You don't need the eighth year of schooling, not at all. You're only here at Hogwarts because it's the deal you cut with the Ministry of Magic to avoid Azkaban.
Some of your old 'friends' are back for the same reason - the ones who lived - (Leave the dead in the past. Look forward -)
But unlike you, the other Slytherins who returned are successfully scrubbing away the stench of blood purity propaganda that's clung to so many magical family names. Blaise Zabini founded a club where he teaches basic quidditch skills to interested students, regardless of house; Pansy Parkinson started a hair potion business with a pair of seventh year Ravenclaws; Millicent Bulstrode even asked out a muggleborn girl from Hufflepuff, and the two of them won the cutest couple costume contest at Halloween.
(Smart strategies. Why haven't you tried something similar?)
You need more than a muggleborn girlfriend to prove to the world that you're done with the Dark Lo - (Stop it.)
Anyway, a lonely school year beats indefinite imprisonment. When you're not suffering through war flashbacks, it's actually rather boring.
It stays boring, too, until one November morning when you're halfheartedly scribbling an essay in the library, and someone slaps a stack of books in front of you.
"One of the first years shrank all the unoccupied tables," Hermione Granger says as she slouches into the chair across from you. "There's nowhere else to sit."
You must have been concentrating harder than you realized, because until now you didn't notice all the kids snickering and pointing with delight at the empty chairs arranged around what have turned into dollhouse-sized tables. The older students don't appear amused; they're probably recalling the painful punishments the Carrows used to mete out for even mild pranks.
"I reversed the charm, but the original spell was miscast, so it's going to take an hour for everything to grow back to proper size," Granger explains, as if she discusses spellwork with you all the time, as if you didn't cower in a corner while your aunt cruciated her on your parents' drawing room floor.
(Your aunt is dead. Leave the dead in the past -)
Your face must be pinched, because Granger narrows her eyes. "If you have a problem, you can leave," she says. "I deserve a place here as much as you do." We fought a war over this, remember? she doesn't need to add.
You shake off the memory of her torture. "The seat's all yours."
"Good." Granger opens one of her books and begins to take notes.
You write a few more lines, but you keep getting distracted by the sound of Granger's quill scratching across the parchment.
"So, have you finished the Charms essay?" she asks. Evidently her Gryffindor nature compels her to fill silence with chatter.
You sigh too loudly on purpose and tap your finger against your still nearly blank scroll.
Her brow furrows, and for a moment you think, naively, that will be the end of it, but then she's shuffling through her book pile and pushing a slim, crocodile-skin-bound text across the table. "There's an interesting chapter here on proto-Indo-European root words for spell bases. It goes into more detail than the assignment requires, but -"
"What do you want?" you grind out. Just because she turned out to be right about the Death Eaters doesn't mean that you have to be best friends with her.
"I thought -"
"You thought you'd cement your status as a great house unifier before launching your post-graduation career?" It's just a guess. The words come out sharper than you intend. (A careless misstep. You're smarter than this.)
Granger pulls her hand away from the book. "I'm not the only eighth year committed to inter-house unity," she says, confirming that she is, indeed, playing this stupid game. "Surely you've noticed that your old housemates are making an effort."
"That's just shameless grasping at legitimacy," you say dismissively. "I, on the other hand, am simply here to make up for my lost year of learning by attending to my studies and eschewing publicity." Your mother hired a magical crisis management team to draft talking points after your father was rearrested; you memorized the words for just these sorts of situations. But then you add, off script, "You should find someone else to help you burnish your reputation for open-mindedness."
It's impossible to tell what she's thinking from the look on her face. She stands and gathers all of her belongings except the croc-skin book. "Chapter Seven has some good information. Perhaps you'll find it helpful."
You watch her slip out of the library. You realize that it's the longest interaction you've had with anyone outside your family since your trial.
A week later, Granger plops down in front of you again.
"The tables have returned to standard size," you comment, gesturing around the room. "What's your excuse this time?"
"Do you have the potions homework?" she asks, ignoring your question. "I forgot to copy down the part about what to do with the rosemary."
"You're lying." You return her gaze coolly. "I know you have the entire assignment, because I cribbed it from your parchment when you got up to talk to Slughorn."
Granger grimaces, but she stays put. Last week's pleasantries were unsettling, but this week's attempt at deception is downright pathetic, especially since it's all in service to some foolish house harmony ideal.
There must be some way to drive her off. (Try shame.) "Did you know that I had fans during the postwar tribunal, just like your Golden Trio did?"
Her eyebrows shoot up.
"It's true, I swear," you say, laying your hand over your heart. "Hundreds of witches and wizards rapturously followed my testimony on WWN. Some even sent sad little notes filled with totally mad drivel. 'Dearest Draco, although we've never met, I'm certain we have a special connection. Write back, or surely I'll die.'" You shut your eyes and rub your temples. "Have you convinced yourself that we have a 'special connection'?" You glare at her. (Twist the knife.) "Have you developed a creepy little crush?"
She looks at you like you've sprouted a second blond head. "I don't have a crush on you."
Obviously you know that. You've seen the Daily Prophet pictures of her hanging all over Weasley. "Perhaps you simply lust for me," you suggest sarcastically.
She scowls. "You're demented."
You chortle. "You don't deny it. I'm right, aren't I? You want me even though you hate me." You tilt your head and grin cruelly. "You wish I would drag you up to your dormitory, stick my tongue down your throat, and rip off all your clothes. You hope I'll toss you onto your bed and pound you into the mattress until you scream, don't you." (Too far, impulsive brat.)
She doesn't leave. Instead, she glances around the room. Her eyes linger on a clutch of Ravenclaw second years near the Magical Healing shelves. She leans forward, close enough so that you can smell the scent of burnt rosemary wafting from her dense brown curls. "That wouldn't work," she says lightly.
What is she on about?
"Pounding me into the mattress," she responds to your unasked question. "That wouldn't work."
You stare back at her.
"I understand that you're simply being brutish in an effort to get rid of me," she says quietly. "But you should know that the sex you described wouldn't make many witches feel good, much less scream with pleasure. Certainly not me."
You'd pawn Father's entire Dark artifact collection for a sizzling comeback right now, but all you can come up with, lamely, is, "Well if you're so smart, why don't you tell me what would work?"
She glances away and bites the tip of her tongue before she answers. "Tender caresses," she says. "Warm, gentle hands drawing patterns across my skin. A look in his eyes like I'm the only one who will ever matter, and - " she pauses, parts her lips.
"And?"
"A long, slow kiss."
You swallow. "So that's how Weasley has been giving it to you?" you squeak out.
She clears her throat and stands. "Wouldn't you like to know." Then she does, finally, leave you alone.
The thing is, you would like to know.
You can't stop replaying Granger's words in your mind, can't stop recalling the image of her responding to long, slow kisses, even though you've never, ever thought about her like that before. She's nothing like anyone you've actually messed around with: Not fat like Yurika Haneda, whose sexy, alluring abundance drew you into her arms for several makeout sessions during fourth year; not skinny like Adelaide Murton, whose delicate, haughty features inspired you to snog her behind a hallway tapestry in fifth year; definitely not muscular like Tracey Davis, a Slytherin reserve team beater whose thighs nearly crushed your fingers when you had your hand down her pants one time after quidditch practice, shortly before the war. (Not Slytherin.)
No. Granger is just . . . soft. Squishy. A great big brain atop an afterthought body.
She has a decent set of tits, though, now that you think of it. And full lips, and longish eyelashes. You need to speak to her again.
When you return to the eighth year common room from your outdoor Astronomy lab the night after the library incident, you notice Granger seated on a black-and-yellow striped loveseat under a window, practicing complicated wand motions. Hannah Abbott and Padma Patil are playing chess by the fire, sitting on chairs carved with lion legs, but they are absorbed in their game, and they don't look up as the portrait door shuts behind you.
(Now's your chance.)
"What else works?" You ask as you flop onto the cushion beside Granger.
She eyes you warily. "Pardon me?"
"You clearly have strong opinions on the subject. So, tell me. What else makes a witch feel good?"
She folds her hands in her lap, but she keeps her wand out. "What would make me feel good is the long overdue, heartfelt apology you owe me for all the horrible things you said and did since the day we met as children. And that includes your crude remarks yesterday."
"Yesterday?" you say, affronted. "You're the one who started talking to me - twice -"
She leans back and crosses her arms.
(Give her something. You know how this works.) "You're - not wrong," you say, pinching the bridge of your nose. "The suffering I experienced does not excuse the suffering I caused." Mother's magical crisis management team would be proud. You even mean what you say.
Granger hmms.
"You doubt my sincerity?"
"Wouldn't you, in my position?" She leans down to fiddle with one of her socks, which is bunched at her ankle. "For as long as I've known you, you've dismissed the knowledge of those you unfairly deem beneath your station."
It's the kindest criticism she's ever leveled at you. Maybe you're getting somewhere.
You lean a hair's breadth closer. "The war changed everyone. Even me."
Her eyes flick down to your sleeve-covered forearm. You hold still and look away, just as you've taught yourself to do whenever someone seeks a glimpse of your Mark. "I suppose it did," she says.
You both sit without speaking to one another for a while, watching from a distance as Abbott's king gets boxed in by a rook. "Check," Patil declares over the roar of the fire.
"So?" you prompt. Your heart thumps. "A deep kiss?"
"A long, slow kiss," Granger corrects you, just like you hoped she would. (She's a teacher's pet through and through.) "A kiss with great feeling."
"I see. What else?"
She rubs the back of her neck, but she doesn't break eye contact. "You could gently wrap your arm around her waist, and lean down and press your lips to the crown of her head."
You shift in your seat. "Should I do something like - something like -" Your eyes linger on the smooth skin at her throat. "Should I nuzzle her jawline and graze my teeth against her earlobe?"
Granger's eyebrows rise and she gives you a small, conspiratorial smile. "That's practically poetic! See? You know what to do." But her mouth slips quickly into a frown.
(You're losing her!) "Maybe I could - um -" You run your fingers through your hair. "I could brush the pad of my thumb against her lower lip, and - uh -"
"She'd close her eyes and sigh at your touch," she interjects. "And you'd pull her ever closer, slipping your hand down to the small of her back -"
"Nudging her hips against mine -"
"Checkmate!" Patil shrieks ecstatically.
Damn it.
When you glance back at Granger, she's already leapt up from her seat. She's stuffing her wand into her pocket and straightening out her robes.
"Wait, Granger," you say.
She appears pained. "I'm training prefects early tomorrow morning, so, um. Good even - right." She turns on her heel and stumbles toward the women's dormitory.
That went better than you hoped. Next up: make a plan to get her to talk to you again.
As it turns out, you don't need a plan.
"I was thinking," she says two mornings later at breakfast, surprising you by slipping into the empty spot on your left. "There's a wealth of wizarding texts that comprehensively cover the specific subjects in which you wish to develop expertise."
"That's a lot of words for 'dirty magazines,'" you mumble around a mouthful of toast.
"That's not what I mean," she replies acerbically. Her knee knocks against yours, and it's difficult to tell whether she's doing it on purpose. "Pornography is probably part of your problem. 'Tongue down the throat,' honestly." She reaches past you to scoop porridge out of a tureen and into her bowl. Apparently she expects to sit next to you for the duration of the meal. "Listen. You should begin with pamphlets about the basics that Madame Pomfrey keeps in the hospital wing. After that, you will want to try this new bookseller in Hogsmeade who stocks a range of titles on the topic of magical sexuality -"
"I'm not allowed to leave campus," you say, careful to keep your tone flat.
"Oh." She takes a long slurp from her coffee mug to cover the awkward silence that follows. "As it happens, I'm visiting this weekend to help the new prefects monitor the first years. I could slip away and pick up a few books for you."
It's the first time a fellow student has offered to do you a favor since the war ended, and something in your chest tightens. "That's not necessary."
"Well, then." She glances down the table and lowers her voice. "I recently purchased several books like that myself. You can borrow what I have, if it's a matter of - of funds - "
"No!" Merlin's beard, first she thought you're bad in bed, and now she thinks you're poor? "It's not that. The Malfoys may have lost status and our power, but we've retained our wealth."
She sets her spoon in her bowl. "What is it, then?"
You shrug. "I'd rather just talk to you. I liked what you said." You allow a shred of a smirk to cross your face. "In fact, I'd like to hear more. You were just getting to the good part the other night, remember?"
She parts her lips, and for an excruciating second, you're certain she's going to tell you to piss off, but then she jerks her chin down slightly.
Here goes nothing. "So, what I was thinking was, after pulling you against me -" You lean in closer. You've imagined what you'd tell her when you got the chance; you mentally practiced the way you'd describe every move. "I would graze my teeth down the side of your neck and along the collar of your blouse, until I reach the first button. What would you do?"
The hall echoes with the clatter of plates and the tone of cheerful conversation, but Granger stays quiet. She just stares at you. "We weren't talking about us together before," she finally says, nearly whispering.
"We are now," you murmur. "So. What do we do next?"
She bites her lip and looks up at the enchanted ceiling, which is currently threatening to rain. "We shouldn't really talk about things like this."
"You were enthusiastic the other times." You hate that you can hear the petulance in your voice.
"The other times were - different. For educational purposes," she adds lamely. "It's just - you know."
You do know. She has a boyfriend. "You and I aren't doing anything. It's just words."
She furrows her brow and pats her mouth with her napkin. "Let me know if you change your mind about the books." As she stands, she reaches toward you, then seems to remember herself. "Um - see you in Herbology." She leaves the table and disappears in the crowd of students in the back of the hall.
(You're an imbecile. How did you expect her to react?)
You look around and see that some of the eighth years are eyeballing you over their eggs and bacon.
You've ruined something promising. (At least you're consistent.)
A week before the winter holidays, just as you are dozing off in an old green velvet armchair, Granger dumps a pile of books in your lap. "These are for you," she says. It's the first time she's spoken to you since that morning at breakfast.
You rub the sleep from your eyes and glance at the titles stamped across the spines. Magical Property Registration and Decree Laws: A Compendium. Weeknight Recipes for Picky Witchlings and Wizardlings. Best Potion Puns of 1985.
"You think I want to read a used copy of Dragonskin Stitching for Beginners?" you yawn, pinching one of the dusty tomes between your fingers.
"No . . ." She leans over and whispers a spell in your ear.
That wakes you up, fast.
While you're still recovering from the feeling of her hair brushing across your cheek, she straightens up and points to the books again.
How to Please Your Witch Between the Sheets. Sexy Spells to Titillate, Arouse, and Inspire. Love Potion No. 9: A Collection of Magical Erotica. American Wizards Do It Better: Advice from Across the Atlantic -
You must appear confused still, because she explains, "I know you said you didn't want any books, but I was cleaning out my room, and these reminded me of you." She meets your eyes for a bare moment, then looks away. "Someone should benefit from them, even if I won't."
You blink. Did she just admit that she and Weasley - ?
She shivers. "Well, anyway. Don't leave them lying around the common room. The title-shifting spell only works on the covers, not the contents." She waves to Luna Lovegood, who is beckoning her to join a game of Exploding Snap.
You take the books to your cell-like single room (Don't be dramatic. You could be in an actual cell right now, you know) and place the lot on your desk under the window. Then you kick off your shoes, flop onto your narrow mattress, stare at the ceiling, and imagine Granger laying on her own bed, reading page after page of filthy literature and pressing her legs together. You picture her looking at the books on her shelf, remembering her favorite salacious passages, and thinking of you.
You put your hand down your trousers.
"Malfoy," Granger calls to you a few days later from an alcove near the library entrance where the prefects store disciplinary records.
You approach her desk.
"Did you -" she coughs. "Did you find the knowledge you seek?"
"I read everything, if that's what you're asking," you lie.
"Everything?" she exclaims.
"Every last word." Actually, you ignored the boring stuff and skipped straight to the lewd parts.
"I'm impressed," she says, then winces and follows up with, "It's not that I doubt your reading skills, I just meant -"
"I know. It was nearly a dozen books." You stick your hands in your pockets. What do you want, you don't dare ask aloud this time.
She closes the Head Girl logbook and laces her fingers together. "Some time ago, you suggested a conversation topic that I rejected. Let's say, hypothetically, I have reconsidered your proposal, and that I am now interested in talking with you about such matters. Would you still be interested in a series of discussions of that nature?"
She makes talking dirty sound about as much fun as drawing up a legal contract, but your stomach drops all the same. "'Hypothetically,' yes. I am."
"Talking is the only activity that I would wish to pursue with you at this time." She gives you a searching look. "Do you understand?"
For some reason, your mind goes to the addlebrained "fans" you attracted during your trial, the ones who never set foot on a battlefield and never saw all the stupid, pointless cruelty with their own eyes; the ones who romanticized the Death Eaters as talented but tragically misled purebloods fighting for some great lost magical cause. The ones who wrote to you about how handsome you looked in all the newspaper pictures without mentioning your testimony about being part of a plot to murder Dumbledore. The ones who promised you every sort of depravity, sexual or otherwise, if only you'd let them look at your Mark, touch it, lick it. (Sick. Pitiful.) Now, your stomach curdles at the thought of actually stripping off your shirt in front of another person. "I understand. That's all I want, too."
Granger's face remains pinched with doubt.
(Don't ruin this again.) "Really. Just talking is preferable, in fact. Anything more is too complicated. Memories from the war, and all that." It's close enough to the truth, and besides, you don't owe her more of an explanation.
She scratches her forearm absently. "I can relate to that."
"So how do you want this to work?" you ask, hoping the subject change will keep her, and you, from sinking into dark thoughts.
"Well, I have ten minutes until my next class." She tilts her head toward a nearby stool. "Pull up a seat."
You do.
She smiles expectantly.
There's a part of you that wants to dive right in and ask her what kind of undergarments she's wearing, but - but - "What made you change your mind?"
She presses her lips together. "Nine minutes."
You groan. "Seriously. Did you break up with Weasley, or -"
She folds her hands in her lap. "Ron and I are still friends, he's just - grieving, and he can't shake the guilt from - anyway - I just want - I just want to think about something else - " she breaks off and looks at you plaintively. "Are we going to do this, or not?"
"We are." It's now or never. You take a deep breath. "So, I pull your body against mine, and you. . ."
You make it a game.
One morning in Ancient Runes when you're supposed to be translating an engraved clay tablet, you tell Granger about what you imagine it would be like to get on your knees behind her and trace her pantylines with your mouth.
One afternoon in Defense Against the Dark Arts, after she's already worked out a set of Hex-Breakers for both of you, she exquisitely details the way she would unbuckle your belt, unzip your fly, and brush her knuckles against the fabric over your erection.
One evening in the common room, you return a borrowed syllabary, and you list all the places on her body where you would leave hickeys - her throat, her collarbone, her belly. Her lower back. Her inner thighs.
It goes on like that for weeks. You smile to yourself every day, and you touch yourself every night.
"I've been leisurely unbuttoning your blouse, teasing your delicate skin from your neck to your navel with the tip of my tongue. What do you do?"
You and Granger are working together in Potions class today because a quarter of the class, including your usual partner and hers, are out sick with scrofungulus.
"I would shimmy out of my shirt and lean to the side so that one bra strap slips alluringly from my shoulder. Then I'd bite my lip and smile ever so slightly as I glance down at the obvious bulge in your trousers." Granger looks up from the mortar and pestle that she is using to pulverize grasshopper legs. "Don't forget the condensed squid ink."
"Right." You take the unstoppered vial from her side of the table and shake the black sludge into the mixture. "I'd be so hard for you," you say quietly. "I know how much you love to go slow, but I'm desperate for you to grab my tie and pull me toward you for an open-mouthed - oh, buggering - why is it that color?!"
"It's time to add the sesame." She plucks a single white seed from her cutting board and drops it into the steaming cauldron. The tangerine liquid fades to a pleasing pink. "Much better. Alright, I wrap your tie around my fist and straddle your hips. I can't believe how good it feels to grind up against you - Draco? It's orange again, Draco."
You're so surprised by the fact that Granger has used your first name that you drop the wooden spoon into the potion.
"No! You're going to ruin it! Neville, I'm borrowing your tongs," she calls over to Longbottom, then quickly fishes out the spoon and hands you a new, clean spare. "You have to stir after you add pod-based seeds. You know that."
"You were distracting me," you grumble as you stir vigorously in an effort to salvage your work.
"Well, usually you can do two things at once," she says crossly as she returns to crushing insect bits. More aggressively than necessary, she bats her poofed up hair away from her face.
You snort loudly, and some of the students in front turn around to see what the fuss is about. Behind his desk, Slughorn raises a bushy, disapproving eyebrow, but it only makes you laugh harder.
Granger glares at you, clearly horrified.
You can't stop. It's the first time you've laughed like that since before - "Oh, come on. The potion's fine. It's funny."
"Let's just concentrate on finishing the assignment." Her face is still twisted in a disapproving sneer as she sprinkles the grasshopper powder into the liquid. "That other discussion needs to wait until sometime later."
You gaze down at the top of her head as you increase the cauldron's heat. She's so much shorter than you. It's sort of - cute. (She's sort of cute.) "Fine. Ten o'clock tonight. Common room window seat." Then, with a surge of courage, or possibly stupidity, you add, "Don't be late, Hermione."
She stares back, but she doesn't turn you down.
By ten o'clock, the rest of the eighth years have gone down to the Great Hall to watch a wizarding chess tournament, and you and Hermione are mercifully alone. Even so, Hermione casts a silencing charm around the loveseat under the window.
"When we left off, you were grinding against me," you say as she settles onto the cushion beside you.
"That's right," she agrees, leaning her head against her elbow. "I've got my thighs clamped around your hips, and you've got your arms around my waist."
"I reach up to peel off your bra and -"
"Unhook. First you have to unhook it."
(Know-it-all.) You suppress the urge to roll your eyes. "I unhook your bra and you let it fall away, and then I pull you up higher so that I can bury my face between your breasts."
She licks her lips. "Lovely. And I adore the way your bare chest feels against my skin. Wait, are we on a bed?"
You were picturing everything happening here on the couch where you're currently sitting, but right now you're primed to agree with anything she proposes. "Of course. We're on an enormous bed."
"Excellent. I scoot up a bit and brush my knee against your crotch." She twists her fingers together in her lap as she smiles. "Lightly, I promise."
"You could go a little harder," you suggest hoarsely.
"Fine, a little harder. You know, it's probably time to remove your pants," she says, and she really does look down at your trousers.
At this point you don't really care if she can tell that you're hard, but you shift in your seat out of habit. "Pants are gone. Socks, too." You've learned by now that you have to specify that stuff with her, or she'll complain about it. You jerk your chin toward her uniform skirt. "Now it's your turn."
"You don't want me to leave it on?" she teases, rolling the hem between her fingers.
"I want you nude," you say.
Her nostrils flare, and the corner of her mouth twitches.
Just as you're getting ready to tell her how you want to remove her panties with your teeth, she jerks away and points out the window. "Did you see that?"
You turn around. You see nothing but rain droplets against the darkened glass.
Suddenly, a green streak zings across the grounds.
"There it was again!" She jumps up from her seat. "We'd better go check it out."
Your blood turns to ice. "What do you mean, 'we'?"
She doesn't answer. She's already halfway across the room, her wand drawn.
(The Dark Lord is gone. He died in a cloud of smoke. It's not him. It's not him. It's not -) "Let's just go find McGonagall or something -"
She's out the portrait door before you finish your sentence.
You pull out your wand and get up only because you learned the hard way that even Hogwarts can be breached, and that hiding won't protect you from true evil. Also, because whatever it is could kill Hermione if she confronts it all alone, the Gryffindor fool. As you run, you yank up your sleeve just to make absolutely certain that your Mark isn't burning black.
"Wait -" You call as you follow her through the empty, low lit hallway and down the staircase. Still she doesn't look back.
You finally catch up to her a few paces beyond the exterior door. A sheet of rain slaps you in the face, and you taste the metal-tang of an Unforgivable curse.
(No you don't; you're hallucinating that.) You're just mucking around in the dark with Hermione.
Another line of green streams across the field, and though your limbs are jelly, you manage to cast a shield. You glance to your side and confirm that Hermione has her defenses up as well. Together, you and she cast a variety of diagnostic spells as you move toward the source of the light, but you learn nothing of use.
It happens again, this time mere yards from where you stand. And now you can see - "Is it - letters?"
"'YOUR . . . BREATH . . . STINKS . . . ' Oh, for crying out loud. No wonder these things are banned from school." Granger stalks over to the smoking bundle on the ground that emitted the lit-up letters, and she kicks it open. "Look."
You drop your shield and walk over. Apparently, some dumb kid left a sack full of Weasley's Wildfire Whiz-bangs out on the lawn.
Hermione looks toward the eighth years' tower. "From up there, it looked like -"
"I know what it looked like."
She banishes the mess with a flick of her wand. "The rain must have caused a misfire, and it probably affected the color too. George would never - well." She inhales sharply, and her breath catches in a sob. "It wasn't much of a joke, was it?"
You shake your head and wipe the rain from your face with the back of your arm.
Once you've returned to the illusion of safety inside the quiet castle walls, you remember that your sleeve is still pushed up. Hopefully Hermione won't notice as you subtly -
"Will it ever fade?" She asks, gesturing to your arm. (Damn it.) "Can you take it off?"
You stop walking. "If Severus couldn't get rid of it, I certainly can't," you mumble. "No matter how much I wish otherwise."
Hermione looks down at her muddy shoes for what feels like a long time. "I know how that feels," she says, finally. She holds up her own arm and pulls up her sweater sleeve.
In the flickering torchlight, you see the word carved there (the word you used to taunt her with) silver-bright and angry against her darker unblemished skin.
It's not that you forgot the awful moment when your aunt did it to her - it's that you actively blocked it out until now. You inhale and breathe past your rising nausea.
"I'd like to claim that I wear this scar with pride, but the truth is that I've done everything short of cutting off my arm to remove the cursed thing." Hermione pushes the knit back over her arm. "Bellatrix was a cruel but gifted witch."
"Cruel, gifted and stupid," you spit.
"Never make the mistake of calling people like her stupid," Hermione admonishes you.
"Of course she was stupid, and weak too," you argue back. "My aunt grew to the height of her power during the war, with the world's strongest, most forbidden magic at her disposal, and still she failed. In the end, she and the Death Eaters were just savage, arrogant frauds who died fighting for a lie. They - we deserved to lose."
Hermione gives you a hard look, but she doesn't respond.
You want to shut up, but the words keep pouring out. "My parents gave their unfaltering loyalty to the glorious and powerful pureblood movement. But the moment they stumbled, the Dark Lord sent me to die as their punishment. Blind as I was, I thought I was being given a great honor, an opportunity to restore the Malfoy name, even though it was obvious to everyone else that I'd been assigned a humiliating death. By the time I realized what was happening, all I could do was try to save my mother and father. Although the Ministry didn't believe me when I said as much during my trial, not until your friend Potter testified on my behalf." You swallow the lump in your throat, but your voice still cracks as you gesture to Hermione's arm. "Your scar proves that you're a strong and powerful witch - that anyone can be born with great magic. My Mark proves that even my spotless pedigree couldn't save me from being a weak, stupid failure."
Hermione watches as you roll your wet sleeve down over your trembling arm. "You're right," she says quietly, ruthlessly. She turns away, then looks over her shoulder. "But - in the end, you chose your family. That counts for something, I think."
As you walk back together, your knuckles bump against hers, and she grabs your clammy hand. You squeeze her fingers in return. There's no thrill in the contact, though, not while thoughts of the war crowd your mind, and surely hers too. She releases you when you reach the common room portrait door.
A dozen students are now lounging near the hearth and passing around a vial of Euphoria Elixir. If any of them wonder about you and Hermione arriving together late at night, soaking wet, they keep their thoughts to themselves.
Hermione casts a clothes-drying charm over both of you. When she finishes your robes, you turn on your heel and return to your room, still shaking.
You skip class the next day, but the house elves refuse to deliver food to your room unless you obtain a sick note from Madame Pomfrey. You emerge at supper, when your hunger surpasses your fear of coming across more Whiz-bangs.
Hermione arrives in the Great Hall a few minutes after you, and she takes the open seat on the other side of the table. Together, you eat in silence that is surprisingly comfortable (and comforting) considering your shameful disclosure from the night before.
You're still shoveling shepherd's pie down your gullet when she stands. "I never thanked you for coming with me last night," she says. "I'm glad you were there. It was easier to be brave with a friend."
You stop chewing. The word 'friend' rolls through your mind.
Midterm week arrives, and you spend all your time studying or taking tests. When you crash into bed at night, your fantasies about Hermione invade your dreams, but the sex is all tangled up with dangerous green letters, confessions of regret, and declarations of friendship.
You remember early Friday morning that your Pink Drink potion has finally finished fermenting in Hermione's room. You pull a loose tunic over your bare chest, walk down the hallway, cross the common room, and head into the women's dorm area.
Hermione's door is labeled with a neat golden script. (Of course it is.)
You knock.
"Come in," she calls, and you do.
She's sitting at her desk under her window, with her back to you. "Your blemish cream is on the nightstand - oh!" She glances over her shoulder and smiles when she sees you. Your stomach flops weirdly. "I thought you were Millicent. Just a second." She returns to scribbling.
Normally you'd be annoyed to be kept waiting, but now you have the chance to look around her room.
Unlike you, Hermione has transformed her space into a bright, comfortable sanctuary. She's put up lacy curtains over the window and has charmed the walls a sky blue color; she's also hung a cuckoo clock and a triptych of landscape paintings with tulips that flutter in the breeze; every so often a leaf flies across each of the panels.
"There. I had to put that last thought on paper." She stands and turns around, and you see that she's wearing pajama shorts and a rather low cut top.
With difficulty, you return your eyes to her face. "I'm here for the potion. I said I'd turn it in today."
"Of course!" As she retrieves the flask from a cabinet, you glance at her legs - her smooth thighs and dimpled knees, her narrow ankles and small feet . . .
"Draco?" she says.
You blink back to reality. You're still not used to hearing her call you by your first name.
"It's getting a bit weird, isn't it," she says.
"The potion?" You ask (like a soft-headed fool).
She looks you up and down as she places the flask into your palm. "Not the potion." She doesn't move her hand.
You don't move your hand away, either. Her fingertips are warm against your skin. "What, then?"
She's looking at your mouth. "You know."
You do know. You're looking at her mouth, too. And leaning down, very, very slowly. And expecting her to bolt at any second.
She doesn't.
With your heart in your throat and your lips hovering over hers, you say, "This is your last chance to leave things as they are."
She lifts her chin and kisses you.
It's long and slow. You wrap your free arm around her waist and draw her close to you, and she hooks her wrist around the back of your neck as you deepen the kiss. You continue to hold the potion at your side until, in apparent exasperation, she finally takes the bottle away and sets it on the desk. Then she launches herself back into your arms and mashes her face against yours.
"You're a good kisser," she says a minute or so later. In your opinion, she sounds more surprised by that fact than she should be. She glances at the bed. "Would you like to do more?"
The entire room seems to tilt sideways. You nod.
She smiles, and with your hand in hers, she leads you toward the bed.
The cuckoo clock chirps.
"Oh, no," she groans as she looks at the time. "I'm going to be late for an all-prefects meeting with the Heads of House, and then I have class, and then my study group." She releases you. "But I'm free tomorrow after supper. Do you -"
"Yes. Tomorrow night." You'll take anything she's ready to give you. "It's a date."
When you return on Saturday, the door opens before you have the chance to knock.
"I could see your shadow on the threshold. You've been standing there for a while," Hermione says, her voice higher-pitched than usual. "Come in, if you're going to." She's dressed in jeans and a casual blouse, in contrast to your more formal button-down shirt and trousers, which adds to your already substantial list of worries about everything that might go wrong tonight.
You step inside. The walls have changed to an inviting golden hue, and a lamp on the desk emits a warm, magic-assisted glow. The bed, covered in a fluffy white comforter and a couple of silky looking pillows, seems larger than you remember. Maybe she transfigured it specially for tonight? You hope so.
When you turn around to face her again, she's closer than before.
She gives you a nervous-looking smile. "Sit down," she says, gesturing to the bed.
You perch on the edge of the mattress.
She joins you and smiles again. "Don't worry, I silenced the cuckoo clock this time."
"Uh huh." You can't concentrate on actual speech now that she's right beside you, taking your hands in hers.
"Shall we kiss again?" she prompts, shredding your remaining autonomy.
"Yeah." You'll agree to just about anything she asks of you.
"Alright," she says, and she leans forward. She tastes like cinnamon toothpaste, and she smells like the bar soap in the dormitory bathrooms.
Still kissing you, she gently pushes you backwards. You have just enough sense left to kick off your shoes and reorient yourself across the mattress, and then she sort of surrounds you, with her tongue sliding past your teeth, her arms around your neck, her hair everywhere. You run your hands up beneath her blouse. You could do this forever.
Evidently, she has other plans.
"Your belt is too complicated to unbuckle one-handed," she mumbles against your lips. She abandons that and starts on your shirt buttons. "A little help, please."
"I thought you liked going slow," you complain into her mouth. All her fumbling around is distracting you from grazing your fingertips along the smooth skin of her lower back. "Isn't that what you've been telling me for months?"
"Yes, but -" she grunts with satisfaction as the last button pops open. "To be perfectly honest, after all that talking, I am, in fact, ready to rip your clothes off and get pounded into the mattress, just like you first proposed." She laughs, and without bothering to push the open shirt from your shoulders, she straddles your hips and grazes her nails down your chest. Then, with a naughty grin, she yanks her blouse over her head and tosses it aside.
You can't tear your eyes away.
She has a slightly squishy stomach undercut by her jeans, a nipped-in waist, and breasts that spill over the top of her simple silk bra. You grab her hips and begin to pull her toward you again.
"Oh, just a moment." She swipes her wand off the bedside table and casts an anti-pregnancy charm at her abdomen. (It's really happening, then.) Then she waves her wand over both of you and chants a spell that you don't recognize.
"What's that one for?" you ask.
"It repels sexually transmitted magical diseases. It's not some kind of judgement toward you, I promise. But it's a good habit, and quite important -"
"I've never had sex before," you blurt out (because you are a fucking idiot.)
She freezes above you. "Never? Really?"
You shake your head. (Truly. The biggest fucking idiot.)
Slowly, she places her wand back on the table. Then she shifts herself off your hips, and your heart sinks. "I thought - I mean, I assumed - well, nevermind. Assumptions can be unfair." She gazes across your whole body. "You had me fooled, anyway."
"I've gotten close, but -" You feel more exposed than if you were entirely unclothed. "You're the first person I've even kissed since before the war."
She opens her mouth, then closes it again, and she reaches over to smooth your hair away from your forehead. "Thank you for telling me," she says, finally. "We don't have to do anything you're not ready for."
"I'm ready to be with you." You can't quite look her in the eye as you say it.
"Even so. We can stop at any time. Slow things down if that's what you need."
(Enough of this.) "I don't need to be coddled." You sit up, then get on your hands and knees. "I may have less experience than you, but I know exactly what you want, because you've told me over and over. I can still make you scream."
She half-giggles, half-sighs as you press her back to the mattress and move down her body to strip off her jeans and panties. Her socks, too.
"Legs apart," you say, nudging her knee with your shoulder.
Her eyelashes flutter. "Don't you mean 'legs apart, please'?" she teases.
"I mean legs apart, now," you reply, and her eyes widen. You can hardly believe it when she complies without argument.
You hook her knees over your shoulders, press your palm against her soft stomach, and settle your head between her legs. (If she thinks you're a good kisser . . .)
She arches her back as you begin by tonguing cuneiform script over her clit. She's trembling against your mouth as you lick your way from Α to Ω, and grasps at your hair as you move through the catalogue of Norse glyphs. She's moaning your name by the time you get to kanji. You deliver on your promise to make her scream with plain old cursive.
"You know what you're doing," Hermione pants, after she's unclamped her thighs from around your ears.
You smirk as you stretch your sore neck and pop your jaw. (The extra year of Ancient Runes has paid off, after all.) When you pluck a single coarse hair off your tongue, she laughs at the face you make.
"You're a mess." She sits up, grabs her wand again, and takes you by the chin to scourgify your face.
"You're still wearing your bra," you say, and you reach around and unhook it. And then she is completely naked.
"This isn't fair," she says, and though she doesn't seem shy, exactly, she presses her legs together and holds an arm across her ribcage, under her (large, brown, gorgeous) nipples. "You don't even have your shirt off." She reaches out to push the unbuttoned garment from your shoulders.
Out of habit, you hold your sleeve against your forearm.
"Do you want to turn off the light?" she says softly, her concern clear in her eyes.
You gaze at her, nude before you, so much more everything than you ever imagined when you were all alone in your room. "No. I want to see you." You slough off your shirt and let it fall to the floor.
She bites her lip. "I feel the same way."
From there, you rid yourself of your trousers, somewhat awkwardly hop around as you pull off your socks, and finally shake off your underpants. And suddenly, you're just as naked as she is. Your cheeks burn; surely your face is as red as a howler.
She's not looking at your face, though. "Get over here."
You do.
She gets you on your back, fast, and then she's on top of you again, slipping herself against you and giving you a thrilling idea of what's to come when you're finally inside of her. "Is this alright?" she rasps in your ear.
"What do you think?" you say, digging your fingers into her fleshy hips and grinding against her.
"I think -" her breath hitches. "I think I'm ready if you are."
You kiss her, which might be enough of an answer for someone else. But for her - "Yes. I'm ready."
She bumps her forehead against yours. "Alright then," she says, and you can hear the smile in her voice. She reaches down and takes hold of you, and she presses the tip of your aching cock against her hot, wet cunt. She pauses.
You know she wants to ask one more time. "Just fuck me already, Hermione."
She smirks. "Yes, Draco," she says, and with one slick motion she slides onto you.
"Shit," you hiss. "You feel fucking - amazing -"
"Yeah. You too." She braces herself against your chest with one hand and uses the other to touch herself as you pump into her.
She looks fucking amazing, too, with her hair frizzed out across her shoulders, and her breasts swaying above you, and her dark pubic hair damp against your own blond thatch - (it's too much) and when you look up at her face scrunched in concentration, you just -
You surge - and you come -
And the world skips - and - .
(That was fast.)
You're emptied out. Washed clean. Blank.
You open your eyes after what might be a thousand years, or thirty seconds.
Hermione is still on top of you, with her chin resting on the back of her hands and her nose inches away from yours. She's gazing down at you with an odd expression. "How soon do you think you can go again?" There's an edge to her tone that you've never heard before.
You wipe the sweat from your brow with the back of your hand. "I don't know - a few minutes?"
"Oh, good. I was close, and I really, really -" her voice dips down, gravelly, and your cock twitches - "really want to come with you inside me -"
You're half-hard again before she finishes the sentence. "In that case." You give yourself a few gentle tugs to get the rest of the way there. "Perhaps I could -" you roll her over and tuck one hand under her bottom to lift her up. "Will this work?"
She nods. She gasps as you slide into her again. "Yes, like that," she says, as you keep your pace slow and steady. This time, as she slips her hand between your bodies, you watch her face, and revel in every sharp inhale, and enjoy the way her fingers tense at the back of your neck. "So close -" she breathes, and you might not be able to hold on if she doesn't - but then she does, with a deep, reverberating moan that lasts and lasts until you -
(feels so good it almost hurts)
- you collapse against her.
(You should say something.)
"Fuck." (Not that.)
Hermione chuckles, then winces as she gently pushes you to the side. "You're heavy."
You yawn. "You're soft." You lean over and give her a lazy kiss that turns into a slow nuzzle. Her bed is so comfortable, and warm.
She nudges your shoulder. "Don't fall asleep yet. At least get under the covers first."
Clumsily, you crawl beneath the sheets, then pull her body close to yours. "Stay like this," you murmur into her hair, just as you drift off.
You awaken to a grey dawn, a hard cock, and a numb arm.
Hermione is flopped beside you, or rather, partly on you, and her eyes are still closed. Her hair is covered in a loose satiny cap thing, which she wasn't wearing last night. She must have put it on while you were sleeping, which means that she might have watched you sleep just like you're doing to her now. Hopefully you weren't drooling.
You're still looking at her when she opens her eyes.
"Merlin's beard," she mutters a moment later. "You weren't supposed to see me wearing my bonnet."
You snicker as you hook your arm around her waist. "I'm more interested in what you're not wearing right now."
She pulls the cap from her head, and her hair spills out as she allows you to draw her into your arms.
You kiss her again, try not to think about the fact that you haven't brushed your teeth since yesterday, and press your cock against her thigh. You put your hand between her legs and find her slick. "Do you have to cast the anti-pregnancy charm again, or -"
Hermione pushes you back. "You said you read all the books I gave you."
"Some of them were boring," you whine.
She untangles herself from your embrace and sits up. The covers fall away from her body, and, adorably, she glares down at you sternly. "Even though you're a wizard and it doesn't directly affect you, you should know how an anti-pregnancy charm works," she scolds, as if you could actually pay attention to her words with her gorgeous bare tits swaying right in front of you. "You should know better. It takes two to -"
"You're right," you interrupt. "I'm a miserable, corner-cutting Slytherin, and even worse than that, I'm a no good, irresponsible male." You grin up at her.
"I didn't say that." She seems to be wavering between indignation and amusement.
You reach out and caress her thigh. "If you refuse to do the charm, can I go down on you again, at least?"
Apparently she finds that an acceptable compromise. She leans up against the wall and straddles your face. And after you've extracted a couple of orgasms from her, she informs you, just before sliding down onto your throbbing cock, that anti-pregnancy charms last for at least twenty-four hours, and that you'd better not forget for next time. You promise, between rolls of your hips, that you'll do all the required reading so long there is a next time. And a time after that. And another after that, too . . .
Afterwards, you're sweating on your back, and she's snuggled up to you with her damp temple against your shoulder. She traces a pattern over your heart.
You brush her hair away from her cheek. "How many people have you slept with?" you ask.
"Two," she answers without hesitation. "Well, three now."
Krum, Weasley, and you. A Tri-Wizard Champion, a Second Wizarding War hero, and a former Death Eater on probation. (Yikes.) "I have my work cut out for me, if I'm going to impress you," you say.
"Have I not sounded sufficiently impressed?" she jokes. "But to be perfectly honest with you, before last night, I wasn't sure if I would be attracted to you once I got your clothes off."
"That is very honest," you say, unsettled. Where is she going with this?
"I mean, yes, you're tall and blond, but - I thought you might be too slim, or pale," she adds. "Or that your penis would look strange -"
"You don't have to be that honest," you grumble.
"Obviously, my concerns were unfounded." She moves her hand down below the covers. "You're very sexy to me. And your penis is excellent."
You laugh with relief. "Well. Your everything is excellent." You kiss the top of her head. "Every bit -" You move down and brush your lips across her cheeks, above her breast, along her shoulder. She giggles as you kiss her armpit and her bicep, but when you reach her forearm you pause. Then you kiss her scar. "Every part."
You hear her swallow, and she reaches for you again. You exchange more kisses that eventually fade into a simple, comfortable closeness.
"So," she says, bumping her nose against yours. "What happens now?"
You close your eyes and think. Hermione is the first friend you've made since the war; maybe she's the first real friend you've ever had. That fact alone would be hard enough - you can't imagine what your parents might say, and you don't think her millions of friends would unquestioningly embrace you as one of them, either.
Besides that, you want more than friendship with her.
"I don't know where this goes," you say truthfully. You look into her eyes and you smile. "But I like you very much."
She returns your smile, then gives you a long, slow kiss. "Let's start there."
[the end / the beginning]
A/n: Thank you for reading! Your reviews sustain me.