Chapter 9:
The Heads' Common Room appeared much as she'd left it earlier that morning. The Everlasting Fire, choked down to scarcely more than embers, occasionally coughed out a dying crackle of sparks into the dark room. A collection of textbooks and journals lay scattered across the furniture in various states of reading. Many were bookmarked with whatever detritus was local and convenient. Malfoy favoured using spare scraps of parchment, littered with hurried notes and the occasional doodle, whilst Hermione tended to prop one book open with the edge of another, leading to a kind of mismatched knowledge train that could span the length of any couch or table.
Malfoy once teased her that she would one day ignore a crucial detail in her research because it would be covered by the pages of another book. Aghast and unthinking, she'd thrust an overlying tome out of the way on a reflex and accidentally caused a waterfall of ancient volumes to go tumbling off the edge of her desk. She'd gaped on in horror whilst Malfoy snickered his way out of the dorm. But when she had returned that evening, the books she'd gathered into uneven stacks were laid out exactly as they had been before. The order, the preferred pages, everything was impossibly preserved. The only difference was that the corner of each overlapping book rested perfectly within the blank margin of the one beneath it.
No longer would any word be left unread.
So yes, the living quarters of two Head Students was a painting of organised chaos showing many things not where they should have been. Or, in other words, everything exactly where it was supposed to be. Nothing had changed. But stories and memories now burst forth from every corner, echoing a life lived but not observed. Coverings pulled back, like a membrane from within an eggshell, and Hermione's world began to leak out.
Who existed in this space?
The Malfoy with whom Hermione had shared the past eight years seemed little more than a ghost, a dream she'd all but forgotten. Vestiges of that person endured—the eagle owl quill he'd abandoned on an end table; the rich black cloak (far superior in quality to that of standard Hogwarts' issue) draped over the back of an armchair; the sleek silhouette of the ebony broom propped against the shelf by the stairs because he didn't trust the security of the school's storage facilities. When she'd suggested that she was perfectly capable of nicking it, he'd only offered her a single raised brow over the top of his book before he returned to his studies.
Whilst far from being friends, Hermione existed with that Malfoy in relative peace. He was predictable. And through the years of mutual hostility, Hemione's character had been shaped by his. If her life began as a single point in space, it first grew into a line, then into a dimensional and definable form as it bent around him and everyone else in her orbit.
But now, possessing certain truths that had been previously withheld, she looked upon her form as one based heavily on pretence. Hers was not a foundation of solid earth and rock; she was merely Levitating.
And so, when she had twisted herself around misconstructions, did they leave wounds behind when they were revealed as such? Or did her boundaries bounce back like elastic, ready to mould around something new and valid?
If the latter, then that new entity lay secluded behind a solid oak door at the top of a dark staircase. And even as she stood there, barely within the boundaries of the common room, she could feel the strength of the wards emanating from the wood grain. Tinged with darkness, they cooled her bloodstream like despair on an intravenous drip. She suspected many of them skirted the line of legality.
"What's he done?" she asked—to the room or her companions, she was unsure.
It was Nott who responded with pursed lips and a one-shouldered shrug. "Dunno exactly. We only managed a glimpse at him before he threw all those wards up, and none of us can get through them."
Hermione frowned. "But you think I can, do you?"
She received triplet looks of pity and exasperation in return.
"How many of his books have you read already?" Parkinson snipped. She continued before Hermione could speak, the answer apparently written on her face. "Then you should know that he can't deny you much of anything. Not if you ask for it."
Biting her lip, Hermione glanced back at the stairwell. With the apex obscured in shadow, her path seemed ominous, like her future would commence as a walk into an abyss. The thud of her heart began to crash behind her sternum, pumping blood to her head at far too fast a rate. Oddly, the darkness remained fully in focus whilst everything in her periphery bled into a blur. Her body began to feel unbalanced, top-heavy, her skin overheating, her breaths not quite filling her lungs, no matter how deeply she inhaled.
"Granger," Nott's voice sliced through her growing panic, and her eyes cut to him. She forced herself to blink thrice to see him through the haze. "Please."
A hand was suddenly in hers. Glancing down and back up again, she was stunned to find it belonged to Parkinson, who looked far from enthused at the concept of touching her.
"I recognise what we're asking." A muscle twitched in Parkinson's clenched jaw, seemingly mirrored in her firm grip on Hermione's hand. "But Slytherins hardly make a habit of putting ourselves in debt, I hope you know."
Zabini, who until then had uttered nothing other than a string of Silencing Charms on the journey from the Hospital Wing (all of which she had thrown off in quick succession until he'd given up), approached her next, looking conflicted. "Granger, I made him a promise, but I reckon I'm not breaking it by assuming you've already learnt the truth. You know what will happen if he carries on like this, don't you?"
Hermione swallowed thickly, trying to look anywhere that wasn't into Zabini's cold stare. She failed. His eyes may have reflected her uncertainty, but the innumerable titles that lined the walls spelt out the answer to his question, pulling the pages from her memory and slathering them into her present.
"You do know," Zabini finished when she did not.
She wished he was wrong. Desperately, she wished she did not know.
The book responsible for that knowledge had seemed so innocuous in its appearance, Hermione was unsure what had possessed her to swipe it from Malfoy's shelves. Small in its dimensions and bound in cracked, plain leather, it bore no name—gilded, embossed, or otherwise. Perhaps it had once, centuries ago.
Despite its outward innocence, Hermione suspected that its words, handwritten and faded, would steal more sleep from her nights than Bellatrix Lestrange could ever hope to do.
Technically, Malfoy wouldn't die if she rejected him. He would survive, find another compatible female with whom to sire progeny and contribute his prime years to the capitalist workforce like every other sorry sod in this world.
But he would be a shell. The book warned that whilst a Veela's mate was not the direct equivalent of a life force, he or she was the centre of the Veela's purpose. All ambition, each dream, even every feeling was linked to the true mate and disappeared in the absence of one. Ceaselessly apathetic, a lifetime of daily tasks performed like a machine.
Hermione knew she would wish for death, if it were her.
"Draco would murder us if he knew we were talking to you. He'd resign himself to a life of lonely depression before he ever pressured you or made you feel the least bit guilty." Zabini's tone was even and hard, emotions held back by the arms folded across his chest. "But I won't. I don't care what gets you in that room. He's our friend, and he's a good person if you'd just let him show you—"
"Blaise," Nott interrupted him with a brisk shake of his head before turning back to her. His eyes were dark and beady as they stared, unblinking, into hers. And yet, Hermione could see from her distance that the whites were tinged with red. Not the mark of suppressed tears; a stain from countless nights wherein he exchanged sleep for anxious thoughts. She'd seen it regularly in the mirror during the war, flinched when she hardly recognised Harry without it.
"You'll have to forgive him," Nott continued as Zabini scoffed through his nose, "we're not well versed in begging."
Blinking slowly, Hermione looked away. She tried to escape the niggling thought that had been on repeat in her brain: that all this talk was superfluous. But the more she fought it, the more it inevitably clawed to the surface, bringing clarity alongside it.
They needn't have bothered trying to burden her with guilt or treat her with pleas.
Hermione Granger did not run. Not from a challenge, not for herself.
She offered the Slytherins no verbal reply as she began her path toward the stairs, each step corresponding to a whirlwind of contemplations occurring within her head.
Her form still wound itself around some firm truths, and she clung to those like a vice. As to the rest of it, she reckoned it was all still rather determinable. Perhaps there would always be a space for Malfoy's façade, and as such, she would continue to be shaped by its impact on her life, regardless of whether it was a true representation of him. But, if it was ever truly a wound, then it had already begun to heal. It certainly no longer bled.
Acknowledging Malfoy's deception as a mere trigger rather than the source of her internal crisis of self prompted another yet admission—something had been missing for a long time. It wasn't that she ached for purpose. In fact, purposes tended to abound for Hermione, but underlying them all had been an element of numbness, trifling questions of why bother? and why do you think you know what's right?
She'd not known what had been missing, not even realised it wasn't there, but it left behind an impression just deep enough to leave her feeling…without. Floating, mere centimetres above everyone else, high enough to qualify hers as a separate plane.
Harry Potter, suffering endless bouts of turmoil and constant threats of bodily injury, succeeded in pulling her down for a while. But the war was over now, Voldemort long vanquished, and it became harder to ignore the emptiness with each passing day.
The acumen of hindsight taught Hermione that she had tried to fashion Ron into another sort of tether. But she'd done it too hastily, too sloppily, and he'd become more of a weight than a lifeline. She could accept now that Ron had carried his own demons; it had been foolish to assume that his could counteract her own. Putting them together was like joining two helium balloons and hoping they'd keep each other grounded.
So now, with the war gone, Ron gone, Hermione existed. But now, she understood.
What she had lost was her anchor. A permanent counterbalance to stop her spiralling up through the endless vortex her restless mind so favoured, to drop down the side and have her careening in a new direction, should she need it. Something to slot into her soul, fitting neatly into the gaps of her shape like that elusive lost piece.
She stopped short, her foot poised above the last step to the shared landing.
Complementary magical cores.
"Such an idiot," she exhaled, slumping against the dark stone wall to her left as she shut her eyes. "Of course it goes both ways."
How long had it been since she'd been this properly curious about anything? And fuck, if she wasn't curious. Maddeningly so.
Since the end of the war, when was the last time she'd been so consumed by a single puzzle that nothing else could bear to compete? When any other hint of a topic would be brutishly shoved out of the way of her mind's barrelling force, too irreparably eager for answers to every new question?
Hermione had all but forgotten what that was like. So much so, in fact, that she had not recognised when it began to rear its head again, wrenching the edges of her motivation back from a dusty corner. A slow, silent resurrection. It blew warmth into her fingers, caused every breath to tickle as she filled her lungs, kept her up at night for all the right reasons.
Straightening, she shook her head and rolled her shoulders once, twice, and crossed to the door to Malfoy's room.
Hermione supposed it was rather fitting that the superficial barb Malfoy et al. threw at her over the years was the aptest description for the conflagration of wards oozing from the wood. A veritable rat's nest of spells—deep, twisted, protective over the core. Dismantling the inner layer was always the key to the whole network. Malfoy's was fortified by tier upon tier of additional hexes, ranging in their consequence from the mundane to the incomprehensible. To add to the confusion, they seemed to be multiplying the longer she examined them.
His construction was not so much an exercise in technique as it was in strategy. Beyond complex, Malfoy's method would thwart most potential disrupters of his solitude through its sheer tedium and aggravating nature. However, despite Hermione's understanding of Malfoy having turned on its head in the past day, some parts of his old character were as still germane.
The memory she drew forth was of a distant afternoon tea, one that had transpired at a thousand weekends. Her father, the human dichotomy of the stalwart dentist with a persistent sweet tooth, passed her a single sugar cube beneath the table. Her mother noticed; she always noticed. But her father never changed his tactics. He never tried to evade his wife's reproachful gaze and the subsequent swat to his arm, accepting both with a full-bodied chuckle. Always winked to Hermione and popped his own cube directly into his mouth when her mother looked away again. It was a routine that rolled into a tradition, and she had no idea when either had begun. But it had never once failed her, and she allowed herself a small smile as the luminescent otter danced and twirled around her ankles, brushing its paws over its face.
"Hey, you," she spoke softly to the ethereal creature, wishing—as she always did—that it existed in its own right and not solely as an extension of her. "Off you pop, now."
The otter spiralled up her body, around her outstretched forearm that held her wand aloft, and away, still facing her as it propelled supinely through the air. The silvery aura sank easily into the wood.
Hermione smiled again, rueful. One could always trust a Death Eater—the zealous and the reluctant, both—not to ward against a Patronus. Perhaps she did know him, just a little.
And score one to Parkinson, Hermione mused as she crossed the threshold.
Inside Malfoy's room was utter bedlam.
The four-poster bed that once jutted out from the south wall, the one shared with the bathroom, now appeared the site of a well-contained implosion. Gone was the duvet, separated into a million tiny feathers. Across the room, the window swung limply from a single hinge, and the resulting draft stirred up the great waves of down. Hermione recalled a rug had cushioned the floor; now it was obscured by the rags and ribbons of what were once bedcurtains. Stray shards of the wooden posts and headboard lay scattered across the room. Some mingled with a pile of infinitesimally small granules, the texture of sand, beneath an empty mirror frame. Evidence of a well-placed Reducto. She guessed that some others had mixed with the debris that was once an antique, immaculately organised desk, but it would be hard to tell what was what, now.
The only elements left unmolested were the countless books that lined the walls, save—of course—for the ones she'd removed that morning. They looked as though they hadn't been touched in years. Even the fine layer of dust that preceded them on the shelves was uninterrupted. Whatever class of storm blew through here had retained some scruples, it seemed.
Oddest of all, the eye of this storm was conspicuously absent.
"Homenum rev—" she cut herself off, realising her error. A fortuitous mistake, however, even if she hardly revelled in making it.
A humourless scoff echoed from outside the window like thunder after a lightning strike. Hoisting herself into the window well, she craned her neck to have a view of the neighbouring roof.
"Won't work, will it?"
He may have absconded from his shrine of destruction, but Malfoy was a mess in himself.
A study in intransigence and contradiction; he stared out over the grounds with a visage as blank and as flat as stagnant water, yet his body exposed the maelstrom that raged beneath it. Deep hollows carved out space below his eyes. His skin, already eerily pale in the moonlight, looked to be stretched so thinly across his sharp frame that it was practically translucent. Indeed, Hermione could see the smattering of fine vessels that ran just underneath the surface at his temple.
Most striking of all were the wings that still adorned his figure. Hermione imagined they could be quite the source of frustration for Malfoy; he'd hardly be able to ignore the troubles of his genetics when they were literally sprouting from his back.
Plus, they didn't lend much to his unaffected airs.
"Malfoy," she greeted him, recognising his words as being both incendiary and aggressively self-deprecating and opting to ignore them entirely. If she'd learnt one thing from her brief romance with Ronald, it was that rising to such bait only culminated in disaster. "Come down from there, would you? We can't have a proper discussion like this."
Malfoy clasped the edge of the roof in each palm. Even as she was stood there, her feet solid against the stone, her stomach still lurched at the sight of him leant forward over the ledge, looking awfully unstable.
"And why would we have a proper discussion?"
She took a moment to count the cracks in the weather-worn sill, containing herself before she answered, "Well, I reckon it's called for, at this point." When he remained silent, the pulsing vein in his jaw being the only indication he'd heard her, she pressed on, "We need to talk about us—"
Now, he looked at her, trained the full power and depth of his icy gaze on her. "There is no us, Granger," he spat the words out like poison. "You've made that perfectly clear."
"Seriously?" Hermione scoffed, eyes narrowing as she gaped at him. "You've hardly even let on that you're not repulsed by my presence, let alone anything more than that. Pardon me if I needed a moment to adjust."
Malfoy snapped his head down again, the clench in his jaw making a return appearance. Her mother would have chastised him exhaustively for such poor oral posture and the impact it would surely have on his enamel. She might have even sent him home with a list of mouthguards, all recommended by at least four out of five dentists.
"Look," Hermione started again, breathing deep and slow. "It was a lot to think on, and I wasn't ready to talk before. But I am now. So just—" she could feel her skin crinkling as her eyes shut tight, "—please, come down?"
Hermione hardly believed she was pleading with Malfoy, of all people, but her chosen words had their desired effect. After a few seconds of fiddling with a loose thread at the knee of his pyjama bottoms, he offered her a brisk nod.
Score two to Parkinson, it seemed.
"Have it your way, then," he said flatly before his wings stretched out behind him. With gravity working for him, he allowed his body to fall down and over the edge of the roof.
Hermione couldn't prevent the sudden rush of February air that filled her lungs, her brain not connecting the concept of wings with the ability to hold oneself aloft before a gasp of shock escaped from her throat. And an embarrassingly girly one, at that. But as Malfoy hovered just outside the window, doing the aerial version of treading water, she pressed her palm to cover her clavicles. Perhaps the steady pressure would slow her heartbeat, or at least restrain any further unexpected vocal excursions.
"Merlin," she breathed out in a shudder, "a little warning would have been appreciated."
Malfoy only shrugged, insouciant. "If you'd step aside?"
"Oh, right." She shuffled backward, out of the window well and back into the carnage of Malfoy's room.
Whilst she waited for him to make his descent, she busied herself with sorting an acceptable seating arrangement. Lord knew, any of the available options would result in a thousand splinters lodged in hard-to-reach locations. Far from the ideal precursor to a conversation already primed for awkwardness. With a few flicks and waves of her wand, much of the rubble swept itself into a far corner. She located two less-masticated pillows and Transfigured each into a tufted armchair. Magic could only do so much, however. One of the pair kept releasing a flurry of downy feathers at random, spat out from a gnarled hole in the upholstery.
"Shoddy job. Expected better from the Head Girl," Malfoy snarked as he hopped, barefoot, down from the window ledge. If his feet caught on any sharp wood or glass, his expressions certainly bore no indication of it.
And whatever cheeky quip she'd have made died on the tip of her tongue. Scratch that, actually. The whole of her tongue shrivelled to dust and anything left on it hardly stood a chance at survival.
Hermione Granger did not fancy herself a witch concerned with superficial matters. In her moments of introspective analysis—the sort that had plagued her all day—she qualified a part of her identity as a woman who valued substance, character, moral fibre. As evidence to the fact, it was highly likely she was the only witch who had seen Viktor Krum for his interest in academics and not for his physique or athletic prowess.
And yet, in keeping with today's theme, the sets of orthogonal lines that marked out Hermione's definition blurred into a vague, sinuous conglomeration in the few seconds it took Malfoy to assume his full height and move to the chair opposite her.
Had all of…those…been there that morning? Had boys looked like that all this time, but she'd just been gratuitously, offensively ignorant of it? She certainly had not noticed any such attributes on Ron's body the last time she'd seen it. But Christ. She could hardly look at Malfoy's lean form and not imagine how she could literally climb it just using the scattered dips and juts of his musculature for handholds. Truly, if the slopes of Mount Everest bore the topography of Malfoy's abdomen alone, it would be no great feat to summit the bloody thing.
Quickly, she ducked her head, hoping her mass of curls would do more to conceal the rush of heat to her cheeks than the low lighting. Now was not the time for her hormones to contribute asinine commentary worthy of a Witch Weekly op-ed to her inner monologue.
But, as one final indulgence, score three to Parkinson. The acrobatics made more sense now.
When she eventually looked up again, Malfoy was still standing, examining the features of his chair.
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, well. Apologies that it's not to your taste. I was a bit limited in my resources, and you did a number on that pillow."
His gaze passed to her briefly, then back again. He scratched the nape of his neck with the hand holding his wand before lowering it again to twirl over the offensive furniture. The back of the chair shortened considerably, the excess transferring to the depth of the seat.
"There," he mumbled finally before situating himself.
Her cheeks coloured for the second time in as many minutes. She could see now that she'd not accounted for his extra set of limbs. All the times she'd reprimanded him for balancing desk chairs on their back legs suddenly made sense, as well. Conventional carpentry often ignored the length of his femurs, it seemed.
"Oh. Hadn't thought of that."
A smirk, the first of the evening, crept slowly across his features. "One for the books, I'm sure."
Clearing her throat, she straightened in her seat. "Well, talking of books—"
"Right. Our 'proper' discussion."
"Yeah." She took a breath, hoping she looked calmer than she felt. "First, though, I think it would be best if we both agree to speak frankly for the remainder—"
But Malfoy was already shaking his head. "Can't promise that."
Hermione balked. "Malfoy, this is complicated. How d'you expect we'll get anywhere—"
"Were we going somewhere together?" He sneered, rubbing his palms along the lengths of the plush armrests.
"Must you keep interrupting me?"
"Yes, I must. Because I reckon I know how this ends, don't I? Forgive me if I'm not keen on drawing it out."
Crossing her legs, Hermione propped her elbows on her knee and leant toward him. "Oh, you do, do you?" Fuck being calm. This was how they always talked, anyway. "Why don't you just enlighten me, then?"
He tried to level her with a firm glare but she was resolute. "Fine, I will. This ends with you remembering that you despise me—and for good reason—before you flounce your way back to have a truly scandalous number of ginger offspring with the least worthy mustelid in that family."
"Wrong."
His head cocked at an angle. "Excuse me?"
"You're wrong." She shrugged, exuding an air of triviality she didn't truly possess.
In turn, Malfoy threw himself back in his seat, looking for all the world like the posh snob he'd purported himself to be all these years. At least some other parts of his character were consistent.
"Am I?"
"Yes, you are. Ignoring that you think I'm some sort of broodmare in the making—which tells me you know even less about me than I thought—Ron and I aren't together." It was hardly the point, and she knew that. But it was a surprise that he hadn't known; she'd told Parkinson all about it, after all. And the urge to shove it in Malfoy's face that he wasn't some omniscient Seer was far too strong.
His eyes snapped up and, for a second, his carefully constructed mask slipped by a hair. The harsh glint in his irises flickered and the barest hint of vulnerability and doubt shone through. He was a skilled actor, she'd award him that much. But he'd already shown her his hand. Plus, underneath the fully grown Veela exterior was still the mind of a boy. Hermione was used to boys hating their feelings. She was accustomed to them shrinking inward rather than risk speaking about emotions, and being so terrified of rejection that they'd push everyone away before someone would have a chance at it. And though she did not relish having learnt this all first-hand, nor being made to endure it again, at least it didn't hurt quite as much as the first time a boy laid the yoke of his insecurities upon her shoulders.
And perhaps she could also allow Malfoy a small capitulation, given that his fear of rejection was based on higher stakes than that of the average adolescent wizard.
"You're not?" Malfoy's voice escaped on a choke, a cousin of the pre-pubescent squawk that would have all boy-men standing up straighter, gaits directed by their pelvises. For Malfoy, it appeared the cue for his indifference to slot back into place.
"No, I'm not. So let's get a few things straight: I think for myself, I speak for myself, and I choose for myself. So far—and I don't care how bloody noble you think you're being—you've tried to deny me all three. But for this—for us to have any sort of chance at all, you'd better cut that out."
"Who said we have a chance?"
Straightening again, Hermione pressed her palms flat against the cushion and tucked them beneath her legs. Her body taut, she stretched her shoulders by rolling them forward, then back. If nothing else, her position meant she wouldn't accidentally strangle Malfoy when she wasn't paying attention. Or, given her horrifying discovery earlier, unconsciously go on a tactile exploration of his nooks and crannies.
What the fuck was wrong with her?
"I do. And I think," she continued, pinching the undersides of her thighs to keep her mind on track, "we should start from the beginning."
He gestured lazily for her to go on, but did not speak.
A thousand questions came to mind. Each answer was a possible board in the bridge between them. But with him just sat there, physically exposed in so many ways but his face like a virtual fortress, only one wouldn't give her peace.
"Starting on a side note," she worried her lip and waved at the feathered extremities behind him, "are those a permanent fixture now?"
Malfoy didn't glance backward; instead, he kept his stare fixed on her. Blindly, he picked at the already threadbare fabric of one armrest. "Do they bother you?"
"No!" she answered too quickly and with too high a vocal register. Malfoy stifled a smile, but it still reached the corners of his eyes. "No, I just mean…well, I guess I'm just curious."
"Should have figured."
Bracing his weight against the chair—and, Hermione hated herself for noticing, exposing the network of raised veins lining his arms as he did so—Malfoy hoisted himself into a more socially acceptable posture. Well, as acceptable as one could be sat whilst wearing nothing but a pair of shredded pyjama bottoms. Behind him, his wings rustled and shook as though they'd fallen asleep from disuse.
"But no," he answered. "Or, at least I think so. They've never stayed out this long before."
Half of her thoughts began to fixate on the mechanics of collapsible wings—whether they folded in on themselves, shrank down or otherwise to retract into Malfoy's body. But the rest of her could not stop just…staring at them. At how, in Malfoy's dark room, barely illuminated by the moonlight behind them, they looked ominous. Designed for protection, agility, strength. They were the streamlined sort of evolutionary perfection that could make her reconsider the concept of a higher power. Because could the world really create something like that all on its own?
Yes, they were dangerous. He was dangerous.
But she could not look at him without also seeing the Malfoy from that morning. Taken off-guard, open and forthright for the first time since she'd met him, he was as far from dangerous as she could imagine. His wings had drooped, appearing as lethargic as she'd felt, and he had resigned. As though the minute she left, the wings would curl around him like a protective barrier or spread out in full and take him far away.
So yes, they were dangerous, but so was anything when it was frightened.
Hermione thought she might be a bit dangerous too.
She cleared her throat. Flexing the ball of her foot against the floor, her legs bounced up and down in a nervous exercise. She saw Malfoy's eyes flick toward the movement and linger there for longer than was strictly necessary.
"What you said, about your family's true beliefs…"
"Non-beliefs, more accurately," Malfoy provided when she faltered.
"Sure, non-beliefs. So they would not be unhappy that…how did you put it?" She knew, of course. But it was still easier having him say it.
He sat up even straighter. "That my Veela chose you?"
"Yes, that."
"No."
"Okay."
His eyes narrowed to slits, transforming his features from avian to serpentine. "Okay?"
Hermione nodded minutely. "Fine."
"You sound like you've just agreed to pick up some toilet roll on the way home."
She permitted herself a small laugh. "Does that bother you?" she echoed his words from earlier, holding a smile.
"Does it—" Malfoy interrupted himself with a scoff. At least now he knew how it felt. "It should bother you, Granger."
"I'm not saying it doesn't. But I've thought it through. I'm adapting."
He leant back, crossing his arms over his chest as he regarded her. Hermione repeated the mantra in her head that it would be an inappropriate time to look down. But when his silence had outlasted a full minute (it felt like a minute, though silent-time seemed to progress on a logarithmic scale), Hermione could no longer wait for him to fill it.
"Listen, I want to help you—"
"Help me?" His words trailed off the edge of a dark laugh. "Thanks, but I don't want your help."
"Malfoy, hold on—"
"No, this is fucked enough as it is. I don't need your pity to piss all over me as an encore."
"Christ, the imagery. Now would you just—"
"Forget this ever happened," Malfoy declared as he launched out of his chair, turning back toward the window. As he did it, an edge of his wing caught across the back of his Transfigured chair and sliced a deep gash in the frame. From the wound, a great fountain of cotton fluff spewed forth and coalesced into a limp heap on the floor.
Hermione ignored it. Following him, she too abandoned her perch and rushed to block his escape.
"Malfoy," she said sharply, both hands held aloft in front of his chest as her heart threatened to beat its way out through her throat. "I'll never forget. And it's not pity."
His eyes dropped to hers at that, but they were as narrowed as before and marred by a deep crease between his brows.
"If you'd have let me finish, I was going to say that I want to help you, and I want you to help me back."
Malfoy grunted. "I have been trying to help you out of this. But you're making it awfully difficult."
"Would you just shut up?" she screeched, the lid on her temper loosening in the face of his unwavering obstinance. Regardless of whether he was ready to hear it, whether she was ready to give it life through her voice, it would make itself known. "I don't want out of this! Honestly, I thought I did, because it's us, and it's completely mad. But the longer I think about it, the more I know that it's not only futile to fight this but also that it would be such a waste not to try.
"And it's not just you"—she punctuated her words by thrusting her forefinger deep into his chest, again and again and again, the memory of the previous night flashing like a strobe in her mind's eye—"who suffers if we let this go. Knowing about all this, knowing there is this part of me that's definite…Jesus, I'm so young but I feel like I've lived through a decade in just the last six months. I'm tired. All the time. But this…I haven't felt so awake in ages. I thought I'd lost a part of myself, but I know this. And that's enough to start. Even if I don't know everything else yet.
"Whoever the real you is, this person I'm only beginning to know…he's part of me now. Merlin, I need this. I need you—"
Her stream of consciousness threatened to wash her away. Blessedly, however, Malfoy snatched her up before she could sink too deep. The distance evaporated and his lips were slanting over hers, firm yet softer than she would have ever anticipated, and she let go.
There was no brilliant flash of light as her universe met his, like the joining of two tectonic plates. Her soul did not cry out like it was rent from her body, ready to dance in the night with his. If the connection of their bodies incited any major phenomenon, metaphysical or otherwise, then Hermione would say time slowed.
Time slowed in the way silence could be drawn out. Like watching a great catastrophe, all energy directed to a single focus, the mind warred with the senses over the impossibility of their truth.
Time slowed and her mind slowed with it. Content to settle in quietude, if only for a short while.
Every press of his lips against hers seemed to coarse across her body, eliciting a shiver as they echoed in her abdomen. The brush of his hand as it curved around her cheek grounded her. It would keep her on whichever plane they both could share.
A groan passed from his mouth to hers and it stole every bit of oxygen from her lungs. But then it was all over, and he was gone. Holding her at arm's length, Malfoy hung his head to face the floor.
"Fuck," he shuddered, barely more than a breath. "I shouldn't have—fuck."
"Hey," Hermione spoke softly, trailing her hand from where it had remained on his chest to cup his jaw. She tilted his face back up to hers. Never in a thousand years would she have expected this, but she was holding fast. In the recesses of her mind, in each frantic and sporadic pump of blood through her heart, in every muscle stretched tight as a bowstring, it felt right.
She knew his thoughts; hers were a shadow of his, lengthening with the passing of the day. And Hermione never found it easy to argue with herself.
Somewhere, a quiet warning rang out and advised her to wait, because this was still Malfoy in the room with her, holding her. But she hushed it away. "Still Malfoy" meant something wholly different now, did it not?
He looked at her, his eyes open and painfully vulnerable again.
It did. And perhaps two definitions could leave unique impressions on the same space.
"Don't apologise for that."
Her mind was made up.
"Say that again, mate?" Blaise angled his head to disrupt Draco's field of view, preventing him from ogling another partaker of breakfast in the Great Hall.
But losing one sense was no longer enough to split Draco's attention. She was behind every door now. Around every corner, one floor below—he was drowning in her and swimming to the bottom. It had become increasingly difficult to breathe for anyone other than her, but he had told her he would try.
We'll take this slow.
And so silver tilted to meet a taunting shade of deep hazel, though he could still feel the hint of golden brown through them if he unfocussed his eyes just so.
Under the guise of stirring his tea, he twirled a finger to reassess the stability of the modified Muffliato Charm surrounding them. A true Slytherin accomplishment—in fifth year Theo adapted the spell for use in crowded spaces. The original would distract potential eavesdroppers with a persistent buzzing sound, but anyone familiar enough would recognise the noise for what it was and know sensitive topics were under discussion. Theo, with his propensity for layering spells, successfully wove a Confundus and a Repelling Charm into the fabric of the incantation. The result was a masterpiece for discretion.
Draco felt along the boundary of the magic, finding it sound. Unsurprising, given he erected it himself the second they'd taken their seats, but this was still a sensitive subject to rehash in a public forum.
"Like I said: we talked for a bit, she…didn't reject me, and then I just…sort of, kissed her. I guess." All out of sorts, Draco itched to glance over at his witch, to see if she was stumbling her way through the morning like he was. He cursed Blaise's rotund head for being in the way.
"How can you 'sort of' kiss?" Pansy said from his right, her tone bending into an arc of condescension. Had she not been holding her porcelain teacup in front of her mouth, Draco was sure he would have seen her lips curl in derision as they formed her words. "It better not have been some kind of cloacal exchange, because I taught you better than that."
Draco grimaced. "Fuck off; it wasn't like that."
"Well, what was it like, then?" said Theo, sat to Blaise's left. It was an impressive display of immaculately bred social cues that not one of Draco's companions leant inward, despite the near-magnetic force emanating from somewhere near the kettle between them. "Skip the messy bits, if you like."
But Pansy instantly waved him off with her free hand. "Don't you dare listen to him, Draco. Leave them in."
"Again, it wasn't like that. D'you really think I'd be sat here with you sad lot if it had been?"
"Aye, he's got a point there," Blaise chuckled, brushing a thumb over his nose before waggling another finger across the table at Draco. "Doubt he'd have managed the walk down here otherwise."
Allowing himself a small smirk, Draco silently agreed. Should he and Granger ever reach that point (which still seemed an incredibly distant possibility, if not highly impossible), Draco would plan on not gazing upon another human soul for at least a fortnight. Possibly not for a month. As it was, with as much and as little that transpired between them the night prior, Draco was having a hard enough time resisting the urge to snatch her up and scarper off to the safety of their dorm.
Those four words from Granger the night before had been enough to set his mind on a new course. Whilst the errant how fucking dare you and what right do you think you have still lurked below his fragile new layer of confidence, she had rejuvenated in him something he had not felt for many years: hope.
Far from a rejection, Granger had asked to know him.
"Somehow," she had said, long after he'd stepped back and they'd righted themselves, "fate or genetics or whatever is at play here decided we're a match. And, to be frank, the person I thoughtI knew seems a bit of an odd companion for the person I know I am."
Draco had agreed readily.
Because Pansy hadn't been far from the mark when she'd accused him of not knowing Granger. Well, obviously he knew her. Eight years of existing in adjacent spaces and several weeks of paying far too much attention meant he had a superficial understanding of what made Hermione Granger tick.
He knew she used to drink tea—black with one sugar—every morning with breakfast, but had switched to coffee since returning to school.
Black. No sugar.
He knew she favoured well-lit tables for studying, yet avoided those that directly neighboured a window. He knew because they'd been warring over those spots for years.
He knew she had a habit of dusting her quill along the underside of her jaw when she became truly absorbed. Ancient Runes lectures had never been so enthralling, but he'd had to bum notes off Theo for the past month.
He knew her touch warmed him more than the sun could ever hope to do. If he closed his eyes, he could still feel the ghost of that warmth as it fluttered across his jaw like a summer breeze.
He knew her lips were like satin, that kissing her was like getting drunk much too fast. One minute he was lucid and the next, he felt light and heavy all at once. And the was-this-a-bad-idea-no-it-definitely-wasn't-oh-yes-it-really-fucking-was revolved on an infinite loop in his addled brain.
Draco knew he never wanted to taste anything but her for the rest of his life.
Emerging from his reverie, he found all three of his housemates staring back at him.
A smug Blaise.
A quizzical, hopeful Theo.
An ostensibly indifferent Pansy, but one who bore the slightest upturn of her painted lips as she blew on her already tepid tea.
"Cute." Theo chewed on his tongue with his molars, a poor disguise for a smirk. And he apparently only knew one word.
Draco aimed a swift kick under the table. Hoping to encounter one or both shins of his bastard friends, he was sorely disappointed to meet a bench support instead. Scowling, he cursed his friends, "Do fuck off, all of you."
"You kiss Granger with that mouth?" Blaise chided, eyes bursting with mirth.
Theo replied for him, "Apparently, he does."
Groaning, Draco dropped his forehead to rest on his fingertips, manually contorting his brows. "I'll murder you both."
At that, he saw Pansy's cup lower to the table before her pale fingers—with long nails adorned in deep red varnish—pull his hands from his face.
"How lovely, we're plotting again," she said, smiling dangerously across the table at Blaise, who cocked his head and narrowed his eyes in return. "Do say you'll let me help this time."
Theo pointed his spoon between her and Draco, waiting to speak until he'd swallowed his bit of porridge. "I'd take her up on the offer, mate."
At Blaise's affronted look, Theo shrugged affably and continued, "What? If I'm going to be murdered, then at least have it be done with elegance, panache, a certain je ne sais quoi. Draco here"—Theo pointed the silver spoon back at him—"would probably just lock me in a room with a knife and hope I'd fall on it."
Draco glared across the table. "Perhaps I just lacked the proper motivation."
"Oh, no need for that, darling," Pansy tutted at him, starting to rearrange his fringe before he batted her hand away. "I'll sort the scheming, don't fuss. You just sit there and look pretty."
He groaned again, longer this time.
This was the problem with hope: it was infectious. A person could never be alone in it. No matter how reluctant, everyone would soon fall prey to its pull and want to join in.
How he wished that it was suffocating. It would be easier to resist if it were more unpleasant.
But then, Draco tore his stare from his friends, looking through the renewed gap between them. Chin propped on his palm as his fingers gripped his hair at the roots, his view was no longer interrupted.
And fuck, the view.
An open book hovered before her—well out of harm's reach from stain-inducing breakfast foods—as she grasped a steaming mug with both hands, her fingers overlapping, the base of her lower lip perched on the rim. He watched as she read and the pages turned for her. Such a casual display of multiple wandless and nonverbal spells and he wasn't sure whether to be jealous of her ability or proud that she would ever give him the time of day.
Perhaps he could be both.
And as if she could sense his gaze on her, Granger tore her eyes from her tome to meet his. Her eyelids fluttered as she blinked in quick succession and, suddenly, her book fell from the air with almighty thwack against the table. Several of her housemates turned their heads at the commotion. Her whole face flushed pink. Draco suspected the same could be said of her delicate ears, had they not been concealed by her raucous curls.
Sheepishly, she skulled the remnants of her coffee as she made to leave. He saw her wince as she forced herself to swallow, and he realised she'd still been waiting for the drink to cool when this whole debacle began. Poor witch. She'd have a mouth like sandpaper for the rest of the day. He'd be tickled to kiss it better, though, if she'd let him.
Down, boy.
With haste, Granger shoved her book into her bag and marched from the Great Hall without a backward glance.
But that did nothing to dampen his mood, nor halt the progression of the smile filling his face. For she'd given herself away from the start. She had looked directly at him, after all. No peek about the room first, no delay before she found him.
She'd been watching him, too.
xx
"Can I join you?"
Looking up from his library desk, Draco was surprised to find Granger standing at the end of the aisle.
He'd heard her coming, of course; cohabitation meant he'd learnt the specific metre of her gait several months ago, long before his hearing attuned to the point that he could isolate it from a corridor of crowded students. But he had expected his mind to drift as she passed to the back of the Restricted Section. He expected to remain half-focussed on his work as her scent lingered in the air. He hadn't expected her to seek him out.
It was rare to find Draco studying in the library nowadays, what with him having a more private one only a few stacks away. But he'd been trying to allow Granger some space and some time. Something he hadn't done before.
Yes, he was encouraged by yesterday's events. Over the moon, to be exact. Instinct shouted at him to crowd her, shower her in a deluge of affection and pheromones until she agreed to spend a sliver of eternity with him. But he ignored it all. Not only would such behaviour surely drive her off, because he'd seen what happened when didn't allow her the time to adjust, but it was also a touch too primal for his liking.
Odd, how millennia of adaptive evolution didn't result in the loss of outdated instincts. Rather, it only gave him an improved analytical function. Thanks to that, he simultaneously knew how creepy and fucked up it would be to jump out of his chair, flap his wings about and squawk in a unique mating dance, yet a part of him still really wanted to do it. Perhaps if he used some of her favourite books as props, the avian equivalent of flamenco fans, the performance would be more socially acceptable for his modern audience.
Salazar, he needed to get laid.
Blinking, he realised he'd taken far too long to respond to her simple request. He nodded at her, not trusting his literal bird brain to do any of the talking.
Granger positioned herself diagonal to him across the table and pulled more books out of her bag than should have been able to fit within its natural confines.
Glancing back down at his own text but still watching her from his periphery, he tutted, "Awfully naughty of the Head Girl."
She had the gall to look bewildered. "I'm sure I've got no idea what you're on about."
"Oh, of course you haven't," he drawled. "And neither does the small fiefdom you've got in that bag. I do hope you've left the lights on."
"Minor Extension Charms are perfectly reasonable spells to use," she defended, even as she kicked the bag beneath her chair.
Draco leant back in his, assessing her. A hint of that adorable flush had returned to disguise the height of her cheekbones, though she seemed more successful at reining in her discomfiture than she'd been that morning.
Pressing his feet flat, he pushed his chair back from the table, watching her grimace as the legs scraped a nasty screech against the floor. A chorus of shushes emanated from the surround, but he paid them no mind. He peeked beneath the table, then back at her. Granger's resolute stare was a thing of beauty.
After a brisk wave of his wand, Draco tutted at her again, pulling himself back to the table. "Undetectable. Impressive, but definitely a naughty secret."
To her credit, Granger only smiled at him in response. A sly, dangerous quirk of her lips. "Shall we compare secrets, Malfoy? I daresay you'll win that one."
Draco gave a brisk nod as he pretended to return to his reading. "Touché."
"You're damn right, 'touché'."
"Yes, yes, I get it," he muttered, eager to change the subject. "Why're you here, anyway?"
Granger kept her eyes on her opened book. "I'm studying. You should try it sometime; maybe you'd finally have a shot at beating me."
He rolled his eyes but ignored the bait, not overlooking the fact that she'd avoided his question. "Why not use the common room? As you can see—" he splayed his hands wide, gesturing to the spread of his schoolwork on the desk, "—it's otherwise unoccupied."
"A change of scenery is known to increase productivity," she reasoned haughtily.
Dropping his head onto his raised fist, Draco snorted in disbelief. "You needed to increase your productivity?" he said flatly. "Granger, I've seen you write three feet of a Potions essay and read that Arithmancy book by Karuzos at the same time."
With a glower, Granger abruptly slammed her book shut, allowing him a glimpse of the title, A Complete History of the Patronus Charm. He frowned, mentally reviewing his classes' syllabi. Unless he was mistaken, and he was sure he was not, that book wasn't required reading. And regardless, the implied content seemed much too remedial for the acclaimed "brightest witch of her age". He'd heard Potter, of all people, had mastered the eponymous charm in their third year; surely Granger couldn't have been far behind.
"Look," Granger spoke with a slight lilt of superciliousness, pulling Draco from his musings, "I'm trying, okay? Like we talked about. I dunno if you're deliberately trying to antagonise me, but it would seem awfully counter to your best interests to do so."
Well, fuck. That hit him hard in the gut.
She'd proclaimed multiple times the night before that exploring the option of them was not a favour to him, nor was it a sacrifice for her. She had even gone so far as to say her motives were almost selfish, though he'd never believe that. In truth, he'd had difficulty believing any of it.
How could he, with such a poignant reminder of who he was? Who he'd been to her?
He'd just thought it a bit of teasing. His past motivations may have been false ones, but he'd never had to fake his love of riling her up.
But she hadn't known any of that. She spent eight years thinking him a bigoted arse because that was precisely the face he'd wanted her to see. That damage couldn't undo itself in a day, declarations of potential undying love notwithstanding. A bit of ribbing couldn't be harmless with her. Not yet, at least. Not while she looked at him and still saw the face of her tormenter. The relatively civil rapport they had established over the past several months couldn't outweigh eight years of shared animosity. Eight years wherein he forced her to believe 'harmless' would never describe him.
Draco inhaled through his mouth. Whilst he could still taste her scent on his tongue, it was dulled, less paralysing than when he allowed it to flood his nose. He would need all the possible presence of mind for what he was about to do.
"Old habits, I guess." Apologies never came easily to him, and he winced at the poor start. "But you're right."
Blinking slowly, Granger seemed to search his face for signs of duplicity. It was uncomfortable, to say the least, to allow anyone to see him so unguarded. His heart beat an unsteady rhythm in his chest. Resisting the urge to throw up every mental wall and withhold every shred of emotion had his blood thrumming, muscles clenching.
But he remembered what Granger said just two nights before: that she deserved answers. She deserved the truth, and the right to act on it as she desired.
Apparently satisfied with what she saw, the witch pushed her book away from her (a move Draco was certain she took no pleasure in doing). "That's a start," she said, pensive as she absently traced the engraved letters of her book's title. "What about a new habit, then?"
He cleared his throat, inclining his head in a bid for her to continue.
"Well, okay," she started, then hesitated. From the way she was bouncing her leg under the table, sending vibrations through the floor, it seemed she was waiting for her brain to finish working before she pressed on. "We could…study together? Just for an hour or so every day. Or—" she stammered, pulling on the end of an errant curl, "—it doesn't have to be every day…a few times a week would work too if that's what you'd—"
"Every day is acceptable." The words were out of his mouth before he realised he spoke them. And, by the expanded circumference of her eyes, Granger was just as surprised.
Gathering herself, she elaborated, "Right. Good. Every day then. It can be wherever you like; personally, I'm partial to the common room, but I can work practically anywhere."
Somewhere along the line, Draco had stopped breathing, and now his mind was blissfully blank. It was like the Veela had decided to take up full residence before promptly falling asleep. Though he managed to hold the conversation, his last coherent thought was that Granger had suggested sharing time with him, as a daily practice, alone.
With him.
Her idea.
Alone.
Were his wings out? He could do with a spot of preening.
"I am comfortable with the common room." Was he? When had he decided that?
"Brilliant, that's sorted then," she paused, considering him. "Another thing…I'd like to have one question per day. You'll have one, too. Outside of whatever else we might talk about, and nothing mundane like if you prefer beans or marmalade on your toast—"
"Marmalade." Sweet Circe, since when had he been so chatty?
Granger bit her lip, stifling a grin. "Good to know," she snickered before growing more solemn. "Something more than that, though. Something personal. And I'm going to trust you won't use anything I tell you against me."
"I would never—" Draco winced, his mind clearing enough to remember himself. Remember the person that she knew. "Not anymore, I mean. Not to you."
Granger glanced up at him through her lashes. Her eyes glinted at him in a way that was so utterly earnest and hopeful he had to fight not to turn away. Perhaps she was naïve to put so much stock in him, the person she hardly knew, the person who was more of an idea to her than anything else. Draco certainly would have thought her misguided if he'd been a fly on the wall of their recent interactions.
But the longer he stared back, the more he felt that the hope in her eyes mirrored the sincerity and the promise in his.
Because no, he didn't know her yet either. But he could. Intrinsically, deep in his bones, he knew what this could be—what they could be—if they tried.
Fuck him, if hope was not a powerful, dangerous beast.
And fuck, if he didn't want to dance with it just a little.
Draco doubted he would ever deserve the witch currently sat across from him, nor the friable chance at a tabula rasa that she laid at his feet. And so, at that moment, Draco swore an oath. One of the few he'd made in his short life and one of the even fewer that had been for the right reasons.
Granger had insisted her choice was not a sacrifice; well, Draco would hold himself to the task of ensuring it never became one.
He pushed his own book toward the middle of the table to join hers. "Shall we start now?"
The glassy, hypnotic sheen left her eyes. She touched her lower lip with her forefinger, pushing it this way and that—a habit his mother would have criticised but Draco found completely mesmeric—as she asked, "Have you got one, then?"
"Hmm?" His brow furrowed as he contemplated her question, forcing himself to look up. "One what?"
She giggled. Giggled. To his horror, he felt blood beginning to effuse his cheeks. He couldn't decide whether Granger having a laugh at his embarrassment made him want to throw himself off the Astronomy Tower or yodel from it.
Bloody hell. Witches never used to be this confusing.
She spoke through a laugh, "A question, Malfoy?"
Oh. Right.
Well, no; he hadn't thought of one. Odd, how he'd fussed and stewed over the little he knew about her, but when the opportunity to remedy that arrived, he failed to pinpoint just one thing to ask. The concept of her was such a tumultuous cloud hovering in his consciousness, a murky abyss of mystery with a thousand entrances…and none, all at the same time. An endless cascade of locks with answers for keys, its hidden reward not guaranteed by one alone.
To top it off, his mind kept diverting to one niggling thought, no matter how much his brain tried to argue it was a waste of a question.
But sod it. He wasn't coming up with anything better, and he couldn't keep her waiting for much longer.
"Why'd you start drinking coffee?" As the words escaped his lips, he realised too late how they painted him as a bit of a stalker, creepily staring at her as she consumed her morning beverage.
But, as he was about to backtrack, make up some excuse for how he'd noticed her increased caffeine consumption, he froze when he saw the mirth leave her face. Jaw held tight, breaths coming long and deep through her nose, eyes a touch too wide and unblinking.
He knew that look. Had seen it reflected at him in broken mirrors, in the faces of the tortured souls that never left the Manor during the war.
Panic leaking through the cracks.
Given the choice of fight or flight, sometimes the body chose a third option—an amalgamation. All the chemicals in the brain screamed run, run, run, but the mind demanded to persevere. A civil war between instinct and higher-order reasoning that resulted in limbo. The body rooted itself in place but still flooded with the adrenaline it vowed not to use.
Granger gave a sad, half-smile, about as genuine as a glass diamond. "I thought we said no breakfast proclivities," she whispered, eyes downcast.
"You don't have to—" he stammered, an action wholly foreign to him. "Fuck," he said under his breath, into his palm. "I don't need to know."
"No," Granger responded immediately as she held her hand aloft, her firm tone disturbed only by the slightest catch in the word. "I'll answer."
But Draco still shook his head. "Really, I don't need—"
"Yes, you do," she interrupted him. "Perhaps not all at once, but eventually."
She must have read the continued scepticism in his countenance, for the set of her brow became a fraction more angled. "No one's forcing me. I choose, remember?"
Draco swallowed but nodded minutely. Merlin, to have even a splinter of her courage…
"Tea is—" she stopped almost as soon as she began, and he heard the purposeful measure of her breathing, "was something I shared with my parents. It's silly, really, because obviously I drank tea with others as well"—she sounded flustered, like her thoughts were exiting her brain faster than it could process them—"but…I dunno. I guess it became something sacred between us."
She paused, he waited.
"I modified their memories in the summer after sixth year, to protect them during the war. They live in Australia now, as a delightful middle-aged couple who never regretted their decision not to have children."
Oh, fuck.
He couldn't have just asked for her favourite colour, could he?
"Merlin, I'm sorry—" Draco began to apologise—for asking, for what she went through, for the role he played, and for a thousand others for which he lacked the proper words. And it did not catch in his throat the way it had countless times before, when he'd constructed contrition to avoid two words that pierced his soul. But she'd held up her hand again, halting him.
"They're safe, that's what matters. And I'm not sorry you asked, or that you know."
Draco rubbed his palms up and down the tops of his thighs, trying to shed the film of anxiety that dampened his skin. "Well," his voice caught then, and he choked out a cough. "I'm sorry you had to do that. That you had to do any of it. And—" he glanced down then, still not strong enough to look her in the eye, "—and I'm sorry I enabled it, contributed to it. I told myself it was the only way, the only guaranteed option I had to protect my family and our lineage. But I had no right making you pay for that. Making anyone pay for it, for that matter. And I'm sorry I never said that to you before now."
Granger stared back at him, the shock evident in her face only increasing his guilt and self-loathing. It would be a hard-fought path, he realised yet again, fixing what he broke. Forgiveness required more than a single apology. More than several apologies. And Draco doubted he would ever earn it, especially from her, but he was locked to this path now. The simple combination of I need you and a fleeting taste of her lips had seen to his sense of commitment.
Draco was no longer in control, if he ever truly had been. Only she could tell him to stop.
But she didn't.
"Thank you, for that," Granger exhaled, long and slow.
He did the opposite, practically gulping down a breath, as though his lungs were finally unencumbered from a phantom weight that had compressed them for so long. Though he supposed that was a fairly accurate assessment.
Exhaling, the thrumming in his veins prompted him to adjust his position. "Well, turnabout's fair play."
"Pardon?" she queried as her brow furrowed. It was his turn to smile at her confusion.
"I asked you a question, you answered, now you go." He leant back in his chair, crossing his arms, hoping to exude a sense of relaxation he did not feel. "Hit me."
It worked. A slow grin spread across her features. The tinge of mischief glinting in her eyes had his blood rushing south of its own accord, and Draco fought against the urge to fidget. Salazar, but this witch would be the death of him. If one kiss had him making moon eyes at her all morning, tracking her every move, and a single smile had him itching for a cold shower, he'd hardly last the remainder of the week.
Dead. Gone. Buried under the mental burden of his longing and physical weight of his erection.
Get a hold of yourself, you pathetic sod.
"I believe I've already done that once. Actually, a few times, now," she was saying, and her smile evolved into a full-blown smirk. Simultaneously, Draco was impressed, proud, terrified, and exceptionally horny. The compounded effect was sure to induce premature hypertension, but he'd accept any chronic condition so long as she kept looking at him like that.
Fuck.
Unconsciously, Draco scrubbed a palm over his cheek and across his jaw. "I recall, but thanks ever so for the refresher."
Her shoulders shook with poorly suppressed laughter as she pulled both lips into her mouth.
And that was how it began.
True to her word, Granger met to study with him every day and a routine developed almost without any conscious planning. If one or both of them had patrols, they studied together beforehand. If their evenings were free after classes finished, one waited and worked in the library until the other arrived.
The days he had Quidditch were his favourites.
Previously, Draco would have a shower in the locker rooms after a match or a practice, changing back into his regular clothes there before making the jaunt back to the castle. But after one match against Hufflepuff, from which he emerged the victor, his friends had hurried him back to the Slytherin Common Room to celebrate before he could even get his kit off. Trudging back to his own dorm much later, he hadn't missed the double-take Granger blessed him with as she examined his attire, nor the furious blush that overtook her face when she realised she'd been caught looking.
He hadn't used the Quidditch showers since.
He could not often muster the energy nor the discipline to study after rigorous exercise, but he would still sit with Granger at their table or on the couches in their Common Room as she did. He'd pretend to read whilst watching her work from under his lashes. It was silent, tranquil save for their daily exchange of questions.
She surprised him with those; when he'd agreed to answer one per day, he had expected a barrage of overly personal assaults. Investigations into his time as a Death Eater and an unending inquisition into his heritage. All expedient ways to ensure she held compromising knowledge over him, things she could use if she suspected he would betray her confidence. A Slytherin certainly would have done as much.
But either she was thoroughly uninterested in such topics (and he had trouble even entertaining the notion that she was uninterested in anything), or she was deliberately avoiding them.
Her questions were not impersonal, per se, but they were safe.
She asked after pleasant memories from his childhood; where he'd gone for his first holiday, if his family had any Christmas traditions, how it felt the first time he'd flown a broom. After that last, he had seen the follow-up simmering behind her eyes, but she'd held her tongue. She had her reasons for leaving the hippogriff in the room unaddressed. Draco understood; he did not push.
But he was also running out of time. April was fast approaching and with it only two more short months with which to seal the bond. The last thing he wanted was to rush her; he hardly wanted to rush himself, either. The pace they had adopted was slow enough to approach normalcy despite the extreme oddity of their shared circumstance. It held all the comfort of a warm bed on a frosty morning. At some point, however, Draco knew he'd have to get up.
The way it eventually happened was unintentional. Not premeditated in the slightest. Theo, with his love of schemes and strategies, would have thoroughly disapproved.
Head duties were ones they had previously performed jointly, yet separately. If a Hogsmeade visit was imminent, a parchment with Granger's detailed notes overflowing into the margins would be tucked between his closed bedroom door and the frame. Draco would peruse it, provide necessary edits, and post it for the Prefects the following day. They had honed their art of working apart together.
But then, amidst one of their new, comfortably silent study sessions, he'd switched from academics to planning the agenda for the next Prefect meeting. He could have easily completed the task on his own; he'd done as much since the start of term. But one, two, three flicks of a glance from her work to his had been enough to assure him of her interest, and he'd remembered something Pansy said to him in sixth year. When he hadn't wanted to hear it; when he'd isolated himself in an attempt to limp his way through life.
Being alone is a choice, she'd said, and not one any of us would make for you.
Hesitating only briefly, he'd reminded himself of his promise: that he had already chosen the alternative. Acting on that decision would be a continuous, conscious effort, but he was ready for the work.
So he'd slid his parchment across the table and asked for her thoughts. Or, as much as he could do nonverbally, only offering a pointed look and a downward nod. But that had been the start of working together. Still largely silent, but respectfully so. Not stilted.
On the final Tuesday of March, he and Granger were completing their review of the patrol schedules for the upcoming month. Only the final week remained in need of sorting. But Granger was being difficult.
"I already said it's fine that I do Wednesday," she argued, as she had done for nearing twenty minutes.
"No, it isn't," Draco insisted back. He hoped the air of finality in his tone would be enough to sway her. Shocker, it wasn't. "You're already patrolling on the Monday, and you bullied me into giving you two patrols this week"—he thumbed the penultimate row on their shared calendar as he ignored her scoff—"so you've already done far more than your share."
"But there's no one else, is there? Well, there's Cormac. But Eleanor Branstone already complained to me about some skeevy comments he made to her last week, so I'm not particularly keen on partnering him with another fifth-year girl."
McLaggen. Draco doubted he would ever hear the name without feeling the urge to chunder everywhere.
"How is that git still a student, let alone a Prefect?" he sneered.
Granger snorted, sifting through the lists of Prefects and various other schedules. "I reckon it has something to do with daddy's contribution to the school endowment."
Draco hummed, unamused but also a bit stymied. He was hardly in the best position to criticise others for their parents' donating practices and their consequences. Though, if honesty did not demand diffidence, Draco figured that he still would have earnt his achievements (the good ones, at least) with or without his family's financial crutch. If his combined titles of Head Boy, Quidditch Captain, and second in his class (and no, he wasn't bitter) were anything to go by, Draco wasn't at a loss for a work ethic.
But, investment practices aside, the rest of the Gryffindor tosser was hardly off-limits.
"Only time his name and 'endowment' share a sentence with a positive connotation."
Granger looked up from her notes to offer a chastising grin. "Not your best wordplay, Malfoy."
He shrugged. "Yes, well. I believe someone once lectured me about how he wasn't worth the effort."
Her eyebrows shot up to her hairline. "Touché," she said, and he was struck with an immediate sense of déjà vu. Granger returned to her schedules, sighing. "But anyway, there's no other option. And like I said, I'm fine to do it."
Gently extricating the parchment from her grasp, he glanced over it himself. In doing so, he took note of the dates, remembering something else. A detail he'd learnt whilst he'd gaped over Granger's personal timetable, horrified that she had been granted nine N.E.W.T.-level classes.
"Hold on," he began, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You have Arithmancy on Thursdays."
"So?" she said, impassive.
"So?" Draco parroted as he balked at her. He was certain she was being deliberately obtuse. "So, that's the week of the final exam before N.E.W.T.s, Granger. You've been nattering on about it since we started studying together."
Her eyes narrowed and her posture grew stiffer. "Did you not hear me say I'll be fine? Or d'you just think I can't manage it?"
He groaned, carding his fingers through his already-mussed hair. Merlin, this witch be could be intractable when she put her mind to it. "Of course you can manage it. Point is, you don't have to." With that said, he inked his quill and crossed her name off the schedule with two perfectly parallel strokes.
"What're you doing?" she asked indignantly, leaning over the table to have a better look at the parchment.
"Taking the patrol."
"What?" she screeched and shot out of her chair. He held his ground, unmoving, as she approached his side of the table. "But you've already got one for that week."
"Yeah, and you would've done too if you'd taken it. But this way we're even for the week before."
Shifting her weight between her feet, Draco suspected she was resisting the urge to stomp. She was rather cute whilst throwing a tantrum, even if she did continue grasping at excuses.
"But you've got the same exam! I'm not going to shirk my responsibilities and let you do poorly—"
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," he drawled, rolling his eyes. "But relax. I have Arithmancy on Wednesdays, so I'll have already had the exam before the patrol."
Never mind he would have four feet of a Transfiguration essay to turn in the following morning. Plus the heaps of independent research he'd need to cram in before the end of the week. But, perhaps if he forced himself to work after his Quidditch match, he'd be alright. Actually, that was an idea…
"Anyway," he continued, "there's a pair of us for a reason. You needn't be the only one overworked just for the sake of it. It certainly doesn't make you any less deserving if you delegate once in a while. But—" he paused, tamping down a burgeoning smirk, "—I'm happy to propose a trade, if that would placate you."
Granger turned her head to the side whilst keeping her eyes on him, suspicious. "Such as? And not that I'm agreeing, mind you," she added quickly before he could respond.
He shifted in his chair as if adjusting his posture. Proprietary breeding and etiquette ensured the tic was merely for display. A humanising exhibition of his own capacity for imperfection, his mother called it. As if he needed the extra help.
"I'll double up on the patrols that week if, in exchange," he drew out the pause for the second time, enjoying the sight of her (very genuine) fidgeting, "you come to the match against Ravenclaw at the weekend."
She stilled. "The Slytherin-Ravenclaw match?" When he nodded, she lifted her palms in exasperation. "But I've no reason to be there, though."
Draco grunted and clutched his button-down over his heart. "You wound me, truly."
Rolling her eyes, she tutted, "No, I mean that everyone knows I only show up to Gryffindor matches to support Ginny. I can't just appear at a random match for no reason."
"So think of one, then. Those are my terms."
Granger trailed her hand up her thigh until it rested on her hip. Draco tracked the movement like a hawk. "You know what? I think I'd rather just have the extra patrol."
Okay. That stung a bit, even if he could understand her reticence.
Recovering himself, he kept his eyes on her as he waved his wand limply over the schedule. Before she could react, he'd graced the ink with a Permanence Charm, folded the parchment into thirds, and Vanished it to the Prefects' message board.
"Oh dear," he gasped with sugary contrition, "now it can never be changed. How dreadfully clumsy of me."
"Clumsy, my arse," Granger scoffed. Draco bit back a smirk. "You can't very well claim that was accidental when you did it nonverbally, you sneak."
Biting the corner of his lip, he waved the tail of his loose tie at her face. "Should've known by the green, darling."
He hadn't meant to tack on the endearment; it just sort of slipped out. But the resulting flush to her cheeks was the best reinforcement of bad behaviour.
Then, however, the smirk fell off his lips as she started to lean down, levelling her face with his. Perhaps, with his limited but growing experience in the subject, he should have been more accustomed to having her so close. Alas, the gentle puff of her breath on his cheeks, the curious glint of her deep, chocolatey eyes boring into his, the shine of her curls tickling his wrists—they all made his breath catch.
But not as much as what she did next.
His focus had never drifted from her piercing gaze. As such, he'd failed to notice her hands creeping up to his sternum until he heard the tell-tale slither of silk against silk, then spluttered in a wholly indecorous manner at the sudden constriction at his throat.
Granger stood upright, smiling via arched brows and pursed lips as she gathered her books and began the retreat to her room. "Thought snakes fancied a bit of a squeeze?" She winked…winked at him as he coughed.
Fuck.
Lucky for her, he lacked the breath for a snarky quip about how if he was actually a snake, he wouldn't be a constricting breed. He'd be the sort that was all dangerous, camouflaged and venomy, fanning out his creepy throat skin and flicking his neck so fast everyone would think he was having a series of pantomimical seizures. Would've been a whopper of a comeback. She'd have never recovered. Really, he was doing her a favour by being sat there, mute save for the sound of his vocal cords losing much of their surface area.
"And I'll come to your ruddy game," she threw over her shoulder before disappearing up the stairs.
"Lovely," he wheezed and dug two fingers under the too-tight knot to relieve the pressure.
Rubbing his fingers across the reddened skin of his neck, Draco couldn't help but shiver, the heavy tingling in his abdomen begging for release.
He smiled.
Not because he'd pulled one over on Granger, mind. But precisely because he hadn't done.
His bit of showy spellwork with the schedule had been steps of a dance, not a trap. If she would really rather work than watch him play, she could have easily trotted herself over to the Prefects' meeting room and rewritten the schedule.
And she'd said it herself, after all. I choose.
Well, he'd hold her to that.
And he'd make bloody well sure she would not regret it.