With Harry's cloak wrapped tightly around her, Hermione hurried along the corridors. She felt the adrenaline in her body making her heart beat faster and could not help but wonder at herself.
There she had been for months living in a tent in a cold forest, always on the run from Voldemort and his Death Eaters. She had survived torture by Bellatrix Lestrange, a nasty curse by Dolohov, various dangerous spells during the Battle of Hogwarts. She had seen and done things she would prefer to forget.
And yet she was tense and nervous about wandering around the castle alone after ten at night. She was afraid of getting caught, getting detention or points deducted. As if she were still the shy first-grader from many years ago.
She had put it off for a long time, but now, three weeks into the school year, she finally caved.
Contrary to her hopes, she was not assigned a single dormitory. She had to share a room with three other students like everyone else. At least Ginny was one of them, which made things better. Still, it remained an irrefutable fact that there was no privacy for her there.
Sure, she could put a Muffliato over the curtains, but she could never really be sure that some too-curious witch would not open the curtains without asking. Ginny had done that more than once this year.
The showers could be locked, but they were really not a nice place to relax. As in the years before, Hermione tried to keep the time she needed to shower and brush her teeth as short as possible.
And so she had asked Ginny, who was Head Girl this year, to give her the password for the prefect's bathroom. In Hermione's eyes, the headmasters could hardly have found a more unsuitable student for this office, but she was happy for Ginny from the bottom of her heart. The fact that she was always in the mood for pranks and often turned a blind eye or looked the other way when she saw other students playing harmless tricks was probably not in the spirit of the position. But it was human and the other Gryffindor students loved Ginny for it.
A little out of breath, she finally arrived in front of the entrance to prefect's bathroom. She briefly looked up and down the corridor to make sure no professor noticed her on her illicit trip, then slipped through the mighty door.
As soon as she was safe, she dropped the cloak. She had always been averse to having to pull the fabric over her head. Relieved, she took a deep breath while hanging her own towel on one of the hooks.
She sank down on one of the benches in the changing room and closed her eyes for a moment. For the first time since the start of the school year, she was truly alone and undisturbed. She enjoyed the silence around her, the dimmed light of the candles that lit by themselves when she entered. There was still a faint smell of the bath additive that had last been used here. A pleasant mixture of the freshness of ginkgo and the sweetness of magnolia.
Slowly she began to open the buttons of her blouse. She felt her tension returning. Until now, she had avoided thinking about why she sought the privacy of the bathroom. Although no one else was present, a blush rose in her cheeks. As she slipped off her blouse, Hermione giggled involuntarily.
Her thoughts drifted to Draco. She had not been able to put him out of her mind since that brief moment during the battle. Unbidden images kept rising in her mind. Draco, standing over her, looking down at her with an arrogant grin. Draco, bending over her and grabbing her injured ankle with both hands. How he looked at her intently as his hands slowly moved higher. How he whispered to her that everything would be all right. That he would protect her.
Hot excitement coursed through Hermione. Her fingers trembled as she peeled out of her skirt and underwear as quickly as she could. Apart from the brief greeting on the train, she had not exchanged a word with Draco in the past few weeks. And so her imagination began to replace the real Draco with another Draco. A Draco who desired her. Who was deliciously arrogant and impossibly gentle at the same time.
With slow steps Hermione approached the large basin and crouched down in front of the many faucets. She carefully studied all the different options before she could decide what she wanted. She turned on the water and then a faucet next to it, from which thick white foam poured. It only took a few minutes and the basin was filled with hot, foamy water. She turned off both taps again.
Carefully, she first put one foot into the hot water and then, after finding the temperature just bearable, she let herself slide in with her whole body. A sigh of relief escaped her. The tension drained from her muscles, leaving only the slight arousal that her own thoughts had caused.
She swam a lap, then pulled herself to the edge of the pool at the point where the water was shallow enough for her to lie down without having to keep herself afloat. She closed her eyes with pleasure and gave herself over completely to the sensual perceptions. The hot water gently lapping her arms and legs. The foam that crackled softly around her. The warm, pleasantly hard bottom of the pool. Her hair, gently moved back and forth by the small waves that sloshed over the edge of the pool.
Again, her thoughts wandered to Draco.
And her fingers found their way between her legs as if by themselves.