Apricity - Chapter Three
The week went by as normal.
Draco went to class, spent his free time with Theo, and cleaned up after Granger in the Head common room as needed. He felt exhausted, for some reason, and so didn't have the energy to heckle her for leaving her things everywhere.
He came awfully close on Thursday morning when she took one hour in the bathroom. He hadn't had the chance to use the loo, but by the time she came out, he'd already gone to use one of the boys' bathrooms in the corridor.
There was no surprise for him that he was exhausted. It took a lot of energy to keep himself from thinking about his mother, his father, and the fact that he felt so empty.
Draco spent his Friday lunch period in a silent, brooding mood. He held his brows low on his forehead, his stomach too upset to eat much of anything hearty. He ate soup, forcing himself not to look at the Gryffindor table lest Granger catch him staring again.
He did glance at her once, surreptitiously as he reached for his pumpkin juice.
She was tucking into her meal with great zeal, her mouth stuffed to the brim as the Weaselbee talked to Dean Thomas over the top of her head. She didn't seem to be contributing to the conversation, for once, and Draco was surprised to see that her food was not separated. It was piled somewhat high on her plate, a convoluted mess of colors that blended together.
Weird.
An owl dropped off two letters for him in the post: one from his father and one from his contact at the Department of Mysteries. His father's letter, he shrunk down and tucked into the pocket of his blazer, having no intention of ever reading it. The other letter, he opened quickly.
Good morrow, Draco!
I hope your studies are going well. Before you know it, your end-of-year exams will be here, and all that will stand between you and a place here at the Ministry is good marks. Study hard, and study well so that we may see you this Summer!
However, I have heard many people telling me that there is a healthy amount of snow blanketing the campus, and I do so hope you haven't been spending too much time indoors. The key to doing well in your schoolwork is to get a healthy amount of recreational time. For every few hours that you spend studying, be sure to spend an hour or so outside with your mates.
Will you be leaving campus for Winter holidays, or will you be staying at Hogwarts? If you decide to leave the castle, there is a room here for you to stay in at our estate. We would enjoy having you here, and there will be a place for you at Christmas supper should you choose to come.
I know this Christmas will be tough. Please don't spend it alone.
Now, on to business.
I have spoken with Minister Shacklebolt, and he agrees that the Department of Mysteries would be an excellent fit for you. As you well know, I am not allowed to discuss what your job would entail due to the Secrecy Statute of Mysterious Secrets, but he has allowed me to tell you that upon successful completion of an internship, you would be able to be hired on to a full-time position. Would this be amenable to you? If so, then I can set about putting the word out in the Department to see who has work available and who requires assistance from an intern. Please reply to me post-haste so I can start searching!
Again, get yourself out into that snow and enjoy the day.
Best,
Ryosuke Sunamura.
Ryo was one of his mother's oldest friends. He was a Pureblood wizard who worked as an Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries, and he was perhaps Draco's best and only option for having some sort of future.
After the poor choices he'd made during the war, no one wanted to hire him, not even Borgin & Burkes. His father's company was defunct, and Draco could think of nothing better than disappearing into the system and doing whatever it was that Unspeakables was sure with his extensive knowledge of dark magic, as well as his access to the equally-extensive Malfoy family Library, the Department would consider him an asset.
Draco scrawled out a quick, enthusiastic response and sent it off with his patient owl, Eomer. He smiled faintly as the large, onyx-colored bird took flight. He hoped that things would work out, especially with how horrible his year had been.
It was hard to believe that just this year, he'd not only had the Dark Lord living in his home, but he'd fought in a war and lost, the Dark Lord had been killed, his father had been imprisoned for life, the Ministry had placed him on parole with the intention of keeping an eye on him, and his mother had passed away. He just wanted one good thing to look forward to that wasn't living alone in the Malfoy Manor and going to weekly parole meetings to update the Aurors on the nothing that he'd been up to.
He needed this.
As Draco's eyes lowered from the open windows from which the owls winged in and out, he caught sight of Granger hurrying her way out of the Great Hall. She disappeared out the doors without glancing over her shoulder, her hair flying out behind her like a curtain of curls. Draco looked at the Red Weasel, seeing that he was still talking to Dean Thomas, but as the redhead leaned in towards his friend, he saw his cerulean eyes sliding further down the table towards Hannah Abbott. When she smiled and gave Weasley a small wave, Draco saw the telltale twinkle of lust in her own blue eyes.
He fought the urge to sneer. Granger's wizard was fucking at least one other witch and was ogling her friend right after she left the room, so he hoped she didn't think she'd picked a Seeker.
Draco sighed and shook his head. He must be losing his mind. He didn't care about Granger's relationship with her pet vermin. He wasn't supposed to care.
He froze with his spoon poised halfway between his bowl and his mouth.
What would make Ron Weasley cheat on Hermione Granger, and why? Was she sleeping with her boyfriend, or wasn't she? If he was, was he still cheating on her in spite of it? If she wasn't sleeping with him and it meant enough to him to seek it elsewhere, how long before he was tired of waiting?
How long before Weasley simply left?
Draco was no friend to Granger, but there was no doubt in his mind that they had a connection. It was magical in nature and either she had placed it there with a curse during their Third Year, or something had happened that had tied them together. If it wasn't all in his head, then the dreams—and the nightmare he'd had that Summer—were real.
If it wasn't all in his head.
He severely hoped it was.
Draco meandered back to the Head common room before dinner.
He paused before the portrait, feeling almost shrunken under the shrewd gaze of his former Headmaster. Even though Dumbledore had made it clear that night that he did not blame Draco for his shortcomings and the impossible choices he'd been given, he still felt the guilt crippling him. He would never feel forgiven, and that was what he felt he deserved.
"Apricus," he whispered, averting his eyes from Dumbledore. The portrait hesitated, as though the elderly wizard wanted to say something, and then finally swung open.
Draco walked into the common room, doing a quick scan of the couches and the kitchenette. The lights were still as obnoxious as they were yesterday, and the floating ornaments were going to be the death of him. There was a mess of dirty dishes and he could see that down the hall, her dorm room door was closed with the light filtering out from underneath it.
He went to his bedroom and shut himself inside of it.
Draco withdrew his father's letter from his pocket, casting engorgio on it to return it to normal size, and then walked over to a moderately-sized chest on his dresser top. He opened the lid, gazing down at the envelopes inside.
Lucius had been sending letters once a week since he was arrested. Draco had refused to read them, finding that it was easier to blame the person who had failed him than it was to blame the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord had never done anything other than be exactly who he presented himself to be—a monster.
But his father?
He had failed in every aspect of the one job that should have come the easiest to him: being a father. Lucius had turned Draco into a haunted shadow of his pitiful, arse-kissing self, and he'd made him believe that he was superior to people who were in fact intellectually and morally superior to himself. Which had then turned Draco into nothing more than a bully, and his blasted father had encouraged it.
Now that he knew better, Draco just wanted to finish school and get on with his life.
He knew some people were probably expecting or hoping for some form of apology from him, whether on his own behalf or Lucius'. But he felt like there was no point in apologizing to people when what he'd done was unforgivable. Not when Headmaster Dumbledore's death could be blamed on him. Not when he'd taken the Dark Mark into his arm just like the rest of his Death Eaters.
Just like his despicable father.
And then there was Granger. Granger, the person he'd probably hurt more than anyone else.
Because of Lucius, Draco had put every fiber he possessed within his body into making sure that he saw her as naught but scum beneath his shoe. He still remembered the first time he made her cry—when they were eleven. Draco remembered how wrong it made him feel, and how his father had then responded with letters of praise.
Good, Lucius had written. The Dark Lord would be proud of you, son. Never let scum like that breathe without forgetting that their blood is dirty. If you need to teach her a more extensive lesson about her place, do so.
Back then, Draco remembered he'd smirked cruelly across the Great Hall at her unsuspecting, grinning face as she laughed and carried on with her friends. He felt sick when he thought about that. And he felt sick when he thought about the fact that he'd been dreaming about her and feeling her for five years. She didn't deserve to be treated like scum. The only people on this Earth that were scum were the people who subscribed to the idea that an eleven-year-old witch deserved to be put into a place she had no business being put into.
Draco was scum.
He admitted, he'd had a little crush on her in First Year, but his father put a pin in that as fast as possible when Draco couldn't keep his mouth shut about her. In Second Year, he'd attempted to do something to try and get in her good graces by sharing knowledge he had of the basilisk, but he'd chickened out, as he always did, and just watched with envy as other people developed friendships that he would never get the luxury of having.
If it weren't for his parole, he knew Professor McGonagall never would have agreed to putting Hermione Granger into a shared space with the person who'd made her life Hell since First Year. He knew that discussions had taken place in regard to his placement into the Head Boy role, and he knew that his position was largely decorative. It was a testament to Draco's own little "reign of terror" over the younger students that no one complained when he was announced as Head Boy.
But nothing would be able to disguise the fact that everyone knew the real reason why he was given the illustrious title: because Granger was there to keep him in line. To remind him that the only thing that stood between him and Azkaban was one negative report to McGonagall.
He shuddered as he looked at the letters in the small chest and placed his father's newest one inside.
Draco could still remember the day Voldemort had branded him with the familiar snake and skull tattoo that he wore hidden beneath his sleeves. He could still remember using his eyes to beg his father for help, pleading in silence with him to make the pain stop, but Lucius's face had only shown intense disappointment and disgust. In his eyes, Draco was weak and he always had been. Even though he withstood the pain of the Mark better than any previous Death Eater ever had.
He recalled the Dark Lord saving him for last, letting him watch his fellow Slytherin classmates—the ones who chose to throw in their lots with the side of dark—screaming in agony in the Malfoy Manor Drawing Room as they took their Marks.
Draco had been terrified, quivering in his shoes. His mother's hand on his lower back helped keep him strong, his only anchor in the emotional storm. He'd known that it was unavoidable—that it was a bit of a Christmas reminder to keep him on task with the cupboard, and to remind his father what happened when a task was failed.
It hadn't made the experience any less terrifying.
When his mother had passed, he'd looked to his father in the courtroom. Draco had beseeched him with another expression of mingling grief and accusation, and he gave him nothing. Nothing.
That was the last time he saw Lucius.
Draco closed the small box. He pushed it away atop the dresser, sighing with relief. His father's letters always felt as heavy as lead.
When he went back out into the common room, he decided he didn't feel up to going to dinner. He wasn't all that hungry and the couch was looking quite comfortable in spite of Granger's mess. He waved his wand to tidy up, as he usually did, stacking her books and papers in the center of the coffee table.
Merlin, living with her after the incident in the corridor was going to be more difficult than the time that he'd played a Quidditch game with a sprained wrist.
Draco sighed as he sent Granger's dishes floating to wash in the sink. He had no idea why she flipped her lid whenever he cleaned them, but he did not care one iota how she felt about it. For someone who was so meticulous about her schoolwork, he would have thought she'd be the same about her living space.
He thought it was odd enough that she always seemed to use a new dish for every snack, instead of cleaning and reusing the previous one, but the fact that she seemed to want them to just sit there on the table forever was so bizarre. The first time he'd cleaned her dishes had nearly been the start of a whole new wizarding war.
"If you touch my stuff again, I will hex your bollocks all the way to Timbuktu!" he remembered her screaming at the top of her lungs. "It doesn't matter if you think it's revolting; they're my things, and it's my choice what I do with them!"
Her face had gone beet-red, her teeth bared in a snarl of vehemence as she hollered at him. She was so much shorter than him that it had felt comical to be berated by her, and he almost felt bad about wanting to yell at her. But Draco wasn't in the business of shouting at witches, and that was the only useful thing he'd ever picked up from his good-for-nothing father.
Lately, however, Granger had been testing his resolve.
After changing out of his clothing and into a pair of black trackies and a white tee shirt, Draco sat down on the couch for a moment. He opened the book he'd brought, allowing himself to sink into the cushions before eventually lying down. There was once a time when he didn't feel so tired during the middle of the day, but not anymore. He just wanted to rest. When he was asleep, he didn't have to feel ashamed of all the things he'd done wrong.
He could just dream.
"Ronald, what I'm wearing is fine."
"Hermione, have you gone mental? It's shorter than a pair of shorts! Drop a quill, and you'll be showing everyone your knickers!"
"Honestly! The hem touches my fingertips. It's not shorter than the dresses the women in London wear, and I won't allow you to assassinate my character as though I'm some common harlot on the streets. It's just a dress!"
"Just a dress, then? Just a dress? A dress that invites, Hermione. Your chest is—and your legs."
"Yes, Ron, I've got legs. I've got legs, and a bum, and tits, and I've even got a vagina. Shocking, I know. You're unbelievable. Absolutely unbe—"
"So you're going out like that? You're just gonna . . . Walk around like some trussed-up slag again? Then you wouldn't mind if I treated you exactly the way you're wanting to be treated. Since that's how you're insisting on dressing."
Draco heard the angry voices coming from the hallway, digging holes into his sleep and rousing him from a deathlike slumber. It took him a moment to realize that the voices he was hearing belonged to Granger and the Weaselbee. He remained in his position, stretched out along the length of the couch with his ankles crossed and the book on his chest. He didn't know what was going on, but what he knew for certain was that Granger was so far from being a slag that if he woke up one day to find out she was, he might just think he was living in an alternate dimension.
When he heard a female gasp, a male grunt, and then the sounds of a bit of a struggle, it chased the last vestiges of Draco's sleep away.
Draco was not Granger's friend, but none of those sounds were acceptable.
"That—that is completely inappropriate, Ron!" Granger sounded white-hot with rage. "Get your bloody hand away!"
"Why? You're fine with letting everyone look at you, but you can't even let your boyfriend touch you?" The Weaselbee scowled with mirthless amusement. "Well, that's lovely, innit?"
"Ronald Weasley, what has gotten into you?"
Draco stood, holding back a waking yawn and combed his fingers through his sleep-ruffled hair. He turned to look down the hall. He disliked Granger, but he hated Weasley and always had. Hate trumped dislike.
The completely mismatched, unfortunate couple stood in front of Granger's dorm room door, the Weaselbee towering over the smaller witch with one hand clenched at his side and the other in the air between them. Granger had both of her hands wrapped around his wrist, and she was clenching her teeth as she pushed against it. Her arms shook and his didn't, so it was clear that she was fighting to keep him from touching her. She looked angrier than Draco had ever seen her.
Upon seeing the way her arms were about to give out, Draco was certain that he was livider than her.
The Weasel scoffed. "I'm starting to get frustrated, 'Mione. You keep saying over and over again that you're not ready and that you just need time, but it's been months. It's been months of excuses and deflection, and it doesn't make any sense. You're eighteen, you're my girlfriend, and I think we've waited long enough, don't you?"
Granger looked offended, and then her eyes slid past her boyfriend's upper arm. Draco, who had drifted towards the mouth of the hallway with his hands at his hips to stare without shame, caught her gaze.
He arched one eyebrow as if to say, "Do you know what you're doing?"
She immediately shut her mouth. Upon the faltering of her strength, Draco saw the Weasel surging forward to kiss her on the mouth. A muffled cry rang out.
Draco went over every reason why it was absurd for him to feel so incensed, but none of them seemed to be enough to check his ire. He was pretty sure he was going to deal with the Weaselbee the Muggle way in just a moment, and he wasn't going to have a single qualm about it.
"It's not so bad, Hermione, see?" the Weaselbee said between kisses to her jaw and neck.
The fact that the Weasel was carrying on like this when he had to have seen Draco asleep on the couch was unfathomable.
Granger's eyes widened to the point of ridiculousness as the Weasel pushed her against her bedroom door hard enough to rattle the wood on its hinges. Her hands came up to flail a bit before slapping against his chest as her gaze traveled a frantic path between the two wizards.
Draco could have left it alone. Just like the night of the Quidditch World Cup, he should have.
But he didn't want to.
The Weaselbee groaned in frustration, hands held against her pinned shoulders, and tilted his head back. "Hermione, this is fucking—"
The five-year-long grey storm inside of Draco rose, snapping to attention. Within moments, he was standing behind the Weaselbee with his hand tangled in the red hair on the top of his thrown back head. He glowered down into his eyes, blazing silver meeting astonished blue, and snarled.
"This is fucking what, Weasley? Care to finish your sentence in front of the whole class?"
The Weaselbee looked disoriented, as if he couldn't understand where he was, and then his face twisted in rage as he reached up and clawed at Draco's hold on him. Draco let him go but grabbed the shoulder of his jumper and yanked him backward, away from Granger. In one smooth movement, he turned his back to the slack-jawed witch and stepped halfway in front of her.
"She's a witch, Weaselbee, and while I know that's something that probably makes no sense to you, when she says she doesn't want to fuck you, typically it means she doesn't want to fuck you."
The Weasel stood up to his full height, the two men at eye level, and hissed, "Mind your own business, you tattooed freak. The fact that you're sharing a common room with my girlfriend is horrid enough. I don't want to actually have to speak to you."
"What a coincidence. I didn't want to have to speak to you, either. Yet here we are."
Granger moved forward, but Draco threw his arm out to the side to stop her. She gave him an incredulous look, no doubt as confused as he was to his anger, but he knew. He would be able to handle this nonsense better than she could.
"Tell me, Weasel," Draco said in a menacing tone. "Do I need to speak to you, or can you behave? Or I could always take points away from Gryffindor . . ."
"Malfoy!" Granger cried, but Draco's outstretched hand twitched in a firm, final movement to silence her.
Draco watched as Weasley reached for his back pocket and he tensed, waiting for the redheaded buffoon to draw his wand. His own was tucked into a pocket inside of his blazer and he would reach for it if need be, but not until the very last moment.
That was the downside of being on parole. If Draco pulled his wand on another wizard, even to defend the honor of a witch, all it would take is one word to the Ministry to tear what little opportunity for a future he had apart.
"You're a foul piece of work, Malfoy," the Weasel growled, but his hands remained at his sides. "What my witch and I do is our business—"
"In the middle of our tiny shared common room?" Draco snorted. "Don't make me laugh. I was napping right there, in the open. I heard you."
Weasley brandished his wand, taking a step closer and pressing it into Draco's personal space. "Soon, you can go right back to napping, can't you? When I stupefy you the way I've been wanting to for seven years!"
Draco barely flinched, even as the pointed tip of the wand dug into the flesh of his throat. He held the Weaselbee's gaze.
"Both of you!" Granger cried, trying to push Draco's arm out of her way. "Stop it! You're acting like children."
Draco ignored her, curling his arm back to move her behind him. He was acting on pure instinct at this point, and instinct told him that in five seconds, he was going to throw away his entire future to punch one Ronald Weasley in the face.
"Or maybe I should give you a taste of your own medicine," Weasley went on to say. He jabbed the wand again. It hurt, but Draco remained still. "Maybe I should crucio you and remind you about the real reason why you're here and not rotting in a cell with your father."
Granger tried to go around Draco again, so he repeated his earlier movement and held his arm outward to block her path.
He almost felt pity for her. She had no idea about her little boyfriend's sordid activities with Gregoria and Pansy, nor about the flirtatious looks he'd been sharing with her friend. Draco had no intentions of using it until it was absolutely necessary, but right now he felt sorely tempted.
If it weren't for the fact that this tosser needed a lesson about consent, he might have set off the bombarda spell and blurted it out.
Instead, Draco said, "You know nothing about me, Weaselbee, but in a few moments, you're going to know all that you need to. If a witch doesn't want you, then you step back. You don't force yourself on her in the hallway."
"Oh, come off it, ferret! I wasn't forcing her to do anything!"
"No means no. Did they forget to teach that to you in your molehill of a home, or do you just ignore it to get what you want?"
"You fucking wanker."
Weaselbee whipped his wand back, but Granger wasn't having any of it. She ducked underneath Draco's arm and stood in the middle of them.
"Stop this right now!" she cried. "Right this instant! This is beyond—"
Weasley grabbed her wrist, starting to pull her towards him with his glare fixed, but she ripped her arm out of his grasp.
"What, are you on his side?" Weasley scowled with disgust. "Hermione, I'm not some Death Eater. I'm not going to force you to do anything you don't want to do."
Draco let out an incredulous laugh, but Granger spoke before he could. Her words were clipped in tone.
"You just did, Ronald, right ten minutes ago, and it's not okay. But I am not discussing this with you until we're in private. I want you to wait outside for me."
"Oh, so you can do whatever it is you've been doing with Malfoy, muggin' me off and making me look dense?" Weasley looked revolted as he jammed his wand into his pocket again. "What, did he tell you it was okay to dress like a slag? Is he the one you're spreading your legs for, if it isn't me? You like criminals covered in ink? You might as well start sending letters to Azkaban prisoners."
"Ronald!" Granger cried in outrage, hands going to her hips. "How dare you talk about me like that? I don't know what's going on with you, but you—"
"I don't know what's going on with you!" He threw his hands up into the air, all but shouting down into her face as though Draco weren't even there. "Ever since this Summer, you've acted like a complete prude. The only reason why you could be so against sleeping with me is because you're sleeping with someone else like a bloody whore!"
This Summer?
What happened between them this Summer?
Granger stumbled back, flinching under the loud onslaught of his words, and she stopped only when her back hit Draco's chest. On instinct, his hands came up to grip her shoulders.
The tension in the air. The slight tremble he felt in her body. The fact that a wizard was raising his voice to a witch with shoulders that were small enough to break with the right pressure.
Draco's storm stirred again.
Granger pulled herself out of his grasp, looking at him with wide eyes, and then stepped off to the side.
Draco rubbed his chin and breathed out a warning disguised as a laugh. "Get the fuck out of our common room. Right now."
"Our?" Weasley was getting redder. "Our?"
"Mine. Get the fuck out of my common room, before I lay your arse out."
The silence was thick, broken only by Granger's anxious breathing. The Weaselbee inhaled, his own eyes blazing, and Draco prepared himself for a fistfight right there in the hall.
Then, Granger sighed.
"Just go outside, Ron."
His mouth opened and closed in protest. "But—I—"
"Go outside, Ronald!" Granger put her hands on her hips and fixed him with a look until he conceded.
The Weaselbee sneered one final time at Malfoy, his face flushed with anger, and then he stormed out into the corridor. Draco worried that the portrait might rip, so he took a couple steps down the hall after him. He stopped and turned back to Granger, giving her a look of disbelief.
"Are you losing your mind, or are you just dense? You let him talk to you like that?"
Her face was calm as she pushed her fingers along her hair to tousle the long curls. "Don't talk to me about losing my mind when you lose your shite over dirty dishes."
Draco barked a laugh. "Oh, that's hilarious, coming from the witch who can't stand when I touch those dishes."
"It's neither my fault nor my problem that you grew up using slavery to keep your house clean, and now you don't understand that sometimes, homes get a little dirty. Now, I thank you for—"
"Don't," he said with a disgusted look. "Don't do that."
"Don't what?"
"Don't thank me. Handle your business. Looks like you've got two choices. You either break it off, or you fuck him. And since you don't want to do the latter, it should be crystal clear."
She pursed her lips, angry. "It's not your business."
"You made it mybusiness when you carried on your lover's quarrel in the hallway."
She took a step toward him, eyes flashing. "Then if we're sharing business, would you care to tell me why you're always staring at me in the Great Hall?"
Draco wanted to laugh. She was like a damn firecracker. Before Weasley, she'd been like a mouse next to a lion. But here Draco was, and she was a lioness transformed, with a mane of flames and words that cut like claws. He tilted his head to the side and scrutinized her, crossing his arms.
"Why aren't you sleeping with him?"
"I told you, it's not your business."
She started past him, but he moved backward. He unfolded one arm and held up a hand to the front of her shoulder before recrossing his arms.
"Why haven't you slept with him? He's your boyfriend, your wizard—you must love him, or feel some form of fancy. So, why not sleep with him?" He pushed the boundary. "Aren't you worried he might find what he's looking for in some other witch?"
She averted her eyes for a moment before they snapped back upward. "I said it's not your sodding business, Malfoy. And fine, I won't thank you for what you did. I guess I was asking for it. Must be the dress."
He hadn't even thought to look at the catalyst to this whole situation. Arms still crossed, Draco's gaze swept down the length of her body.
Sweet Salazar.
Granger wore a thigh-length black dress with long sleeves, a cinched waist, and a floaty short skirt. He'd never really looked at her body before, and now that he was, he could feel something turning in his abdomen. She was slim, a bit slimmer than she looked in her school uniform and her neck was long and lithe. Her kinky brown curls seemed a lot longer against the black backdrop, the ends tickling her waistline. Her legs were clad in sheer black panythose, and it was all he could do not to stare some more.
Witches typically didn't wear dresses like that, but the difference between Weasley and Draco was that if his witch were wearing something like that, he'd be happy about it.
Draco leaned forward a bit, his lips twisting into a smirk. He spoke in a murmur.
"Weasley's a complete tosser, Granger. If you were my date, and you were wearing that dress? I'd be spending my evening eye-fucking you, not berating you like a childish brute."
Her eyes widened. Draco's eyes searched her face. In the back of his mind, something nagged at him. Something shook and trembled, warning him that somehow and in some way, it was dangerous to be this close to her. To be talking to her like this. It was a tension that was as terrifying as it was enticing.
It was like she was a drug that he'd been denying himself access to for years and now, it was right in front of him.
"It's not your business," Granger repeated, the words coming out of clenched teeth.
"What the Hell is wrong with you?" Draco said. "Why are you letting some bloke walk all over you as though Potter would have won the war without you?"
"It's not," she hissed, eyes bright, "your business."
"Granger, wait. For fuck's sake. Quit trying to leave. I'm talking to you."
She stared up at him, a crack showing in her armor—the armor he could now see wrapped around her. Her mouth opened as she searched for words. The tension increased, to the point where he almost wanted to be the first one to look away. Then, she faltered and lowered her eyes for a moment. She stared at his neck tattoos, and then finally looked past him at the portrait.
"I need to go. I . . . I hope you have a good evening."
Draco spun to face her as she walked past him. "Where?"
"To Hogsmeade with my wizard. What's it to you?"
Alarm bells rang in his head and he followed her out into the sitting room. "What? With . . . ? Why?"
She turned to glower at him. "Why do you care?"
"Granger, he just assaulted you in the hallway, and you want to go to Hogsmeade with him."
"Why do you care?"
Draco straightened his back. "I don't."
She stared at him for a second longer before she turned and picked her puffy Winter coat up off of the coat rack. She buttoned it up, her skirt peeking out beneath the hem and giving her a diminutive appearance.
Draco felt his mind racing. He didn't know why he was so invested in this situation, but when he thought about who he was now compared to who he was before the war, he knew that he couldn't let seven years of past get in the way of him making sure she wasn't attacked by a weasel outside in the snow. Could he really just sit in the Great Hall eating mutton or some equally silly thing, knowing that the Weasel was so disgruntled about things?
"I suppose we could deign to walk together, then," he said. "One moment."
"One mo—what?"
"Wait here." He walked towards his room.
"No! I—"
He glared at her over his shoulder, irritated. "I said wait."
She stared at him and said nothing more.
He left her there, entering his dorm room so he could put his clothes back on. Then, he returned. She was still standing by the portrait.
"Where are you going?" she said.
"To Hogsmeade," Draco said as he pulled out his wand. His black peacoat came soaring off of the coat hook and he slipped his arms into it. He looked down at her while he adjusted his collar so that it was turned up.
"To Hogsmeade?"
"Yes, to Hogsmeade," he mocked. "Is it off limits to me? Am I not allowed to go to Hogsmeade when you're there? Do you own Hogsmeade? Can I not—"
"What are you trying to pull?" Her teeth were clenched, and she looked comical with her giant coat and small brown face peeking up at him from beneath all those curls.
"I was already going," he lied with effortless skill, carding his fingers back through his hair. He stepped up to the portrait and put his hand on it to push it open. He shot her an impatient look. "Come, witch, I don't have all night."
"But I'm going with Ron."
"And now I'm no longer allowed to walk down the same hill as the two of you? For someone who fought against the Dark Lord, you're awfully exclusive."
"That's not what I . . ." She trailed off. A haughty look appeared on her face. "Very well. You can walk with us. But you will keep your wand to yourself, and then you need to go off to do whatever dark things you have planned to do."
"Walk with you, wand to myself, dark things, plans. Got it."
