Harry Potter belongs solely to JK Rowling.
Hi again, thank you so much for all the reviews (ASJS (If you haven't noticed, I've changed the genre from humour to drama~ thanks to you suggestion), CGinny, rachel1827 (I can't believe you're still reading this after so long - so touched :')) and StyleStalker), you guys motivate me so much. I felt that this chapter was particularly hard to write (plus I had a writer's block for a while :/) because it was quite emotional. I dunno if I managed to convey the emotions of the characters well enough...
Anyways I hope you enjoy reading this - sorry for the ending... I really think that if the issue is solved just then it's a bit too easy for my liking... so more hurdles. Sorry for the long note here. Reviews please, thank you kind souls!