Hi my birdies. I have some rather sad news. I'm going back to school which means I won't be able to write as much. I'm going to try to build up a stock of chapters so I can at least give you one a month. But it isn't going to be this lovely two to three a week that we've had going this summer. But don't worry. I am NOT abandoning it! I have too many wonderful ideas and love you all too much to leave you high and dry – again. I'll be able to write again at Christmas at the latest and probably a chapter or two over Thanksgiving. Please don't abandon me! I still love you and I am still going to write for you! I swear! Kisses!
Ok. Happier news. I stumbled upon a wonderful band by the name of Galt Aureus. They are beautiful and I hope you will go visit their site and support them as they are yet unsigned. Our Own Verailles and Citadels are my two favorites at the moment. Of course they are the only two I've listened to since I limit myself to two songs before I actually listen to the whole CD – which is on the way. lol
And last but hopefully not least! I am going to reveal to you something you probably don't know about me. I was drawing and coloring long before I ever started writing fanfiction. I've kept my art and my fanfiction separate because I didn't want to look like I was bragging being able to do both. I only decided to start writing fanfiction when I thought I had enough skill to create a story that people would read. Also, I've read a lot of stories and never come across a Dramione one with this kind of relationship. So I started to write my own. HOWEVER, I did decide to draw Hermione in her gown and mask at the ball. If you don't want to look at it because you like the image in your head that is perfectly fine. But if you would like to see the Hermione in my imagination, she's on my profile. Same policy with my stories, don't like don't look. I may draw Draco one day but I really hate drawing guys so maybe not. Enjoy.
Ok that was a really long Author's note. But I figured I had to give you all something to compensate for the impending lack of Draco. Boo hoo.
Disclaimer: You know what would be really nice right now? A sexy, blond, muscular man to comfort me in my sorrow. Sadly I do not own one. I guess I'll have to settle for a stuffed animal.
XXX
Open it. Go. Open it – now. Hermione had been standing on the bedroom-side of her door for the better part of twenty minutes, trying to force herself to walk through. She'd heard heavy footsteps behind the thick wood quite some time ago and had not yet mustered up the courage to go meet them. She'd managed to get the door cracked, spilling light into her room. Through the flickering sliver of light she saw muscular legs stretched out on the coffee table, crossed at the ankles, simply waiting.
She felt something one her leg. Looking down, she saw Crookshanks dancing around her feet. She was amused for a second, but the amusement was swiftly replaced by terror.
"No Crookshanks, no!" She whispered, stooping quickly to try to stop the cat. Too late. He stretched his orange figure tall, pushing against the already loosened door. Hermione's stomach drop. Great. A cat is braver than I am. She stood up quickly, righting herself to meet the flood of light from the fire in the common room.
Draco sat before her, delicious frame stretched elegantly across a chair, booted feet propped up on the coffee table. He was reading something and did not look up when he heard the door creak. Damn him. Fine. I'll just have to start the conversation.
"We need to talk." Wonderful. Don't bother with a greeting despite the fact that he had you gasping for air last night on more than one occasion.
He still didn't look up. Crookshanks had found his hand that was thrown casually over the arm of the chair and was currently licking it, seeking attention. Malfoy chuckled, looking down at the cat, and obliged by scratching his chin.
"Did you hear me? We need to talk." She fisted her hands on her hips, attempting to look formidable.
At last he looked up at her. His eyes had not quite lost the deep blue color of the night before. They were more diluted though, appearing closer to grey this morning. However, they still burned a fiery path through her, evaporating what little courage she'd gathered. "So talk." God damn him. Damn him to hell. Brushing aside the vision of him shirtless and sweating as he worked off his sins eternally in a pit of fire, she straightened her back.
"About last night." He didn't say anything, didn't react, just continued watching her with that hypnotic gaze.
Of course he was going to make this difficult. "You should know something. Last night, Ginny thought I seemed tense so, to help calm me down, she spiked my drink with fire whiskey." Liar. He still didn't say anything. "So – what I said and my behavior – it was because of her." She took a breath. "It wasn't real." You cowardly liar. Hermione scolded herself internally, hating that she even said the words.
Hermione hid the shame from Draco as she watched him. His face was impassive but more so than usual. The wall behind his eyes was taller than ever, not even allowing her to see whether or not there was emotion behind them. He'd hardened himself against her and it tugged at her heart to see him that way. But he still didn't speak.
"Say something, damn it." She couldn't take the silence. He looked down and exhaled. "Fine." It was barely more than a whisper. His eyes averted, he rose slowly to his feet.
He walked to her slowly, prolonging the time in which they were separated. Oh God please don't let him do this. I can't take it right now. Make him stop. She didn't think she had the will to resist him this morning. He kept moving, entering her personal space, assaulting her with his beauty. His scent wafted to caress her nostrils, a combination of spring water and cedar, a deliciously clean smell. He was right in front of her now, barely more than a half a foot away.
He caught her eyes with his own. Her breath hitched a little. They were dark again, stormy, all the more frightening because she knew the anger he'd unleashed on her last night was present, but contained. She couldn't read them this time. His wall held fast, shielding her from his true emotions.
"Fine." He said it even more softly this time, a breeze in the air which she felt across her forehead. "It wasn't – real." He paused, seeming as if to have something else to say. Nothing came.
Oh kiss me you idiot, even though it will totally destroy my claim and I'll have to kill you for it afterward. He brought his face closer to her, tilting his head slightly to the left. Hermione closed her eyes, ready for the blow to fall.
"This isn't real." The words hit her like a sledge hammer. She forced her eyes open as quickly as she could, but not quickly enough. She looked upon a common room populated only by a sleeping cat and the soft thud of a closing portrait hole.
XXX
Hermione sat in the back of Professor Becks' class tapping the end of her quill on the page before her. She was in no mood to sit through a lecture today, preferring instead to stew in her own emotional turbulence. The class had already lasted twice as long as she felt was normal. Looking down at her notes, she saw that she'd barely written more than half a page. She shook herself trying to regain focus and cast her gaze about the room.
Malfoy was sitting a table over from her. He'd arrived seconds before the bell rang so she pretended the seats had all been full. You really need to stop lying. It's unhealthy. She batted away the comment and continued her quiet perusal. He stared resolutely forward, refusing to give her the satisfaction of eye contact. Suddenly, a quiet smirk stirred the corners of his mouth.
He raised his hand. Hermione's stomach dropped a fraction, uncertain of what he would do but positive it couldn't be good.
Professor Becks stopped her lecture to Lavender Brown on the effect of sleep on study habits and looked at Malfoy, surprise in her face.
"Yes, Mr. Malfoy, you have a question?"
His eyes were bright, beautiful. That smirk still hung quietly on his sculpted lips, foretelling a disaster.
"Yes Professor. If I were to give you a hypothetical situation, could you tell me what rationale one of the characters is following?"
She looked slightly taken aback. "Well, this class is Logic and Human Behavior, so I'll do my best."
Malfoy inclined his head in appreciation. "Let us pretend that Person A and Person B had an interaction. However, a short while after the interaction, Person B pretends the interaction was something other than what it was. What would be Person B's motivation?"
You sodding son of a bitch. Hermione stared straight ahead at Professor Becks, pretending to be absorbed in her next sentence.
The Professor looked amused, obviously not expecting the intricacies Malfoy presented.
"Well, Mr. Malfoy, several options come to mind. Now I studied Muggle Psychiatry for a year in America just to see what it was and they taught me several things. I know muggles and wizards are different, but for the sake of argument we'll pretend they behave the same. First, I would automatically think that Person B was in denial about the interaction between the two."
"How so?" Malfoy interrupted her.
"Well, Person B might be suffering from displacement in which the true emotions are disguised behind another device. This usually aids them in denying the actual gravity of the situation."
Malfoy nodded. "Thank you professor. That's all I needed to know." Professor Becks looked surprised, as if she had been prepared to talk for another twenty minutes on the subject. She studied him for a moment longer then returned to her original lecture.
Malfoy sat back contentedly in his chair, stretching his legs out before him. Hermione watched him with her head angled slightly so as to get a better view. His smirk had grown, pulling his beautiful, powerful mouth up into a look of delicious contentment. Hermione shivered. She would pay for this later.
Fortunately just then the bell rang. The loud sound forced its way through Hermione's fogged brain, jolting her back to reality. She turned to her books, gathering them in her arms before hurrying out the door. She couldn't go back to the common room now. It was too risky. Instead, she checked if she had all her homework in her bag. The stars smiled upon her as she indeed was carrying everything she needed to do.
Deciding she would vacate to the grounds for a few hours, she made a left out of the classroom and hurried away down the corridor. Unbeknownst to her, two crystalline eyes watched her from an alcove, studying the unconscious sway of fabric around her figure.
XXX
Malfoy lay luxuriously across the coffee table in the common room. He'd originally begun by perching himself on the solid wooden edge and ended up falling backward rather than walk the few steps to the couch. One arm was stretched over his head, causing his muscles to pull taught against his flesh. He was waiting for Granger to come back. He hadn't seen her at dinner nor elsewhere since their Logic class. He knew she'd give him a piece of her mind and he had to confess he was looking forward to it. However, now he was growing impatient.
He sat up suddenly, checking the clock by the door. It was nearly nine o'clock. He'd begun to feel slightly curious about her, wondering where she'd gone off to. He stood, walking to the portrait hole. He was going to look for her.
He stepped out of the portrait and wandered down the hall. The corridor was deserted, everyone had finished or nearly finished dinner and the curfew was approaching. One of the many perks of being Head Boy was that he didn't have to obey the absurd curfew.
He shoved his hands in his pockets as he sauntered, eyes scanning every inch of the stone castle he could find. He walked down a back flight of stairs. Draco wasn't a man to agitate about other human beings yet here he was. He laughed at himself slightly, knowing his hypocrisy was showing. He approached the stairs that took him down to the back of the Great Hall. He heard muffled voices coming from a handful of straggling students still lingering at dinner. He taken one step down when he saw her.
She lay crumpled at the bottom of the stairs against a wall. Her beautiful throat was arched back, tilted at an odd angle. Her legs were bent under her, looking as though they had collapsed unconsciously under her weight. One arm lay limply across her bag, the hand facing palm up to the ceiling. The other was twisted viciously around her back, wrenched in an agony she could not feel in her current state. But her face terrified Draco the most. Her lips were parted lightly, allowing a wisp of breath to pass in and out. Her eyes were closed as though dead. Her pale skin looked clammy in the flicker of a torch. No.
Draco threw himself down the stairs, taking three and four steps at a time. He fell beside her, his hands automatically pulling her into his arms, enveloping her figure.
"Hermione. Hermione." He shook her slightly, brushing the hair off her face with gentle finger tips. "Goddammit Granger. Wake up. Granger!" His last word was a shout, full of a barely concealed horror and shaking with unbidden anger. She didn't move. She lay in his arms, limp and pallid. His fingers reached for her throat, feeling for the rhythmic beat of life that would save her. Nothing. His beautiful eyes slipped closed, shutting out the image as he pressed his finger harder to her vein. Please. Please no.
Thump. Draco's eyes snapped open and he exhaled loudly in relief. "You tease," he whispered to her, a dark smile gracing his lips for the briefest of moments. Suddenly he heard two pairs of heavy footsteps from behind him. He turned his head to see Potter and Weasel sprinting toward him as fast as they could.
"What the fuck did you– " Ron began, turning his head in fear toward Hermione's pale visage.
"Before you start blaming me I didn't do anything," said Draco, shifting his weight and preparing to stand. "I found her like this as I was coming down the stairs. She's alive but I don't know what happen. We need to get her to the hospital wing." He made a motion to lift her but Harry snarled violently and leapt forward.
"We aren't doing anything, Malfoy. Get your filthy hands off of her." Anger flared in cold eyes but he forced it down, releasing her even as every fiber of him screamed to hold on. Harry slipped his arms beneath her form, lifting her quietly with little effort. Malfoy watched him leave, cradling the Head Girl against his chest.
Weasel was talking. Draco turned to see the willowy read head hissing at him.
"If I find out you did this, ferret, I swear I will – "
"Yeah, yeah, I know," said Malfoy in an impressive imitation of calm, "You'll rip my fucking head off. Got it."
Weasel didn't say anything. He spun on his heel and, with a furious glance back at Malfoy, hurried after Potter's retreating figure.
As soon as the two of them were out of sight, Malfoy ran. He sprinted all the way back to the common room. Wrenching open the portrait hole, he threw himself inside kicking over a table in agony. He stared around the room, breathing hard, panic assaulting his beautiful gaze. He threw himself forward, pitting both hands against the back of the couch.
Draco gripped its soft cover with all his strength to steady himself, to calm his fears. He dropped his head and closed his eyes, groping for stability in the depths of his mind, for something to reassure him. He tried to regulate his breathing, timing the gasps with the consistent ticks of the clock. But his nerves would not allow it. A cry tore from his throat. His head wrenched up, vomiting the agony to the high arched ceiling above him. The roar was deep and primal, carrying all his fear and protective instincts for the girl he had watched carried away in the arms of his enemy.
XXX
Awwww. Poor Draco. I love him. A lot. If you didn't see it above I've drawn a pretty picture for you guys. Please go look at if you want to. And review. Review lots and lots.