Chapter 2.
The first conversation in two weeks - down the drain!
Crookshanks raised its head and yawned, glancing at Hermione. Lucky. All that her cat needs are sleeping and food. And at certain moments, Hermione was desperately jealous of it.
She just got back to the living room. She quietly uttered the password to Yellow Lady, pulling off her bag from her shoulder, then she went to her room, trying not to make too much noise. But she marked that she did it against her will.
She walked through the living room on tiptoe. That's so silly and... annoyingly. As if she's afraid of disturbing someone.
Wait. Someone? She didn't want to come across with Malfoy, of course.
Once again. That's why she was almost sneaking to her room now, terribly angry because of her foolish behavior.
Since their meeting in the corridor near the Great hall has passed two classes. He wasn't on the second class. Hermione thought he might have come back to the prefect's tower. Though... For what? He hardly forgot the textbook there or anything else.
Slightly biting the edge of her lip, she came to a standstill, covered the door to her bedroom and listened.
Silence.
It was possible to return to her righteous indignation, that was also supplement with the idea of how much Hermione was out of her mind, that she feared to make any noise for not to inconvenience him. It has been no more than two weeks, but she already felt tired and oddly crushed by an invisible blanket. Like someone was smothering her.
Merlin. It feels like it was happening not with her.
Harry and Ron, who knew that Malfoy will be the head of the boys this year and therefore - the neighbor of their girlfriend, all day were striving to "beat him up" for some reason. Hermione was worth a lot of efforts to put them in front of her and to bring to a serious conversation. Concerning the motives of McGonagall and Dumbledore, who chose Malfoy to the prefect's place.
"You listen to yourself!" Harry threw Daily Prophet on the couch and jumped up, pacing from the coffee table to the fireplace and back, "What the hell? Not only that now you have more duties, so also... This is! Don't you dare get on the side of this bastard, okay?"
The girl almost choked with a piece of chocolate, that she was chewing with pleasure at this moment. In the home living room there was habitual and calm atmosphere. She thought unwittingly: how much had it seen? How many conversations had it heard?
And Hermione didn't like this conversation.
"What? To get on his side?"
Harry was viciously staring at her, as if she was just shielding damn Malfoy.
"I'm not going to... And I don't support him at all. How could you... " she stopped, that was saying about the active work of her thought. However, at the next moment, she frowned, "I don't care. You can beat him to death. The only... I wouldn't want to upset professor McGonagall. Recent events have brought too many problems to the school, and to her in particular. She and Dumbledore are trying so hard... "
She noticed the skeptical expressions of her friends' faces, then shrugged her shoulders and raised her chin, as she always did when she was unhappy.
"I'm not going to add a headache to the head of our House. And I won't let you to do it. I hope this is clear," strict chasing of the text. It was truly, in Granger's style. The boys looked over.
"If this freak would do... at least something... " Weasley looked at the girl very hard, "Promise me that you say us if he dares..."
"He's not going to do anything, Ronald. We don't even intersect with each other."
"You wanted to say, we have arrived yesterday? I meant the future. Harry and I won't let you suffer because of this... jerk."
Hermione rolled her eyes and smiled against her will, suppressing the sudden desire to hug Ron. Ridiculous and redhead. It seemed that he was frighten even more than she did.
"You know, I can stand up for myself. It's going to be okay."
"Promise us," Harry said, who was still standing in front of them. He was irritated, and his lips were squeezed. He was worried about her.
They both were worried about her.
"Okay. I'll tell you if he... will behave himself... unacceptably," she said and thought that Malfoy always behave himself unacceptably. Even with McGonagall he talks like he's standing on the same stage with her.
But it seemed that after these words the boys calmed down. And it calmed her too.
In the evening, Hermione collected herself and came to his bedroom with confident step. It was necessary to give him the schedule and distribution of Houses. She coughed to clean her throat. She lifted her hand over the dark wood and stiffened, realizing that now she will come across with Malfoy's look again. With his disdainful and icy look like December gust of wind.
No. She didn't want to see him.
And that wasn't the worst thing. Rather, he won't even listen to her. He'll tell her to go away, and she'll feel it again. Like dirt. His superiority.
There were quiet steps behind his door and Hermione shuddered, moving back quickly, almost against her will.
Jumping over a few steps at a time, she returned to the living room, feeling that her heart was pounding about her rib, and her back was covered with cool creeps.
The excitement trembled under her skin and in her chest, as if the girl had just climbed into the bear's lair and got out of there unharmed, almost stepping on the beast's nose.
She thought belatedly that it would be possible to put the schedule under his door, but in that case she risked giving him even more reason to be ridiculed by him. What the hell does she need that? It's better to leave it here, she thought.
She jerked her chin up resolutely and threw the tightly folded parchments on the coffee table, listening to the paper slap. Turning and following to her room.
He's not blind. He'll notice it if he wants to. And if no - so it wasn't Hermione's problems at all. Malfoy wasn't a little boy to keep an eye on his every action.
Then she returned to her room, and the time ate fourteen days of study and stay at Hogwarts.
Two weeks. They still haven't communicated with each other.
It was their first conversation with eye to eye, that had ended with his words: "Stop dragging me."
Malfoy forbade her to approach him in the public.
As if she was leprous. As if she needed it! She was just happy to forget about the existence of this arrogant moron. Whatever was happening in his pure-blooded family, it didn't influence on him. He was that person, which he always was - a bunch of aristocratic crap.
During the joint classes, that were quite a lot, he didn't even look at her side. He didn't look at all. Neither in the Great hall, nor in the yard, as if she didn't exist. Only habitual phrases, if someone from Gryffindor stood on his way or touched him accidentally.
On the one hand, it was pleased. On the other hand, it was strange.
As it turns out, you can get used to the negativity and you can notice its absence.
Get Used? That was definitely not required word. It was wrong. Yes. Just like that.
Hermione looked at the enchanted diary in her open bag and sighed. His stubbornness would ruin him. His idiocy and completely childish behavior. But it wasn't her business.
The fact that they are now living together doesn't give her any reason to pay more attention to him. If only not forget to use Locking Spells on her door. Though Voldemort will visit Hermione in her bedroom or bathroom rather than Malfoy.
Merlin, only one that thought seemed wild and repulsive.
She went up to the bedside table and took her Poiton's textbook. As usual professor Snape promised to give them a test on tomorrow's class on the material, that they had learned only today.
Sitting on her bed and opening the required page, Granger tried to recall last year's hassles with Malfoy. To remember how they behaved themselves then.
Here he is, skinny, with an inexpressive figure and ridiculously white hair, he is pacing down the Hogwarts' corridor, and she is here with Harry and Ron. Seeing them, the corners of his lips are crawling down.
"What have you forgotten here?"
"Shut up, Malfoy. Is it difficult to pass by us silently?" Ron snarls and immediately becomes confused under Slytherin's gaze.
"Are you kidding me, Weasley? To pass by this stink? My eyes are watering from you."
"What a freak you are," Hermione grabs her friends by their hands and drags forward. Malfoy grimaces stronger.
"Go away, Granger."
Passing by him, she rakes him with her eyes.
"Run to your daddy and make complaints against me."
He grimaces and goes to the opposite direction, throwing some more muck to the trinity.
And it seemed for him quite normal because it meant almost nothing.
But... It would have meant nothing now. Nothing had changed. They had just grown up.
Glancing its hostess from the living room, Crookshanks purred and arranged on Hermione's belly, patting its fluffy tail on the counterpane. The girl shuddered, realizing that she hadn't read a word, leading her eyes through the pages. She frowned and tried to focus on the rules of making broth from the skin of the Gray-eye.
His eyes became elder.
That thought made her unimaginable. Lucius died at the end of the last school year.
After seeing the news on the pages of Daily Prophet, Hermione felt a sharp, explosive and utterly unexpected pity. Just because the loss of the parent she probably... could understand. At least approximately. Despite the fact that after she had personally deprived her parents of their memories and after the end of the battle Dumbledore helped her to recover their memory. To get her life back. And it became easier. She had a real loving family for that she was ready to fight.
And Lucius' death, that bastard...
It could break Malfoy.
And one more thing. Hermione wanted that it destroyed him.
But no. He wasn't overthrown. On the contrary, he was still self-confident and cruel. It was read in his icy eyes. Gray. Rainy. Full of contempt to its crystal edges. And it really frightened. Because if the death of someone, who was everything to Malfoy, didn't break him, then what could brake him?
The immortal enemy is the worst enemy.
She didn't even notice how her anger disappeared. Suddenly everything seemed perfectly understandable. Nothing had changed. That's it.
Her glance fell on the diaries again, and Hermione squeezed her lips resolutely. She had already decided to go and to knock at his bedroom or better to wait for him downstairs. He won't be there until the night. When suddenly there was a low clap of the door.
He must had descended to the living room.
Dashing demons in her eyes stood on its hind legs.
Not approach him in the public? Great. There are no strangers in their living room.
Closing the Poiton's textbook with such loud sound, that Crookshank snorted and jumped from her belly, the girl stood up from her bed confidently. After all, she had to prove to herself that nothing had changed. That she could still communicate with him without any problems. In the sense that Malfoy understood by "communication" with Gryffindor students. That everything remains the same as it was.
All genius is easy.
And what exactly is the problem?! Their prefect's duties weren't the reason to wind up herself. And if he refuses to communicate, she can always tell McGonagall about that. And Minerva will certainly take care for that fact, that Malfoy will be replaced by someone nicer.
Yes, of course. That's what she'll do.
Hermione snatched the diary from her bag, opened the door and quickly began to go downstairs, cuddling the diary to herself and feeling like her legs begin to bend. Unclear and unnecessary excitement ate her from within. It made her angry and prevented her to ignore him.
It's just Draco Malfoy. It's just someone she's known for almost all her life. With him connected the most... humiliating moments of her life, to be exact. And now she just has to give him the stupid diary.
She stopped at the last step as abruptly as if she had crashed into an invisible wall.
That's it.
Malfoy was sitting on the couch, sheeting parchments with regular updated charts for another two weeks ahead. Throwing his long legs on a coffee table, slightly lowering his head. His polished shoes are just where the papers were lying recently.
The same.
Where does this stupid certainty come from, that in Malfoy there's something that makes her afraid of him? As if sharp horns are going to appear from his head or his skin will cover with wool. On the couch were sitting the same boy from her memories. Too loudly speaking and too crookedly grinning.
Just a little bit older. Crowded with something that was almost impossible to identify. Whether fatigue, or hopeless, musty melancholy.
Hermione wasn't able to bring herself to take a look immediately and go to the living room. Hiding in the shade of the ladder and staring at his profile, she felt herself like... offendress? Merlin, no one's going to know about that anyway. And you need to notice any trifles in your enemies.
Such as... his hair. It fell on his forehead, touching the dark eyebrows. The contrast of hair with black cloak was somewhat attracted. Maybe that's why a good half of school girls were pining for him. His jaw line was tense crossly. Apparently, not all days indicated in the charts, suited him.
It made her grin gloatingly. That was silly, but at least something was going to be wrong.
Malfoy's lips are squeezed as if he heard her thoughts. The sun occasionally threw beams on his light skin cheekbones and cheeks, from what Malfoy frowned and screwed up his eyes. It was interesting to look at his eyes when it wasn't directed at her with the notorious irritation and hatred.
Why? He remained the same, and it wasn't necessary to examine him from all sides to make sure of it. If there is a man on whom he does not look with dislike, he certainly lives in the reflection of his mirror.
He raised his hand, passing his hand over his hair, removing it from his forehead. Hermione was watching, as it flew between his fingers and laid back, similar to liquid platinum. The idea that it must be very soft to the touch, surprised her and made her angry. She immediately drove it away from her head.
Though for a moment Hermione thought she might understand why almost all Hogwarts' girls were chasing after him. She had to face the truth.
This bastard had become really handsome. His figure, face, hair. Even the shape of his hands. This all was handsome in him, except of his look. Contemptuous and ugly look. His habit of watching with disregard through people, as if they don't exist at all, was very annoying. And after the summer events, apart from the fact that his look became even more empty, it became too absent. As if its boss is dead.
His eyes were of murky ice and rainy gray sky color. Too much poetics for Granger, however this was the first thing that came to her mind. Murky ice could be beautiful too, if not breathed by this ugly mockery that nailed her to the earth. Even now.
Now?!
Hermione stiffened with her mouth open, feeling as the tip of her tongue became colder.
Malfoy was looking straight at her.
He had seen, when she... was watching him openly. Damn it!
"Granger..." he said it with an unctuous voice, that almost burned the Hermione from the inside.
She swallowed, biting her lip. She swore mentally and habitually shrugged her shoulders, then she came down from the cursed step, dipping into the light of the living room. Making a few steps under his mocking look. Stopping by the window and squeezing the windowsill with her fingers so her joints became to ache.
Malfoy folded the parchments in half and threw it down on the coffee table, lifting his feet on the floor. Slowly as if he was playing.
"What the hell are you doing?"
His voice became cold instantly. It was only to wonder how he wasn't choking.
"I was coming down to the living room if you haven't noticed it."
She liked her own tone. Despite all the crap that hit her chest inside, he didn't express almost anything but irritation.
"I've noticed you was staring at me, Granger. It's not normal to stare at people. Hasn't your mommy taught you that?"
"And your daddy..." she said it almost on the machine before she had understood, about who she spoke about. And before she met his icy gaze.
"Shut up," he roared through his teeth.
She closed her mouth, swallowing the end of the phrase, chewing it and noting how his upper lip had wavered in response to her words.
"I wanted to say that, as you can see, you haven't yet been trained in courtesy," Hermione said awkwardly, trying not to hide her eyes.
Malfoy went over her in a semicircle and stopped opposite, at a bookcase, putting his hands in the pockets of his trousers. His cloak slipped down his flexible back, touching his legs.
He was lazy to quarrel with her. He was lazy even just to open his mouth. But he forced himself to squeeze:
"What the hell do you want? To see if I've found your next little gift?" he threw a hostile look towards the coffee table. "I've found. And, you know. With the same success, you could have choked with it."
"I have no doubt."
He snorted.
"I'm not satisfied with half of what says in that again. Who did this rubbish?"
"Know you, that professor McGonagall did this."
"Hmm. Why would I think that it's she? Maybe it's because she just doesn't care that this schedule not suits for me. If Snape would do the schedule..."
"Malfoy. Say it to Snape, not to me."
A small pause, appearing after Granger's words, slightly grated upon her.
"Don't talk to me like that, Mudblood."
He uttered it almost quietly, only clenching his jaws slightly stronger than usual. He looked at her hands with the diary, but returned to her face, giving her the possibility to say why she disturbed him.
"I came to give you the enchanted diary."
"Another nice little thing you can put in your ass, okay?" and he turned around, going back to the soft cushions of the couch.
Their conversation lasted too long. Her temples started to ache.
"Don't be a child, Malfoy. As the prefect you need to have it."
He grimaced. He put his hands in his pockets deeper so that his knuckles clearly showed through the material.
"For what?"
"Professor McGonagall said that if you need anything, we can always contact with each other. I've told you about that in the afternoon," Hermione said, a little bit encouraged that he was listening to her. Frowning, but he was listening.
Malfoy sighed. He jerked his shoulders.
"You're a freakin' nag, Granger."
"Sorry?"
"You've drum it to your head. You will wander behind me with these... copy-books until the end of the day?"
"No, actually. I was hoping that the usefulness of its suitability would come to you a little earlier."
"Do you think that when I am sane, I decide to write a note to you?"
She looked at him with all her rigor she was capable of — it amused him.
"If you think that I enjoy communicating with you, you are deeply mistaken, Malfoy. These diaries give me the opportunity not to meet with you personally every time I need to tell you something. And you'll make my job much easier if you take this now. I don't care what you'll do with it, you can go to Hagrid's cabin and feed it to Blast-Ended Skrewt, but it's not going to be my concern."
He grinned. So it enraged her, instantly.
"You don't have to try, Granger. You won't get points for verbiage."
"I have no doubt. I'm just trying to explain it quite lucidly for you."
His gaze immediately became colder. He discerned mockery in her tone and silently raised his eyebrows.
She held him the diary with a sharp movement - Malfoy didn't even stirred. For some time, they both resembled a ridiculous monument to Incarnated Stubbornness. Neither he nor she were going to give in.
After all, when Hermione felt that her hand was beginning to ache, she threw the diary on the windowsill, sighing and struggling with the desire to roll her eyes. Putting her hand on her hip. Their conversation lasted no more than a couple of minutes, and the girl already wanted to go away from Malfoy, although they both were in different corners of the living room.
She just wanted to be far from him.
In her bedroom.
In the Gryffindor living room.
In London.
It was weird for her talking to him. It was strange for him talking to her. Only chronic anger balanced all this, and irritation, impregnating air in the manner of caustic smoke.
And each of them, probably, understood: this was their first so long conversation. Hermione started to hate her prefect's post.
He didn't keep his cold eyes from her, looking at the diary on the windowsill only with a glimpse. Granger's leg caught his attention, and frowned Draco watched the thigh line under her tight jeans. Then - her kneel, down to her ankle. Mudblood was wearing sneakers. Her leg was small and probably would have looked better in other shoes.
For a second Malfoy imagined the bend of Granger's foot in heels, that so often Pansy wears. With spike heel and platform. She would be a little taller and probably could reach his chin by her nose. If she would be close to him enough.
Too close.
You've lost your mind. Maybe you can imagine how you're fucking this mudblood whore in this shoes?
Merlin. What's this about?
He immediately justified himself, that it got him hot from one view of vulgar Parkinson shoes, that she sometimes wears. These shoes equated to the wild fucking. It scratched his hips, shoulders or buttocks. But Granger was the last person he could ever imagine in it.
The acute tide of disgust to himself forced him to turn away, to stare at the fireplace and to squeeze his lips. He had the necessity to wash himself. To take off his damn clothes and to take hot shower. To feel like his skin started to melt. To decay into molecules. There were no thoughts like this in his head. Until he forgives himself being with Mudblood in the same room.
He wanted to soap his eyes and to polish it, washing from filthy dirt his glance, that he threw at her.
What the hell is he staring at her freakin' leg?
And Granger looked again at him - he felt her eyes irritating his face.
What the fuck is going on? She was staring at him from the corner until he had noticed that. Now they were standing silently opposite each other for a moment and waiting... Waiting for what?
Draco felt a new attack of irritation. She enraged him, even when she was silent.
"What were you doing on the stairs?"
Granger shuddered. Malfoy almost felt the air fluctuation. He felt like under his skin starts to prick. Once again. Again this anger from hanging silence, that Draco couldn't give it the fucking way out.
His teeth clenched. Another minute of silence had passed.
"What. Were you doing. On the fucking. Stairs?" he repeated, feeling that if she didn't say something now, he would simply rupture from rage. Without taking his eyes off the fireplace, he felt the breath accelerated while Granger was raising her head and licking her lips.
He stared at the stone placing and slowly began to count the bricks laid out in a semicircle. Two. Four. Six...
"I was coming down to the living room."
Seven, eight...
Rotter.
"Don't lie to me, Mudblood."
"Are you capable of anything but eternal insults, Malfoy?" she cried suddenly, throwing with her hands.
It must have turned him with his face to her. It forced to put his hands out of his pockets, squeezing it in fists. It was like a nervous tangle broke out in his throat.
"You're bullshit, Granger. You're so shitty. Only your presence stains me," he blurted, feeling a slight echo of relief in his chest, "You are no longer capable of anything other than self-satisfaction on the stairs, watching after me," he grimaced, looking at her frozen face.
It was disgusting for him to be here. He wanted to remove her from here or to remove himself. The second became more real. So he turned abruptly, heading towards the door. Now he needs Blaise and his understanding look. Pansy and her in-all-blamed shoes.
"Ugh!" Hermione's voice was going to scream, "What are you talking about, you idiot?! Don't you dare assume it! This is... disgusting."
Her words hit his back and shoulders with steel balls, falling to the heels of his polished shoes. Draco slowly turned around. And then a sudden smirk stretched his lips.
Hermione felt the heat pouring her cheeks. Humiliation. Embarrassment. Anger. From these emotions her hands started shivering.
"Disgusting?" suddenly Malfoy looked straight at her. In her eyes. Not past it, as usual.
Her heart stopped for a moment. As if Malfoy touched her bald nerve with his look, somewhere in her spine, from what the creeps ran out her back.
"Say it to those who moans my name every night. Under me. On me. In their dreams," what? He wasn't going to say that.
Her lips trembled, and he felt a shred of satisfaction.
Good girl, Granger. Look, listen. Hear me.
Draco enjoyed the way she saw him. He was doing worse. He knew that he was doing worse. He noticed it in her eyes. But he didn't want differently. He mocked, almost intentionally. It caused him some perverse... not a pleasure, no.
Satisfaction. Heavy and unrelieved. But it itched under his skin, pulling by his tongue.
In his brain boiling such porridge.
Mudblood. Her accusing gaze. What the hell? Why?
If she won't shut up her mouth, his head will burst.
But Granger was standing still, stubbornly squeezing her fists and lips. With blushing cheeks. What a belated manifestation of her fucking courage. Especially if we take into account that he saw that she was shaking. But she had nothing to answer.
She only grimaced as if trying to hide her blushed cheeks.
Go away. Get out of here.
"Well... Anyway, you won't understand that," he turned to her, folding his hands on his breast and taking a relaxed-indifferent posture, "You're either a completely frigid bitch or just a virgin."
"Shut up, Malfoy," she hissed, warningly bending her head. It was necessary to be blind not to notice how her body became strained, "Don't be so stupid to develop this subject."
"Oh, really?" he grinned, "It seems I hit the bull's eye. But even to talk about it... Ugh," Draco winced, glaringly walking with his glance through her body.
Below-upwards.
Slowly, stopping on her small feet, thin wrists, sufficiently noticeable waist even under her T-shirt, small, completely unattractive breasts and protruding angular collarbones.
He gladly realized that he didn't want her. That these thoughts about shoes were just random.
And he even had no time to be amazed when their conversation took this unwanted color. All he had to do was to go away from here. To the native dungeon, to the native living room. At least for a while. That's why he only said:
"Who will hanker after you and your body? And especially on your dirty blood..."
Malfoy didn't understand as she had appeared before him in a moment. His cheek felt the blow of her damp and firm hand, before he could finish his sentence.
Some time he was just standing and looking at Granger, not realizing it. Pressing his hand to his cheek.
Did she hit him?
It didn't hurt.
He hasn't felt any pain in a long time. But it was... unexpectedly. And it was damn humiliating when he noticed in her eyes that rage, that seems to be about to flash her eyelashes.
"Bastard! You're such a bastard!" her scream almost lost in the growing rumble inside Draco's skull box.
Yes.
Mudblood hit Malfoy.
He felt his jaw shrinking. Suddenly it became difficult to breath: sticky and hot air. And then...
Uncontrollable push of his body.
She hit him. That dirty bitch hit him.
His fingers touched something warm, while the red veil blanketed his eyes, and the next moment Draco realized that it was her throat - warm and shivering under his palm. Her hot skin vibrates from noisy exhales, and Granger's head was pressed to the wall of the bookcase.
It was no more than a reflex. At arm's length, minimizing the contact of their bodies, preventing feverish attempts to twitch from him to the side or to say something.
He didn't want to touch her. He had an aversion to touch her.
Granger's eyes were completely dry, though it was full of hint to fear him. And it was almost replaced by any other emotions. And a sudden thought: I must have looked exactly the same in front of my father.
She finally locked this fierce, humiliating circle in him.
"What the fuck was that?" he snarled, feeling a ripple under his skin. His glare was still rushing about on her red face.
Except Lucius, no one had ever beaten him.
No one and never.
The freakin' slap. He couldn't believe in it.
"Let me... go," Granger hissed, resting her head against the bookcase, as if she was trying to escape his touch.
Malfoy realized that he clenched her throat not too strong, but the feeling, that the vein of her pulse beats right in his hand, inebriating him. Perhaps, if he would touch any other person, if he would feel himself stronger with any other person - the result will be the same. Superiority. But now he's almost reveled in that.
The desire to humiliate her knocked in his temples. Because Granger wasn't hurt. But her cheeks were blushing because of humiliation.
Because of him. That's perfect.
"What are you affording to yourself, you fucking whore?" he hissed again, losing in his anger.
"Let me go, don't touch me!"
Her scream was as evil as his glare. He felt the vibration of this scream with his hand. Draco had no idea what to do next when Granger's hand made its way towards his wrist.
He recoiled.
Granger didn't touch him. Never. He better die on the spot. And she jumped off instantly, as if she was fearing that he would do that again. But Malfoy was only wiping his fingers by his cloak with disgust, making a few steps back, stumbling on the coach.
"Have you gone crazy?" she shouted again, for some reason pressing her hand to her throat and rubbing her skin. Like trying to erase it.
To erase that places, where he had touched with his fingers. Now that places were prickled like by needles. He had to squeeze his hand in his fist to stop it.
She noticed it.
"Now what? Will you hit me?! Damage me? You're going to be out of school right now!"
"I can kill you right now," he barked to her in return, "and go to Azkaban, knowing that one filthy creature disappeared! But I won't. You're not worth it."
Granger shook her head with some abnormal, nervous smile that resembled of bared teeth.
"You're mad bastard."
"Fuck off, you..."
"I'm going to professor McGonagall."
"Great. Go. And tell her you're a freakin' loser, not competently to find a common language with people. Tell her I've tried to embed you in the fucking bookcase."
Malfoy punched a wooden surface with his fist so that Hermione shuddered, taking a step back. Taking his hands away from her neck. Squeezing her lips, jerking her chin.
"And remind her to look for normal people after what happened in the past. She'll listen to her damn egghead."
And suddenly.
Something flashed on Granger's face.
Emotion that made him shut up instantly. He didn't understand what it was. What recalled another face. Full of tears, begging. Frightened. So that for a moment his heart and breath stopped. He stopped himself.
Almost he was just yelling at her, and now he was just looking at Mudblood, who was flapping her eyelashes like she felt this appearing wave.
And his thoughts were frozen in this pause. The only understanding had left: he wanted Granger to cry like the other woman in his head was crying.
But she didn't even think to do that.
"Malfoy, what the hell's going on with you?" her voice returned him to the living room. Her voice was still ranging from the rage, but Granger noticed a change in his facial expression. And it made him breathe out convulsively.
She's right. You're mad bastard.
"Go to hell."
He turned around. In two steps he overcame the distance to the door and pulled its handle. Damn, he won't turn round to her.
Damn, he won't regret.
Probably she said something to him. Or she called him by name. But Draco had already slammed the door and went towards the dungeons with quick step, feeling like his sweating forehead chilled from the coolness of the corridor.
His hands were shaking when he tried to put them into the pockets of his cloak.
You're mad bastard.
Mad bastard.
Because you don't regret what you've done. You regret that you didn't see her tears that was so necessary now. To forget the face that flashed under his eyelids.
The yard was full of students.
A big break between classes had recently begun and everyone was doing their own business: someone, like Hermione, was sitting in the sun until it disappeared behind the approaching storm clouds, and flipping through magazines and books. Someone was walking, and someone was hurrying about their affairs. Not paying any attention to each other.
Today she stayed alone, because Ron and Harry left to discuss Quidditch with Ginny.
So when someone gently touched her shoulder, Hermione recoiled, as if her cloak was touched by red-hot poker, and then she turned round sharply. It was the young man. He raised his eyebrows surprisingly and withdrew his hand hastily.
"Did I frighten you? Sorry."
Oh my God.
"No..." Granger exhaled slowly. Merlin, who do you expect to see? Just stop worry about that. "No," she repeated again and smiled hesitantly, standing up from the bench.
Over the last days she always felt herself nervously, it was silly to hide it. Especially when Gryffindor and Slytherin had the shared classes. In that moments she always became silent and rarely took her eyes off her notes.
Why? She didn't want to come across his cold stare from the snake table, so she worked hard, with even more eagerness, than usual.
During the last poiton's class Hermione was stirring the contents of her cauldron so fiercely, that she had splashed out the potion over the edge accidentally. And her desk began to steam, immersing the room into a bluish fog.
Snape deprived Gryffindor fifteen points.
And also five more for the fact that Neville squealed like a girl when he thought that the fog was choking him. That brought even more fun to Slytherin than the deprived points of Gryffindor.
But Hermione desperately blushed under the frankly astonished looks of her classmates and desperately regretted about one thing only: she began to notice Malfoy. It terribly distracted her.
No, she didn't care about him.
But now for some reason he just was in her brains. He was in the room with the others, standing out from their snake pit.
Harry and Ron tried to talk to her several times, but she just smiled and told: "Everything is okay". As if she could convince that to herself. And to them too.
It seemed they believe her.
Because they looked very happy and chatted with her about everything, except that could touch the prefect's tower. Hermione was grateful for their sympathy, however she understood that a long time guys' patient was not enough. Neither Potter nor Weasley could keep silent about Malfoy. It was easy to see that this conversation will still take place. But by this time, Hermione promised to herself — she'll know what to say to her friends.
The prefects' duties distracted her from the thoughts that was sitting in her head. But when Granger was lying in her bed or sitting in the Gryffindor living room, where she spent most of her free time, her eyes were falling to a sticky space and some images in her memory.
Absolutely unnecessary, superfluous images. The latest images.
As if someone threw good food for thought in her head. In fact, nothing terrible had happened. She and Malfoy just quarreled with each other. He just let himself to show his fury, and then... and what happened then - it had remained an enigma.
What can't be said about the touch of his cold fingers on her skin.
At that moment Malfoy was holding her at a distance and pressing her to the bookcase over her throat, and she was looking at him without stopping. She was looking while his hand was trying to clench harder on her neck but it couldn't. She was looking while her throat was bursting from suffocation. Not because he was choking her. But because that was his first touch.
The first touch in her life from Malfoy. And that was such the touch. When he was looking at her and hating her so much. So clearly hating.
His hand was shivering then.
She had hit him first. She had lost control of her stupid anger first. Then Draco was telling her the same meaningless words, as always. The usual muck about... about what she didn't want to hear a word.
And then she suddenly blushed. And she recovered only when her own hand was pulsing and filling with heat from the blow, but Malfoy was standing and looking at Hermione, as if he refused to believe that she not only just touched him, but slapped him on his face.
Then the world had abruptly spun and the back of her head was burned with pain from hitting the bookcase. And his firm fingers on her neck. His breath. His glare, from that...
Air.
No.
He was, like, breathing for both. Hard and loud.
For a moment, for an insane, crazy moment, she wanted Malfoy took a step towards her. One step. And she could have seen the expression in his eyes. Strange.
Strange. It haunted her day after day.
She had never seen Malfoy like that. She hadn't seen that she had noticed in him two days ago. Something dangerously resembling...
Hermione once again pulled herself up. Foolishness. Delirium. Damn Malfoy. Unrestrained idiot. Self-enamored... pompous...
Again. You do it again. Stop thinking of him.
Hermione touched her neck with her fingers. There weren't any bruises, of course. And there was no pain. But his outburst frightened her, anyway. His whitened lips and clenched jaws expressed such fury, from that her entrails were squeezing to the size of a matchbox and covering by a layer of ice. By that ice that always lived in his eyes.
Malfoy was a permanent iceberg.
She almost grinned. And then she heard a cough from outside her thoughts and understood that there was an unfamiliar young man before her. She blinked, returning to the schoolyard.
"What can I help you?"
"Your book has fallen out of your bag."
Only now she noticed that the guy was holding the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in his hands.
"Thank you," Hermione murmured, taking it from him and carefully dusting the book jacket.
"You're the girls' head, don't you?" the guy looked at her face, smiling. He was a little bit taller than she, with warm brown eyes and sharp chin. His chestnut-colored hair was tied up with a short tail from behind.
"Yes," Hermione smiled against her will. Pleasant companions have now become a rarity. And definitely, he was the pleasant one.
"My name is Kurt Miller. I'm from Ravenclaw, sixth year."
"I see."
"And you're Hermione Granger. I know," he laughed, and the tiny wrinkles in the corners of his eyes made his look even warmer. Hermione also smiled back, raising her eyebrows in surprise and pressing the book to her chest.
"Hmm, yes. It's me."
"You see? I know a lot about you."
"Really?" Hermione squinted her eyes and laughed. She thought it was stupid, and he just spread his hands in response.
"You're the best student in Hogwarts, and almost every professor says to us to take a page out of you. Perhaps it's an honor to be acquainted with a witch like you. I mean, I'm sure in it."
"Oh, okay. That's very kind of you, Kurt."
And they fell silent.
She wanted to invite him to sit down and to talk. To offer herself as a companion. Suddenly, she realized that she hadn't spoken to people for a long time. Harry and Ron mostly chatted among themselves, and with the prefects of the other Houses she discussed organizational issues concerning academic performance only several times.
Well.
Kurt Miller was still looking at her, and she looked down, suddenly becoming flustered and embarrassing. Realizing that she wouldn't offer him to sit down with her.
She's too... not for that kind of guy like he was. Spontaneous dating had never been her strong suit. She was rarely met like that, touching her shoulder and giving her the fallen book.
Rarely. Never.
She was just Granger. The excellent student. Harry Potter's friend.
"Well ... I was glad to meet you," Kurt looked at her with the same smile and it seems, he even gently winked to her, "See you?"
"Thanks again," Hermione tore her book away from her chest and waved it slightly in the air.
"Okay. You're welcome."
And then she was watching him turning round and leaving. At the ladder he turned his head for a second and winked again. And Hermione hid her eyes, sitting back on the stone bench, realizing that she was still smiling.
So silly.
She wiped a smile from her face, putting the book into her bag. So silly, but nicely. It seemed he found her cute. Judging by how he winked and turned round. It was strange to feel herself like... a girl. Now.
What Malfoy had said about what happened in the past year... That was true. Probably that was the only reason she didn't go to professor McGonagall with her complaint and the demand to change the boys' head. Just because he was right.
Last year, the Dark Lord's defeat, the returning Hogwarts to its previous level - all that during one winter. And diligently dissimulation that everything is okay. Nothing had happened. This was painful and disgustful at the same time. Too many people were broken. Too many people were now hiding in their impregnable shells. And to remember that you can pay attention to young men like Kurt Miller...
The smile lifted the disobedient corners of her lips again. Hermione put her bag next to her and decided not to care that smiling for no reason was stupid. After all, who couls see it now?
...Ugh.
Leaning against the stone column with his shoulder, Malfoy realized that he was watching like Mudblood was smiling. She was looking at Miller like he was being sent to her from heaven by fucking angels.
He felt disgusting.
Her nasty smile, her shaggy hair, protruding to different directions, uncombed by the wind. How someone can like it? Is this idiot blind?
And for Salazar's sake, why Malfoy was staring at her?
He wasn't going to be here. He wasn't going to stare at Mudblood, who was sitting on the bench under the trees. Fucking coincidence led to another irritation.
That was supplemented by the fact that Pansy was late. And he was tired of waiting.
Draco turned round and walked towards the prefect's tower, destroying each red-gold tie with his eyes, that he saw on his way. He liked when he was passing by Gryffindor students, they hid their deceitful, hypocritical eyes.
He noticed that. He knew. He wanted to make it so.
So be it. Let them get used to that. The Malfoys were the greatness and purity of blood.
He began to feel sick when someone poor looks at him. Damn not-wizards. Such Mudbloods, like Granger.
He avoided her, it was worth to admit. Malfoy hadn't liked that outburst and that memory, that flashed in his head with such clarity. He had to live in harmony with it. To learn. And she just spoiled everything.
It wasn't difficult to forget about Mudblood. While she hadn't reminded about herself, as it was today.
And Draco wasn't going to think about it now. Particularly.
His look was drawn by redheaded girl, who was sitting on the windowsill and winding her red lock on her finger. She licked Malfoy with her gaze from the tips of his shoes to his platinum hair and then she smiled.
I want you.
But not today.
He passed by her, clenching his teeth and feeling, that her indecent gaze was following his back. Putting his hands into his pockets, he barked something to young students, who instantly embarrassed and became bent.
Place.
I said, place.
Needles of irritation under his skin began to prick. And especially in his palm, that had touched her neck two days ago...
"Mr. Malfoy!"
Draco stopped before the staircase, turning around.
It was McGonagall. He barely restrained himself not to roll his eyes. The only thing he wanted — to get away from that all.
Just. Away.
And he knew Granger hadn't told professor about their incident. He didn't want to think about the reason.
"Yes, Professor?"
Minerva looked slightly worried. She stopped in front of him, but somehow he still had the feeling that she hurried. Her eyes were peering at his face, and Malfoy felt the urge to turn away.
"I am in hurry, so listen to me carefully and tell miss Granger that till tomorrow you will begin to patrol the school at night."
At this moment, he really almost groaned with impotent irritation. In fact, he only sighed.
Great. Just fine. Just amazing.
"Of course," he gasped, "I will patrol the second floor, and she is the third, I suppose."
"No, you will do it together," McGonagall tightened her lips, looking at Malfoy from top of her glasses. As if she suspected that he can leave her favorite student alone in the dark stone corridors. "Mr. Malfoy, a girl should not walk alone at night."
Her tone was preachy and annoying. Though, probably, anyone would now start to annoy Draco. Mentally he had already moved to tomorrow night and to this fun pastime - to wander with Mudblood hand in hand in the dark.
"I hope you have found a common language," the old woman said.
Oh, Yes. Of course, damn.
"Yes," he hissed, looking into Minerva's eyes, "Of course."
"Very good. Then I rely on you."
She gave him another long look, as if she was trying to make a few cuts on his skin with it. Then she nodded and briefly said goodbye, shed rushed down the corridor, resuming hasty movements. Draco was watching her smooth back, making an involuntary association with Granger.
The same dry. Her look. Her posture.
Lifeless. Object.
He snorted and started to go upstairs when he was called out again.
"Draco, darling, wait!"
Irritation hit his brain with fireworks.
He turned his head and stared at Pansy with such ferocious look that she could easily crash dead like a piece of ice. But unfortunately, it was only his look that forced her to stop a few meters away from Draco.
"Sorry, I'm just a little..."
"Late. Fucking three minutes late," he hissed, turning away and continuing to go upstairs, hearing renewed tap of her heels behind him.
"Sorry, baby. I just..."
"Fuck off, Pansy."
"Did I hurt your feelings? But we're going to..."
Malfoy clenched his teeth very hard. He turned to Parkinson sharply again and stopped her at the first step with his glare.
"To fuck? Go find someone else for this today."
"What..." Pansy rolled her eyes, but not daring raise her voice, "I'm not..."
She wanted to say — she's not a whore.
She'd better be silent.
"Oh, just shut up," Draco rolled his eyes and barely touched the tip of her nose with his cloak, when he turned around, renewing his step.
She didn't follow him. She didn't begin to shout at him. No one argued with him. No one dared.
Against his will there flashed the eyes of Granger in his memory when she hit him and almost beat the sparks out of his eyes with her slap. It was blazing. As never before.
Her eyes were the color of thick chocolate. So hot chocolate that he could burn himself.
Maybe then Malfoy pressed her pressure point that caused the sleep mechanism into action. But what did he say? Merlin, he didn't even remember that made this little Gryffindor whore to become so angry.
Damn it.
"Phoenixus."
The portrait of disgusting lady moved to the side as Draco called the password.
He should just go into the living room. To sit down the coach.
To close his eyes. And to see.
Granger's face was looking at him through his eyelids. With blushing cheeks, with nasty smile on her lips. He didn't get any pleasure from it.
So why is he thinking about her? What the fucking fuck?
Yesterday during the poiton's class, when she spilled her poiton on the desk, Draco was the first to say loud jokes in her address, and Slytherins were enthusiastically assenting to him. However... usually it was normal to mock at her and Golden Potter. It was quite natural. It was done thoughtlessly and spontaneously.
But yesterday...
Yesterday, he was thinking. He was thinking over with concentration what to say to hurt her badly. To hurt her violently. To hurt her, so she would escape from the class and cry in the toilet till night.
He needed her tears. Like stupid, unnecessary, child revenge. As if it could really change something. As if she cries, she will no longer appear in their living room, or his painful memories will stop to torment Draco.
However, Granger hadn't even said anything. She was just sitting and looking down.
All of his insults have the answer. Always. Destructive look, squeezed lips. "Fuck you, Malfoy" or "Shut up, Malfoy!". But yesterday there was no answer. At all. Except that Potter had fumed over it, but Snape quickly took this impulse to his hands. Granger was just staring in front of her, starting to pound the ingredients in her stone mortar again. And that was wrong.
What has changed? What was wrong?
What the hell happened with them this year?
And why are these fucking questions sitting in his head? Damn! Why does he care about that? Just forget it, Draco. Jesus, as if it's important!
He needs to look aside. Just think about something else.
Pansy. To think about Pansy.
She got him near the toilet last night and pressed him against the wall, petting him like a cat. When he let her kiss him, she knelt down without much foreplay.
Not just because her kisses were always deep and short. Probably, not only because of that.
She started to unfasten his fly. He watched her adroit fingers and wondered how many pricks she had caressed. How many belts she had unbuckled as she did now. Many, probably. But...
He didn't care.
He closed his eyes, putting his head back, and felt her hands taking off his pants from his hips, while her lips were leaving wet kisses down his belly. Descending lower and lower.
Pansy's mouth was always good. Half a minute later his dick was getting harder. Shaking his hips to meet her lips, grinning Draco felt, how quivered his upper lip. As the beast in his he chest calmed down. Feeling like her tongue glides over him, like Parkinson tightly closes her lips around and starts sucking.
"Harder," he growled.
And she sucked harder.
The way he liked. As much as he liked.
Her mouth was wet and experienced. It was holding his cock almost entirely. He didn't need more. Only her mouth and her guttural, throttling moans.
One minute. More. More. Three-five-seven minutes.
When there was some noise in his ears, he embraced her head with his hands and began to push to her mouth by himself. Sharply and strongly, feeling like his hot cock slid to her throat. Realizing that Parkinson was choking by it. But she continued to moan.
Falsely.
Fucking falsely.
But that was not it. Damn, that wasn't what he needs. But he was moving. Feeling his anger. At himself, at her. At her mouth.
At that fact that she let him doing with her more things.
What - more? He didn't know. He didn't want to know. He just fucks her.
He fucks her, but she wasn't enough for him.
Draco clenched his jaw, making the quick pushes with his pelvis to Parkinson's swollen lips. He was staring at one of the cracks in the masonry wall, and it seemed to him that this crack getting bigger. It gets close to him.
He was watching and feeling like Pansy's fingers made their way to his back and bit into his skin. His belly was twisted from hot, sweet convulsion. He uttered a low moan and impaled her head on himself, closing his eyes, putting his head back and cuming, listening to the pounding of his heart and holding his breath for a few moments, trying to prolong this feeling.
That was good, that with every whore (every girl, he corrected himself) Draco felt the same hard, turning and twisting him inside orgasm. From that his legs, belly and fingers were trembling. His head became lighter immediately.
The opened front door made Malfoy give a start, returning from Pansy's mouth to real time. To the living room.
Damn. In time.
He once again hated Mudblood. He only managed to throw her out of his head.
Draco adopted the position in that she couldn't notice his cock, puckering his pants. This situation seemed funny. He has the cock-stand. Granger is here. She turned away carefully and pretended that he's not in here.
Go to your fucking bedroom, faster.
He was watching her constrained movements and her raised head. She passed by him, staring straight ahead her, and almost walked into the archway, behind that there was the staircase, when he had suddenly remembered McGonagall's words.
I'll tell it her next time, he thought. And then he roared for some reason:
"Wait."
Fuck...
She stiffened. Then she turned round slowly, looking at him with question.
She had nothing to say? And there was no that expression in her eyes, that he had just watched in the school yard.
He lost his temper.
"I'm talking to you, Granger," he hissed, looking into her frozen eyes, "Etiquette doesn't oblige you to answer me?"
"You've ordered to me, Malfoy," she said in the same tone.
He clenched his teeth and stood up. Against her will she took a step back, setting against the door frame of the arch with her back. She wasn't afraid, no. Malfoy made her nervous. She just wanted to get away from him.
Not to prop up the wall with her shovels. Such unfavorable position.
This thought flashed through her mind, but it was too late to take any steps. He looked at her from his seat, raising his eyebrows sarcastically.
Damn. Bloody hell. She didn't want to see this glare. She didn't want any glares after what had happened in this living room. There wasn't a trace left from her carefree mood, and if Kurt Miller still keeps her mind, Malfoy immediately replaces him with his unwanted presence at this moment. Her warm brown gaze turned to icy.
Icy eyes.
She felt about her wand in her pocket. Malfoy noticed this.
"Seriously, Granger?" he watched the way she was getting her wand and Hermione's hand directed it straight at Malfoy.
She felt herself more safety this way.
"Just stay where you are staying. And I won't remember that a few days ago I didn't go to MacGonagall to inform her about..."
"About my behavior," he finished maliciously, making a face, "I know. Don't thank me, it's not necessary," there was a brief silence, "By the way, what about the old woman..."
He took a rather sudden and sharp step to her, what caused Hermione to raise her wand higher and to stare at Malfoy tensely. He stiffened for a moment, and then a slow grin appeared on his lips.
"Did you learn the list of allowed spells?"
"I know much more spells than you can imagine," she said.
Her cheeks were blushing again.
"So what? Will you light on me with Lumos to death?"
He mocked at her, making slow steps toward her.
"Or you will break school rules and kill me right here?"
He mocked openly, knowing that those spells that could cause harm weren't in this list. Hermione squeezed her wand.
This was the gesture indicating her helplessness to him. Fear. Let it be. She manages her wand better than he does.
As if he was hearing her thoughts screaming in her mind, Malfoy stopped.
And suddenly. He laughed almost sincerely.
Bloody hell!
For a second Hermione completely lost in their living room, half-stunned, holding her wand, as if it was the only guiding line in this room, filled with incomprehensible things. With ringing and dangerously explosive.
He has so...pretty smile?! What?..
With snow-white even teeth, regular shape and size. Shadow from wrinkles in the corners of his gray eyes. And a dimple on his left cheek.
Damn dimple on the damn Malfoy's cheek.
He really laughed, but there was so much falsehood in him that her breath suppressed. Like a grin. Hermione blinked. She forced herself to frown. She had found some ridiculous, unsure phrases in her head, immediately bursting from her tongue:
"You have a problem with your head, Malfoy. Just keep this in your mind. And... don't you dare!"
This time, Malfoy didn't stop.
And her laughter had disappeared. Then he appeared near her. She immediately straightened her shoulders, throwing her wand at the level of his collarbone.
"I won't touch you, silly bitch."
His voice was such that she wanted to become clenched. And she almost clenched, probably against her will. Because he looked at her like she was coward.
"If you dare touch me..."
Malfoy's face instantly became stony.
"Not for anything. Touching you means to dirty my washed hands once again. I won't make one more mistake, okay?"
The poison in his voice returned a ghostly feeling that nothing had changed. Everything was the same. And she felt herself... calmer. How much calmer could become when he was two steps away from her.
Hatred in the air and her wand trembling in her white fingers divided them.
"What do you want then?"
So quietly? Inside herself she shouted it to his face.
"From you? So I want you to die faster," Draco grinned, taking another tiny step to her and stopping, folding his hands over his chest.
"Hardly."
He looked at her wand involuntarily, twisting his lips. And then he said suddenly:
"The Head of your disgusting House asked me to tell you that tomorrow we'll patrol the school in the evenings," Malfoy said it in a tone that sounded like they'd have to bathe in a tub with worms every day until the end of the year.
Hermione was looking at him for a time in complete amazement.
"This message was worth this circus, that you've made?"
"Circus?" Draco grimaced at the Muggle word.
"Show. Delirium. Ostentation," she pointed them both with her free hand, maliciously compressing her lips.
"Oh, yes, it was worth it. I understood one thing, Granger," he was really full of this disgusting self-confidence, "you're afraid of me."
Hermione was still staring at Malfoy's face, hoping that there was a doubt and mockery in her gaze, and not really fear and panic, that almost covered her with its head as he approached her.
One more thing.
She needed to be distracted even for a second. Because Malfoy brought her into real hypnosis. Everything in him.
Pale skin. High cheekbones. His jaws converging to the chin. Aristocratic thin nose and full lips. Eyebrows, darker than hair. Living platinum, partially covering his forehead.
He really grew up. And these were not the changes that would please her. She didn't want to pay so much attention to this man, and if he had not kept her in this corner for so long that her hand with the wand started to ache, she would not have been here long ago.
Hermione cursed to herself, taking her eyes for a second. Damn, why she is looking at him?
"Can you hear me, you fool Granger?"
"I hear you perfectly. I think about what kind of idiot you are in your ridiculous assumptions."
She turned her face away from Malfoy, quickly licking her parched lips.
"Idiot?"
"I'm sure that this word is familiar to you, although I can say a lot of epithets. And now, don't think I'm rude. But I should..."
She wanted to say that she should go.
Rush to her room. Feel her heart beating. Lock herself from him and curse herself that she stopped at his request then.
But Hermione paused on the half-phrase, feeling a sudden push in her palm - her wand collided with his chest.
Draco took a step forward.
"What are you..." Hermione sighed, dashing back. Pressing with her back into the stone wall, raising her hand higher. Scratching his chest with a shaft through his fabric. The fabric of Malfoy's shirt also rose itself a little, following the tip of her wand, that now rested again the recess under his collarbone. Why this didn't stop him?
Why had it to stop him?
"Malfoy..."
There wasn't warning in her voice. There was growing panic and tension.
"You're not afraid, are you?" he hissed, bending over her.
Higher. Stronger.
But she has her wand. And he is unarmed.
This didn't give him strength - he was so close that she can see his every eyelash with a slightly curved tip. Hermione's hand, holding her wand, was bent at the elbow, allowing him to come to her closer. He smells of a cool, rainy morning.
"Go away," the girl said, not taking her eyes off his pale face. She said it sufficiently firm and confident. Feeling, that his smell begins to penetrate in her nose - more, stronger. From what her body becomes covered with icy shivers.
His pupils enlarged - the darkness almost entirely absorbed the icy gray color of the iris. His look was darting over her face. Again. He was looking at her again, not through her. And from this she felt the incomprehensible heat, completely devoid of thoughts, while Malfoy was looking for something in her burning face.
Gosh. What is it.
"You're afraid of me, Granger," he whispered.
This whisper stuck into her like an awl.
"No."
"Yes."
"I'm not..."
"So why are you trembling?" there was something in his voice.
His voice was with harsh, from what - Merlin, help, - Hermione gasped. She never heard such a voice from him.
His eyes slid to her lips quite suddenly. And it stopped at it. It froze, as if unconsciously. Hermione thought that his look was about to penetrate inside. Inside her mouth.
The tip of her tongue was stabbed, and she barely restrained herself not to lick her lips.
It was a provocation.
Because it seems that all this is not with her. She didn't want this. And she heard how clear and helpless her head stops thinking, refusing to understand what is happening now between them. What kind of abnormality is happening in this dark corner of the living room?
Thoughts only twiddled around the closed circle: Draco Malfoy. As if in an attempt to return the mistress to consciousness. But that didn't happen.
Because.
Her eyes almost slid to his mouth against her will. Forbidden thought was in her head: how is it - to kiss Draco Malfoy? And she suddenly became panic-stricken. For real. As never before in her life.
Perhaps that's why her wand fell out of Hermione's fingers and...
The thunder of such violent force rumbled outside the window, so that the glass shook in its frames. Crushing this instant cacophony of sounds on their heads. Forcing them both to realize - their faces were few centimeters from each other.
A deep breath burst into Granger's lungs, when Draco lifted his head sharply. He recoiled from her, twisting his lips in disgust, looking at her with inexpressible disdain and coldness.
Hermione was feverishly ignoring the remaining light taste of his heat on the tip of her tongue, that she hadn't touched. For Merlin's sake! Lord, what was that...
They were as close as if ...
She breathed out sharply. She squatted down and began to look for her wand brokenly - it was almost ridiculous.
"Merlin, Malfoy!" she muttered, "If you'll ever approach me, I'll kill you!" her voice was shivering as Granger turned her face away. She wanted to say something else, but Malfoy interrupted her:
"Don't think that I wanted to do this," he hissed, taking a few steps back for credibility, "That was nothing, okay?" I'm right. I'm always right.
He passed his hand over his face, as if trying to shake off her look from himself and to hide his nervousness. And it helped to ignore the tight hot knot in his stomach.
He... he has the cock-stand, damn it.
Granger finally found her wand and jumped up, backing away. Not stopping to look at Malfoy with warning glance.
"Stop staring at me, Mudblood. That's disgusting. That's because of your smell."
"Go to hell," she murmured, slipping into the archway and disappearing into the darkness of the staircase.
He heard her stumbling steps. He heard when the door slam shut. There was his heart beating and thunder in his ears. For several seconds he was standing and gasping. Looking out the window with the floating swirls of water on it.
He didn't understand what had just happened. He passed his hand over his face again. Closed his eyes.
Take it away. Take it out of his head.
What the fuck?
What...
He almost kissed her.
He almost kissed Granger.
He wanted to teach her a lesson. To show that he's right. But her lips and reaction to... Stop it, now.
Thoughts in his head flew, and each one, reaching the brain wall, burst, leaving behind it a sticky haze. And bewilderment.
Malfoy jumped to the chair in two steps and with growl knocked it over, tossing it sideways. Crash. Something was broken. The walls of common sense were collapsing with the same crush in his head a minute ago, that his father had built for him for fucking seventeen years.
Father...
Damn.
Without looking back, Draco rushed to his bedroom. He slammed the door and almost ran to the mirror that was hanging by the bed. He stared at his reflection, as if he expected to see someone else. But there he was.
And it made him even worse. Even more incomprehensible. Even more disgusting.
What the fuck is happening to me?..
Malfoy buried his hands in his hair and closed his eyes.
This is turbidity. This is Pansy and her damn mouth. He was just excited, and fucking Gryffindor whore was near at that time. Merlin. Merlin...
There was the thunder again, and heavy drops were hammered out of the window with double force. The echo of another's voice froze in his ears. On the edge of consciousness. The voice that darkened in his eyes.
"Forgive me..." his hands clenched into fists. His closed eyes burned with fire, as if all the sand of the world got into it, "Forgive me, father."