Hermione wakes up disoriented, a jarring feeling as though she may be stuck in between reality and a dream. Right before her eyes open there is a moment where she feels desperate to chase the dregs of sleep - like her subconscious isn't yet ready to let go of a dream she can't remember having.
The nights events come back to her slowly and she can't fathom why she isn't in excruciating pain.
In fact she feels rather comfortable curled up on a low backed leather sofa and covered with a plush green blanket. A soft glow emanates from a low burning fire and she finds the whole effect adds greatly to her comfort.
Then the crackle of the dry logs nearly makes her jump and certainly makes her tense in alarm, reminding her instantly of gun shots.
She flexes her leg curiously, the muscle that had been exposed tensing and relaxing with surprising ease beneath the skin of her thigh. Someone had healed her wound, and rather expertly at that.
She eases herself up and pushes the blanket down in an attempt to see if there was any scarring - not that she cared much anymore. Her body was littered with scars and she had come to wear them with a sense of pride . . . well, most of them.
The blanket moves by her hip and Hermione watches with bated breath as five slender fingers reach up to pull back the corner she had unknowing tossed over a head of platinum hair.
Draco Malfoy had been asleep on the floor, back against the couch and facing the fire with his head resting against her hip.
Suddenly, Hermione can't move.
She watches as he is roused from his sleep and reaches for what she assumes to be his forgotten tumbler of whiskey abandoned on the floor beside him.
She blinks rapidly before she sits up abruptly and Malfoy, without even turning to look at her holds his glass up towards the fire and tilts it in greeting.
"She has arisen."
"Where am I?"
"Welcome to the humble Slytherin Common Room." He gestures around with a lazy hand while she moves to put her feet on the floor - feeling uncomfortable at the prospect of him using her thigh as a pillow.
"Why am I in the Slytherin Common Room?" She asks, irritated.
"You passed out after the challenge and I brought you back here to treat your wound." He adjusts one leg and turns to face her. "Impressive work, Granger."
He is smirking at her which only succeeds in infuriating her more.
He must understand how confused and disoriented she is and she shouldn't be surprised that he is taking great pleasure in that fact.
"Why would Harry or Ron let you take me here? Why am I not in the hospital wing?"
"Madame Pomfrey would ask too many questions and I'm quite well trained as a Healer." He stands and walks to an ornate bar cart to pour a second glass of liquor and holds it out to her. "It was either send you off with me or let you bleed out in the forbidden forest. I think they chose wisely."
He sits back down on the floor, like Hermione's presence isn't unusual. So casual and unbothered that it infuriates her further.
She accepts the glass with a scowl, unwilling to thank him in any way and continues her inspection of the area where she had been maimed, only to find no trace of any injury, her skin perfect and unblemished.
"Impressive healing charms." She comments, forgetting who exactly she is complimenting.
"Not as impressive as you last night."
She sighs and raises the crystal glass to her lips, sipping the liquor experimentally.
It burns.
She can't seem to muster up the strength to care about much of anything, so she slides off the couch to sit beside Malfoy on the floor.
"I came in last." She reminds him. It isn't impressive to come in last, even if she did survive a gunshot wound. She can feel his eyes on the side of her face but she won't let herself look at him, she was admitting her own weakness to Draco Malfoy and she didn't want to risk allowing him to find anything more to exploit in the depth of her eyes.
"Actually, Daphne Greengrass did. Didn't manage to steal anything either before the muggle weapon scared her off. She's out." Draco tilted his glass into hers and continued, "Stealing the cat, Granger? Absolutely brilliant move, if anything the judges will give you points for sheer genius."
It feels like a transaction: she admits fault and he gives her a compliment.
"She was the only thing I could grab without risking further injury."
"Intent or not, you impressed everyone."
"Did I impress you?" She doesn't know why she even asks.
"You've been impressing me since day one." He shifts so his entire body is facing her, she only gives him the satisfaction of looking at him out of the corner of her eye, still facing the fire. "Is that what you want to hear? That the night I saw you jump at the Drop you're all I think about?"
His voice is a throaty whisper in her ear.
"Do you want to hear that when I pulled you from the beam on the staircase I wanted to bend you over the railing?"
His words make sense individually, but hearing him string these particular ones together leave her feeling like she has been punched in the stomach, unable to catch her breath. It starts become shallow and she wants to tell him to stop talking, that it's wildly inappropriate but her breath is needed for more important things.
"Do you want to hear that I think about your body all the time? That I think of exploring it with my fingers and my tongue? I think about how you might taste - how you would lose your perfect little Gryffindor composure?"
He lets the tip of his nose brush against her cheek and she inhales sharply enough to make him chuckle. He turns back to the fire, the light from which illuminates a pleased smile as he chuckles to himself and swirls whiskey around in his glass.
"You make it so easy, Granger."
She feels the embarrassment like a second blow to the stomach.
Her throat closes around a pathetic whine. No one had ever spoken like that to her, no one had ever made her thighs clench together with simple words - Hermione Granger was not the kind of girl men spoke to in that way.
She feels foolish for believing him, if only for a second.
This was a game and he was winning.
"You are vile." She announces, getting to her feet and looking around for the exit.
"Yes." He agrees, like she shouldn't be surprised. "You were shot in the leg, Granger. Not the head."
It is early enough that no other students are in the common room to judge her when she storms out, flushed and muttering to herself.
.
"Hermione!" Ginny's voice booms over the other students and their idle chit chat in the corridor, it's unusual for Ginny to be up this early but she's standing around outside of the portrait of the fat lady looking intense and concerned.
"Are you alright? Everyone just let Malfoy carry you off like some medically educated neanderthal and no one even batted an eyelash! Malfoy wouldn't even let us come with with - for all we knew he could have killed you!"
"Still alive and well." Hermione gestures to her thigh where there isn't even a trace of her injury and Ginny gasps crouching low to get a better look.
"Impressive." She whistles. "Who knew Malfoy would actually be good for something."
Hermione doesn't even bother to respond because she knows that if she starts, she won't be able to stop and whatever had just happened between her and Malfoy, it was not something she was interested in verbalizing. It would make it more real - the unwanted feelings his words had stirred up in her and the demoralizing humiliation she felt upon realizing he had just been trying to get under her skin.
She wasn't going to allow him to burrow any further.
"That bad?"
"Worse."
Ron and Harry are waiting in the Common Room and jump up in concern when Hermione crouches through the portrait hole. They fuss over her for a few moments, taking stock of her person and her injury and making sure that Malfoy hadn't done anything untoward.
After they were satisfied that she was unharmed they launch into the tale of her dropping Mrs. Norris at their feet and effectively stealing the show.
What she had missed during her brief unconscious stint in the Slytherin Common Room was the announcement of the Player's Ball - where everyone dressed in their finest outfits and congregated in the Room of Requirement for a party. The overall purpose of the party was to celebrate the remaining players involvement in the game and to give them a break from the challenges. It was also a chance for the entire seventh year class to get filled in on what they might have missed.
Hermione knew it was just an excuse for the graduating class to drink too much fire whiskey and make bad decisions - ones even worse than deciding to play Panic.
She wasn't going.
"Yes. You are." Ginny said after escorting Hermione to their shared room, her tone suggesting that any attempts to argue would go unacknowledged.
"I'll have you know, Ginevra Weasley, that I was shot no more than twenty-four hours ago. If there were any time for you to show some empathy, it would be now."
"I'm very empathetic."
Hermione bites her tongue so hard she is surprised her mouth isn't full of blood.
"You have to go, and you have to look out of this world." Ginny was shifting through her wardrobe, deciding on her own outfit for the evening. "I'm talking, Yule Ball amazing!"
"I have studying to do, exams are in a few weeks and I can't afford to fail."
"Hermione, you couldn't fail even if you were trying to - besides, I think you deserve to have a little fun. You're legendary, Panic royalty. Mythic!" Ginny smiles at her and Hermione sees that it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Everyone is going to be there and so will you."
"Ginny . . ." Hermione trails off, not knowing how to broach the topic. "Are we alright? You know, after everything and the points and - well, I just want you to know that I'm not trying to be legendary."
"No, you're trying to win."
"Well, yes."
"Thats the game, 'Mione." Ginny turns back around to her closet and Hermione wishes she hadn't so that she could see her friends face. She wants to be able to read whatever expression Ginny is trying to hide from her. Hermione can't help but feel like she had stolen the spotlight that Ginny had been wanting for herself - Ginny had been talking about her intent to enter the game for years. "We're all trying to win."
"Yes, but -"
"I can't very well fault you for being, well - you, can I?" She turns on her heel, a small smile on her face. "I've gotten over the initial shock of it all. You're clever, brave and as far as I can tell, absolutely fearless. If anyone deserves all of the celebrity and fanfare, it's you."
"I don't want fanfare or celebrity." Hermione shakes her head. "I just need the money."
Ginny's face falls for only a moment, so quick Hermione might have missed it if she were to blink.
"Looks like you're to get it all."
.
The party was pretty incredible.
Which ever seventh year had asked The Room of Requirement for their needs had been very specific.
There were numerous rooms; a small pool in one, a room with plush couches occupied by seventh years smoking a substances that produced bright purple smoke that filled the room, another with a large dance floor that people were not quite making use of yet. There was one incredible room that looked like it was made completely of glass, each of the four walls looking out on to a different landscape around Hogwarts. The Forbidden Forest, the Black Lake, under the Whomping Willow and a deserted street in Hogsmeade.
Ginny, who had her arm looped through Hermione's looked around in awe.
A few students had obviously already overindulged as there were several couples engaging in activities best saved for the privacy of a bedroom, and she had spotted one getting sick in a waste basket.
"This really is Fred and George's legacy." Ginny comments soberly. There is always a similar sadness that blankets the faces of the Weasley's when they talk about Fred.
"It really is quite something."
"I think we all deserve the fun."
"I think the fun shouldn't have to punctuate insane death defying stunts."
"We all made our choice." Ginny says, smiling as she spots Ron and Harry heading towards them with drinks. "This is one of the benefits. Now, I demand that you enjoy yourself."
"Yeah, you of all people deserve to let loose, 'Mione." Says Ron, catching the tale end of their conversation. "You got hit with a muggle hex."
"Not exactly." Hermione mutters.
"More like, a muggle Killing Curse." Amends Harry. "You definitely deserve to have some fun."
Hermione purses her lips in thought and hesitantly takes the cup offered to her by Ron. Maybe she did deserve to let loose, she hadn't ever really acted like an eighteen year old girl in a very long time - in fact she couldn't remember ever really acting her age. There was always a seriousness to her that most other teenagers lacked. Even Harry at times, who was the most serious person she'd met, had on occasion acted with a certain level of impropriety.
She was competing in a game designed to terrify her, she had helped Harry win a war, all while still remaining the top grades at Hogwarts.
She downed her cup swiftly.
.
She'd had too much to drink.
Sweat coasted her collar bone as Ginny laughed in her face and twirled her around on the dance floor. Ginny was saying something to her but Hermione couldn't recognize the words, or maybe she just couldn't hear them.
Bodies pressed up against her on her either side as everyone jumped and swayed to the music, drinks sloshed over the sides of cups resulting her in her sandals and feet being covered in sticky liquor. Her dress had hiked up over her thighs and she was surprised her hair hadn't suffocated someone yet.
Ron was dancing provocatively with a Ravenclaw a year below them and Harry was watching Ginny and Hermione closely from the lounge chairs in the corner.
"I'm hot!" Hermione yells into Ginny's ear.
She must agree because suddenly Ginny is dragging her away from the grinding bodies and thumping music, pulling her past people who smile wide at them both, through a few other rooms and finally to the room with the swimming pool that is being grossly unused.
The pool is empty and there are only a few groups of students lounging on plastic recliners and talking quietly amongst themselves.
Of these groups are four familiar Slytherins.
Hermione notes through her drunken haze that they look like they should be posing for a magazine.
Glamorously uncaring with an air of superiority.
Pansy is beautiful in a deep red gown with a slit up the side that exposes a long tanned leg as she reclines with her head on Theodore Nott's chest. His tie is pulled loose and askew over her shoulder. Blaise Zabini has unbuttoned his heather grey blazer and undone the few few buttons of his dress shirt as he pulls long and hard from a cigarette, exhaling smoke in perfect rings.
Draco Malfoy looks pristinely undone.
His dress shirt is completely unbuttoned, hanging off of his shoulders and exposing his toned pale chest. She can see a hint of his nipple peeking at her from behind the fabric and then disappearing when he lifts his crystal tumbler to his mouth.
Where they found such glasses at a party like this is beyond her.
When she looks up from his chest he is staring at her with glittering eyes, smirking like the rest of his companions because he's caught her in the act of ogling him.
Hermione looks away quickly back to Ginny who is shedding her shoes and dress and running in her undergarments towards the pool. She leaps off the edge and pulls her knees into her chest creating an impressive splash. When she resurfaces she is looking at Hermione expectantly.
"Well?" She wipes a few strands of hair from her eyes. "Strip, 'Mione. I don't want my dress getting wet."
Hermione obliges without complaint, something she wouldn't do if she were sober. She unzips her dress slowly, keenly aware of eyes on her and though they might be Ginny's she is pretty certain they aren't.
When the dress pools at her feet, she carefully picks it up and places it over the back of one of the chairs and dives into the water as gracefully as she can manage.
The cool water feels like silk on her overheated skin and she allows herself to glide under the water for a moment, running her hands through her sweat soaked curls. Ginny splashes her in the face with a boisterous laugh when her head breaks the surface and Hermione coughs out a laugh of her own.
"Draco Malfoy is staring at you." She says lowly. "He's been doing a lot of that lately."
"He's probably just mentally cataloguing anything embarrassing I do so he can use it as ammunition when he needs to."
"You don't stare at someone like that when your goal is to embarrass them."
Hermione fights the overwhelming urge to see what Ginny is talking about and is grateful when Ginny starts another conversation, both for the distraction and for not having to answer any questions about Malfoy's newfound interest in her.
"Normally, I'd just pee in the pool but these twats probably put something in the pool that will make is obvious and I won't never live it down so, excuse me while I find something else to piss in."
Hermione lets a chorus of giggles burst free from her mouth and waves off her friend, shaking her head as Ginny leaves soaking wet in her underwear. When the sound of the door closing behind her echoes in the room she suddenly feels very alone, and very watched.
Vulnerable, like prey.
She inhales a deep breath into her lungs and sinks to the bottom of the pool where the blissful quiet envelops her like a warm blanket. It feels like it's been a lifetime since she had really heard quiet, with constant voices in her head telling her to study harder, do better, prove herself - she almost wants to cry with the relief of it all.
There's a certain beauty to imagining her tears leaking from her eyes only to be swept up in anonymity of the water around her, like they were never her tears to cry.
Or maybe she is just drunk.
She opens her eyes, feeling slightly ridiculous and sees a trouser clad pair of legs standing over her and the familiar sharp hipbones they are attached to. She floats to the top of the water, kicking off slightly from the bottom of the pool and is still surprised to see Malfoy staring down at her even though she had known it was him.
He'd must have submerged himself in the water at some point because his hair is damp and slicked back, reminding her instantly of the style he had been so fond of in their first few years at Hogwarts.
"Nice outfit." He's smirking at her from a few feet away, eyes trailing down to the water level that just covers her bust.
Hermione's eyes dart around nervously, surprised to find that there isn't anyone left on the chairs - in fact the room is empty. She backs away from him and her feet lose purchase as the bottom descends into the deeper section forcing her to focus on staying afloat.
"You know what I love about parties like this?" He asks, taking a purposeful step forward.
"Witches strip down to underwear making it easier for you to shameless ogle them?" She answers quickly, the alcohol making her bold.
He smiles as though he isn't prepared for her answer and she can't help but return it, just a little.
Surprising Draco Malfoy makes her feel like she's answered a question right in Charms.
As she treads water she is slowly moving away from him, towards the edge of the pool but he moves through the water with ease, chasing her and inching closer faster than she can move away and when her back hits the edge of the pool he cages her in with his arms.
She lowers her body slightly into the water obscuring her chin and lips as he stares down at her. He has a look in his eye that suggests he is already picturing her clothes off and abandoned uselessly on his bedroom floor.
"Can I ask you something?" She asks after lifting herself an inch out of the water. She doesn't wait for him to agree before speaking again. "Do you have any feelings? Any at all that don't involve your genitals?"
He seems to take a moment to really consider her question, making a show of finding it hard to come up with something and if she wasn't so focused on maintaining defiant eye contact she would have rolled hers.
"Feelings of superiority." He chuckles.
"Yes, that's quite well known." She doesn't resist rolling her eyes now. "And with that, I believe I'm in need of another drink."
She feels his hand envelope her waist and squeeze slightly to keep her in place. The look in his eyes suggests that he does not approve.
"I think it's pretty obvious that you've had enough."
"I don't recall asking for your permission."
"When the match is over you get off your broom, Granger."
She hates Quidditch and flying, but she knows that she has overindulged and instead of fighting him on it she leans back against the edge of the pool and lets her head fall back on the tile, resigned.
"My father used to drink too much." He moves from her direct line of sight to rest against the side on her left and she turns her head to look at him. It's strange that he would be offering any personal information to her and she finds herself intensely interested. "Drink an entire bottle of Firewhiskey right down to the bottom during the war. It addled his brain, he forgot who he was, forgot who my mother was, and forgot who I was."
Hermione was scared to move for fear of scaring him off, she didn't know if he even knew who was talking to, if he was meaning to share this with her.
"We could hear him coming, fuck we could smell him coming. The reek of sweat and piss followed him wherever he went." He paused for a moment, inhaling like he might recall the stench if he tried hard enough. "The Dark Lord lived in my house for a year, and yet my mother and I - we knew who the real monster was."
The echo of their breathing was like lightening and his gaze snapped suddenly to her, intense with emotion and no sign of his usual mirth or callous amusement.
"Sometimes I feel like cursing anyone who looks at me the wrong way, sometimes I feel like I'm drowning in wrong choices and I'll never be able to make the right one." His eyes are burning her from the inside, setting fire to something within her that called to him. "Mostly, I feel like absolutely nothing."
She feels an intense guilt for trying to bait him into an argument.
"Is that good enough for you?" He doesn't ask out of spite.
She can't do anything else beside shakily nod her head in the affirmative, absolutely dumbfounded by the sincerity and vulnerability she had not thought him capable of.
"Do you ever want something good to happen?" She asks, not quite understanding where the question had come from. "Something so good, that you want so badly and maybe you don't deserve that thing, or maybe it's impossible but you want it so much that you can convince yourself that it's real already?"
He regards her carefully for a moment with almost a hint of a smile.
"I've resigned myself to the fact that nothing good is going to happen to me anymore."
"How do you know?"
He doesn't say anything, maybe thinking the answer is obvious or not being willing to reveal it and Hermione is struck with the realization that she feels sad for him.
"We're a lot alike." He changes the subject and his trademark smirk is back in full effect as he maneuvers himself in front of her again, caging her in with his arms and leaning forward close enough that their breath intermingles and she can taste him.
"Is that so?" She lifts her brow in a challenge.
"Wasted potential."
"Charming."
"We were constantly competing for the top grades, bumping each other in and out of first in the class - and now look at us. War torn and tired at eighteen, jilted and sour. You hide behind your friends, bolstering them up while letting the weight of them crush your own accomplishments. Me? Well, I'm wasting away in a manor I can't stand to live in, a social pariah in the Wizarding world and condemned to rot. We're competing in a game designed to kill us or at least petrify us . . . and for what reason?"
His nose is brushing hers now.
"When people look at us, they see damaged goods."
Her chest is heaving.
"Useless things that they damaged."
His chest is pressed against hers, both heaving an unsteady rhythm.
"But you know what I see?"
A strange sound comes out of her mouth and he swallows it.
"I see your carefully crafted control slipping away from you."
He reaches his hand up to brush a wet strand of hair away from her mouth.
Her lips part.
"I see you watching it happen and loving it."
His tongue darts out to catch a droplet of water that has gathered on her bottom lip and like an animalistic reaction her legs lift up and latch around his slim waist.
"I watched you fly, Granger."
His fingertips ghost up the sides of her ribcage and she tightens her legs around him, desperately seeking friction. Her breath is uneven and he is basking in every minute of watching her lose control.
"I watched you take flight."