Hermione came to a surprised halt as she entered the Room of Requirement. She had surmised that Draco was already there, as the door had immediately appeared when she arrived. She expected that it was because the Room had already changed to fit their requirements for the evening and that Draco was waiting impatiently inside. What she hadn't expected was to come in and find Draco sprawled casually on a bed with half a dozen books around him.
Draco looked up, and for a moment, Hermione noticed the pleasant surprise that flickered across his face.
"You came." He propped himself up, totally at ease in his surroundings. Hermione stayed near the door, uncertain where to go.
"Why do you always seem so surprised when I do?" There had not been a time when she hadn't come for him.
Draco watched her cautiously from his place on the bed. "I don't know. I suppose I keep expecting you to come to your senses and cut me lose." As I've done. The unspoken words settled between them. Trying to break the tension, Hermione gestured to the bed.
"You've made yourself comfortable," she observed drily. The bed hardly seemed appropriate for their activities this evening, which made her wonder exactly what Draco had "required" of it for tonight.
Draco smirked at her knowingly before rising from the bed. "Mind in the gutter Granger? Some of us do need sleep. I haven't been getting as much as I should these days." Hermione glanced at him in concern, yearning for him to tell her why he wasn't sleeping, what exactly he was doing to leave those dark circles under his eyes. But his face cleared as he neared her. He prowled around her and ran a hand down her arm, taking her bag from her, while pulling her close. Her heart started to beat a little more quickly.
"All you have to do is ask Granger. I won't pretend I haven't thought about it," He leaned in, his lips ghosting over hers, offering the barest of kisses. And then it was one more, one more hard kiss, lips fiercely claiming hers before he pulled back.
"But I wasn't thinking about it then Hermione. I know what we need to do tonight." His eyes clouded as he pulled away from her, turned away from her. "About last time…" Hermione stopped him with a hand on a shoulder.
"If we hadn't moved past that, I wouldn't be here now." They shared a long look before Hermione broke the silence. "You seemed to think you had something to show me. So how about we work on that then?"
Draco nodded and delved into his idea.
"I was going about this in the wrong way," Draco explained as he paced in front of her. "I thought the best way to teach Occlumency would be from the books. The exact opposite way from how I was taught." He gave her a strange, stressed smile. "But I actually did learn how to Occlude. And some of that was self-taught. Though not in the most conventional of ways."
"What do you mean?" Hermione was relieved that he had found a way to learn Occlumency in spite of the torture he'd been under. And she was curious about his methods, since she was struggling with this herself.
He turned to her, his eyes intent. "It wasn't intentional at first. Aunt Bella would meander through my mind, and she would particularly be drawn to images of my mother. I suppose through her own connection to her." Draco grimaced, still unable to believe that his fierce, yet loving, mother was related to such a woman.
"I hated having her see those moments with my mother. So I took to willing those memories away. I envisioned tucking them aside whenever she entered my mind. She could still see other things, I couldn't keep her out. I couldn't control all the other paths she took, or the other things she found. And occassionally she still managed to bring up some images of my mother, particularly ones where she was present."
"So you willed yourself to forget? I don't see how that works. If you were even thinking of the memories, wouldn't your mind be taking that path?" For someone as logical as Hermione, this train of thought was convoluted and she couldn't see how this method would work.
"It's not forgetting exactly. You need to remember these are the tricks I learned to survive, not exactly based on skill." He paused, searching for the right words. "You have to readjust your brain. At all times. As soon as the those thoughts you don't want them to see enter your head, you need to make a concentrated effort at removing them. Redirection. Teach your brain to take a different path."
Hermione paused. This was not what the books suggested. But there was something in what Draco was saying. "So it's like misdirection? Instead of banishing them from my mind, I take the intruder away from the memories I want hidden."
Draco grinned. "Exactly. Very Slytherin, I know."
Hermione rolled her eyes at his teasing. "Oh I'm sure this Gryffindor can figure it out."
"I know you can." He paused again, this time, taking her by the shoulders. "But Hermione, this can't be a one off. You need to do this at all times. Whenever your mind drifts to something secret, you immediately need to change your thoughts. I've found that the more often I did that, the more memories I was able to shield."
"Constant vigilance," Hermione muttered in understanding. "And you figured this out on your own? Why didn't you mention it last week?"
Draco shrugged, a tinge of colour gracing his cheeks. "It wasn't the right way. And honestly, it took me a few days to figure out exactly how I had managed it. I was desperate, if you recall. The whole thing was quite a mess. And at first I wasn't going to suggest something to you that I really had no clue about."
"It's why you focused on the books," Hermione added in understanding. He had been so intent on doing it the right way.
"It's more important that you protect yourself, one way or the other. Speaking of," Draco turned back to the books on the bed. He pushed them aside and sat on the bed, gesturing for Hermione to join him.
She settled comfortably beside him on the bed and watched in fascination as Draco placed two of the books infront of her. Never had she seen anyone else turn to books for information in the way she had. And this wasn't the first time. She recalled his collection of books from the previous lesson and felt her heart swell with this feeling of connection. This unforeseen similarity between them that made him all the more appealing to her.
Gesturing for her to move closer, Draco began to explain his findings.
"I suppose you've heard of a pensieve? I'm sure we read about it in Ancient Runes." Draco pointed to the image on the first book. Hermione leanded closer and nodded. Not only did they learn about them in Ancient Runes, but she was aware that there was a pensieve housed in Hogwarts for the use of the Headmasters. They were rare and complex magical objects.
"Well, this, this book explains how the dangers of a pensieve." Draco spun the other book towards her. Hermione could sense a level of dark magic in it immediately.
"The Restriced section?" she asked. Not that she was worried. She had been delving into that section for years. Draco smirked slightly, not acknowledging the question. Instead he flipped the page and her eyes were drawn to the incantation in the middle.
"Memorai dimidiate?" She traced her fingers over the words.
"It's to resist memory intrusion. In a way." Draco sighed and leaned back, running a tired hand through his hair. "Pensieves can be very dangerous. Drawing one's memories and having them looked at so thoroughly by another, it was a risk many wizards weren't willing to take when it was first invented. So in retaliation, this spell was invented. It's to dull one's own memories, so that if they are pulled out or invaded upon, they will not be clear. They will be dimmer, unfocused."
Hermione frowned. She pulled the book towards her. How had she never heard of this spell? There were no references to it in any of the books on Occlumency.
"This could help us…" Hermione let her eyes wander the page, looking for signs of danger. And yet she didn't see any. "Why wait until now to show me this? We could have used it first, instead of learning Occlumency. This may be a better option."
Draco shook his head. "Not quite. There aren't many recorded uses of this spell. The few that are say it was effective. It had the expected result. But it is used so infrequently. I don't have enough information about it to feel secure in it."
Hermione looked at the pages again. "It doesn't even look like a dark spell," she murmured thoughtfully. She had seen her share of dark magic over the years.
"Not all spells that are dark were made to be dark. Sometimes it happens along the way." Hermione looked up at that, hearing such a ring of truth in his words that it struck her core.
"No, I suppose not." Sometimes the unintended happened. She sighed, and the breathy sound drew his eyes to her mouth. A familiar tension began to build in the room. Her eyes fluttered to the closeness of their hands on the page, and she willed herself not to touch. And not to pull away.
"Counter curse?" She asked softly. For if one could dim their memory, how would they undo that? How would they not forget?
"A simple Finite. But it has to come from the caster." Draco turned his darkened gaze upon her. "The trick is, that the caster has to know what the memory is that they wish to clear. The memory that was dimmed in the first place."
And if they couldn't? Those memories would be gone forever. Desperation clawed at her and Hermione shook her head. "No, it's a risk. I don't—" her voice caught. "I don't want to forget. What if we can't get it back?" Suddenly the thought of losing her memories of him was too much to bear, even with the risk.
"It's why I wanted to focus on the Occlumency first. This, this spell would be a last resort." He grabbed her hand, pulling her to him, placing a kiss on her palm. "I would never forget this." Her heart warmed, and she shook her head. No, she could never forget. He was branded in her soul now. Keeping her hand with his, Hermione stood, pulling him to his feet.
"Show me." Hermione quietly commanded. Draco moved behind her, placing his hand atop hers as it held her wand.
"The movement, it's soft. Just like the spell itself. It's to soften the memory, to dull it." Hermione was acutely aware of his hand on hers. The solid length of him just a hairs breadth away from her back. She needed to focus, but she was so aware of the pure physicality of their positions. If she wasn't so concerned about learning as much as she could in this moment, she'd lean back into him instead and relish his touch. And it was that pull of desire that made her heart ache and doubt.
"I'll never forget." She murmured the words as if they were a vow.
"We'll never forget." Draco leaned in closer, brushing his mouth against her throat. Firming his grip on her wand, he moved with her, showing her the movement for the incantation. Once they'd performed the action a few times, he loosened his grip, trailing his fingers up her forearm before slipping his arm possessively around her waist.
"Memoraie dimidiate." Hermione let her wand arm fall as he whispered the words in her ear. He pressed a kiss against her temple, saying the words again. They became a chant between kisses as he trailed his lips down her jaw, along her neck, to her shoulder. Hermione's skin buzzed from the attention. It was enough. Hermione leaned into him, felt the hard press of his body against hers, her head tilted as if in invitation. It wasn't one that Draco would decline. Desire fizzed in her blood. She wanted. His kisses, they weren't enough. She needed more. Lips on lips. Skin on skin.
Holding his hands fast to her, she turned in his embrace. He looked at her through heavy eyes, the desire unmistakable. She tugged at him, demanded his lips for her own. She feasted and let all thoughts of tomorrow fall away. She kissed, he kissed. She touched, he touched. It was so good to simply feel. Reality had caught up to them, and had kept them from this for too long. Time was short. Why couldn't she allow herself this? To indulge in the physical, to let him make her forget everything else in the world.
In her desperation to make the world go away, she tugged at his robes, wanting contact, wanting him. Draco's hands covered her own, attempting to still her.
"Hermione..." He breathed heavily and she pressed a kiss to the tip of his chest where his robes had parted. He wanted to tell her to slow down. That there was time. That they had time. But he knew they didn't. And he couldn't possibly think clearly when each kiss wasn't enough. Hermione pulled her hands free of his, insistently tugging at his robes, her lips following the newly exposed trail.
"More." Hermione implored as she trailed back up to his mouth, placing his hands on her hips, and looking up at him with her heart in her eyes.
Draco let his eyes fall closed, and for a moment, Hermione worried that he'd deny her. When he opened them again, stormy grey orbs raked over her for a moment before his lips crashed onto hers. He pulled her against him, somewhat desperately, in agreement.
"More."