Author's Note: 12/12/2021 grammar check
Hermione's full lips settled into a pleased, triumphant smile at Draco's acceptance of her olive branch. "Excellent," she replied with satisfaction, sticking out her hand between them and wiggling her fingers, "Shall we shake on it?"
A storm cloud thundered across Draco's brow as he lost his mocking humor, glaring at her proffered hand like it was a Flobberwarm, slimy and grotesque. Hermione's confidence stuttered as her legs started to tremble. They'd never touched before, not once, not skin to skin – tugging at her curls didn't count. She blew out a shaky breath and reaffirmed her stance, squaring her feet in a firm position below her narrow shoulders and locking her arm in a powerful extension, her fingers flexed and waiting for his.
Just shake it, she thought with exasperation.
"Please," she begged aloud.
His expression sobered, and he pushed off of the doorframe in a sweep of open black robes, looming towards her position in the empty corridor, his uncertain stormy eyes locked on her determined toffee-brown ones. He grasped her small hand in his callused palm and covered her flesh in the warmth of his firm grip, causing a tingling sensation to erupt in the area where their skin met. She felt the pad of his rough thumb brush across the sensitive skin on the back of her hand, and she flicked her bewildered eyes to the subtle movement before he swiftly withdrew. He rubbed his palm against his trousers as if to remove the sensation of their contact, and tucked his hand into his pocket.
"Now what?" He sighed, blowing out a ragged breath as he rocked back on his heels.
Their second issue – the location of their permanent station for the next six months – was perversely more challenging to navigate.
"I don't understand why you can't move the potion once it's started brewing. Can't you just use a stabilizing spell and levitate it?" Lavender asked from her tucked-in position under Ron's arm - her fashionable, satiny brown curls flattening against the side of her head as she snuggled into Ron's broad chest.
The Felix Felicis potion was notoriously challenging to brew. It was temperamental and sensitive to even the slightest change in environment and was quick to spoil. It required seven hours of careful stirring every seven days for six months, and the clock started ticking from the moment the frozen Ashwender egg met the tepid water in the cauldron. Hermione memorized the careful wand sequence – thirty alternating configurations and stirs were required every thirty minutes for the first hour, followed by a counter-sequence in the second hour. The last five hours followed more or less the same instructions, alternating between rotations and complexity.
It was possible that she and Draco could take quick breaks while the potion simmered – to run to the lavatory if he didn't care to use her en-suite, or to grab a quick meal from the Great Hall – but she anticipated that they'd remain mostly stationary given the frequency of stirring and how long it took to actually walk anywhere in the castle.
"It's resistant to most spells. Levitation and physical movement will agitate it, and it can't be paralyzed," Hermione answered with distraction, her nose buried deeply in the pages of her transfiguration text. She was so close to mastering the wordless trumpet transfiguration spell that she could feel it in her bones, "It isn't worth the risk."
"So, you'll brew it here?" Lavender tittered as she titled her head in question, her round honey eyes sweeping around the cozy common room as if she couldn't imagine it, "That's what Parvati said Padma and the other Ravenclaws are doing. They've set up tables in the back."
"Merlin, no," Ron snorted, wrapping Lavender in a tight vice with his arm and grinning down into her flattened waterfall of curls as she smiled toothily back at him, "They're using the classroom."
Hermione's lips flattened in irritation at the memory. They would just have to wait out the younger classmen, she told Draco in firm command, marching inside the room to interrogate each table of students to see precisely how long they would have to endure. Draco followed her stomps with a bemused expression on his face and leaned one shoulder in a casual stance against the doorframe to watch the unfolding spectacle.
"Excuse me," Hermione announced in her characteristic, professional Head Girl voice as she approached a group of Ravenclaw fifth years with her arms folded over her chest, "At what time do you anticipate you'll be finished?"
A nervous boy of obvious Muggle origin, with metal braces and royal blue rubber bands on his teeth, stuttered at her intimidating presence as he replied, "About f-f-five-thirty, Hermione."
"And you?" She questioned, turning to the tables of Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs behind her, who answered six, seven, and eight o'clock, respectively. With agitation clipping her tone, she eventually reached the last table – a group of surly sixth-year Slytherins who were irritated by the disruption of the bossy Head Girl.
"I don't fucking know," hissed an angry boy, staring down into his acrid vat of black boiling goo with disgust.
"This is the second time that we've started over," moaned one of the girls as she lowered her defeated head with a thump to the wooden table.
Hermione pursed her lips at their situation and turned on her heels to face where Draco stood, shaking her head at him in frustration.
No luck, she mouthed, and he sighed and walked with casual nonchalance to the ingredient cabinet, taking his time while he collected phials, ornamental wooden boxes, and the charmed anti-explosion jar out of the noisy wooden drawers. He situated the items into his plain brown satchel with careful consideration of their delicate constitutions and at last turned his torso to acknowledge Hermione's presence, his expression unreadable.
"Let's just wait them out," she suggested under her breath as she approached, but that would put them finishing near midnight or later – which was unacceptable, as Draco clipped back.
"Practice is in the morning, Granger. I can't be up all night stirring a cauldron."
"Well, what about after practice? Why can't we meet tomorrow afternoon?" She countered, trying and failing to control the irritation she felt towards her partner. He was being difficult and offering little assistance, and she felt the desire to shove her hand against his shirt and shake him where he stood.
"No, Granger. I can't on Sundays," was all he said on the matter.
Back in the hallway, they continued puzzling through their plight, pacing and pausing as they parried ideas and as Draco attempted to placate her with his own laughable suggestion.
After Hermione explained Snape's desk incident to Draco (and its effect on the availability of rooms), they debated the risks of settling into a corner of an active spellcasting classroom on the second and third floors at Draco's insistence. Both classrooms remained open for students to practice defensive magic, transfiguration spells, and charms after lectures and on weekends. The idea was summarily dismissed as a stupid one, as they both eventually agreed with a heated exchange of words that guarding the cauldron (and themselves) against errant spells was too great a reality.
"I'd actually like to complete the potion," Hermione remarked with a sarcastic smile as Draco's lips twitched in response.
Neither one would agree to spend the afternoon in the other's bustling common room. Vivid visions of Draco brooding in the corner of the Gryffindor sanctuary danced in her periphery – images of busted lips, stinging jinxes, and fistfights distracted her rapid thoughts. She also realized with surprise, frowning as the images of jinxes bustled past, that this was the most that she and Draco had spoken to one another in seven years... and that it hadn't been as horrible as she'd expected.
"This is impossible," Draco snapped with agitation as his eyes raked over her face, bringing her attention back to the present, "I'm going to speak with Slughorn. Come on, Granger."
Minutes later, Slughorn answered Draco's sharp knocks with a shrewd furrow of his wiry-aged brows.
"Ah – Mister Malfoy, Miss Granger," he greeted without inflection, gesturing in a bland motion towards the two stiff-backed leather armchairs that occupied the space in front of his grandeur mahogany desk. "To what do I owe the distinct pleasure of your company on this Saturday afternoon?" He remarked in a dry, tired voice, settling into his own leather chair and looking back and forth between the students with an expectant tilt of his head.
"Professor," Hermione began in her primmest voice, affecting her most professional posture.
"We have a problem-" Draco interjected in clipped annoyance.
"Let me stop you there, Miss Granger, Mister Malfoy," Interrupted Slughorn, cutting them both a serious look and steepling his hands on his rounded belly, "Are you resigning from my class?"
Draco's posture stiffened as he replied, "No, Professor-"
"And Miss Granger, are you resigning?"
"No, Professor, I –"
"Then you must leave the squabbles of your Inter-House rivalry behind and find a way to work together," Slughorn intoned, frowning across the desk at them as if they were misbehaving school children.
Hermione supposed that they fit the description - on some days.
She met Draco's irritated gaze and arched a dark brow at him in shared incredulity. His blond lashes fluttered as he closed his eyes and scrunched his face, blowing out an even, slow breath as he regained his composure, "That isn't why we're here, Professor. The Potions classroom is occupied. The other classrooms are locked." He tried to explain as Slughorn shrugged his shoulder at him in response.
"As you would know, Mister Malfoy, if you paid attention in lecture instead of doing," Slughorn waved one hand in an excessive back and forth motion between their chests, "Whatever it is that you were doing." He finished with a shake of his incredulous head, pouring himself a cup of tea and taking a loud slurping sip as he eyed them over the steaming porcelain rim and hummed.
"As I told your class on Monday," Slughorn continued, placing his near-boiling teacup in a gentle motion onto a green cozy with the slogan Slug Club monogrammed in silver-colored script, "The fifth and sixth years are also brewing potions that require extra hours, and class space is limited. A sign-up sheet was left on my lectern for those who found their common rooms too noisy for brewing, and seventh years had preference, of course. Though neither of your names appeared on the parchment, to my surprise. So, I'm afraid I can do nothing for you now." He finished with his lips pulled back in a thin line while he tapped his steepled fingers twice on his desk in finality.
"So that's it, then?" Draco rebuked, his formal composure lost, "A little lecture and then a kick out the door? No parting words of wisdom?"
"Indeed, Mister Malfoy. I have given you all the instruction that I'm inclined to give. I advise that you take it," was Slughorn's curt reproach.
Draco rose with a rigid back as he turned on his heels and swept from the office like a thunderstorm roaring down the highland countryside. As Hermione rose to give chase, Slughorn held out his hand in a halting motion, and she faltered where she stood before she lowered her hesitant hips into the stiff cushion of her seat.
"A moment, Miss Granger," he commanded, tapping his finger twice against his monogrammed cozy as he assessed her impatient expression, "I do hope that you'll attend the Club dinner tomorrow eve. The Brightest Witch of Her Age would surely benefit from such a connection."
"Should we go?" Harry whispered conspiratorially to Hermione one evening in the common room as he slid his golden invitation from the cuff of his shirt sleeve with a discreet wiggle of his wrist, thrusting the parchment into her open palm. She'd thrown her own invitation into the fireplace upon receipt.
She shook her head at him as she slipped his invitation into her pocket. She didn't want to upset Ron, who was sitting across the room and watching their exchange.
"We've never attended in the past. I don't know why we'd go now," she whispered in reply to Harry's profile.
"The food?" He countered in a hoarse murmur, trying not to smile and failing in his attempt. His lips quirked at her as she rolled her eyes.
"Go downstairs and grab a plate if you're still hungry! Merlin, you eat a lot," she scolded without any bite.
She didn't like to talk about the Slug Club in front of Ron. He'd never received an invitation and likely never would.
"You can go if you want," Ron interjected with a dull expression from the other couch, sulking into the cushions, "I won't stop you."
Hermione shook her head at him as she sighed, their obvious cover blown, "Ronald, I wouldn't go to that pompous party for anything," she assured.
"Not even if Viktor Krum was a special guest?" Harry teased with a waggle of his brows.
Well… maybe then, she agreed.
Hermione dipped her chin at Slughorn and gave him her careful reply, "Thank you, Professor. I'll… consider the invitation." He nodded at her false gesture and motioned for her to rise.
"Do tell Mister Malfoy that he is also welcome to attend."
Hermione nodded her stiff head as she exited the gaudy office, relieved to be on the trail of her stormy partner, who was presently thundering down the hall. His posture was rigid as he bounded towards the Grand Staircase – towards what destination, she wasn't sure, although he looked like he was trying to escape.
"Malfoy!" She called to his retreating back, "Malfoy, stop!" She repeated when he ignored her summons. He whirled to face her in a blur of black robes, his eyes wild and upset as he searched her anxious expression.
"What, Granger? I'm not coming to your common room! Stop saying it like it's a bloody good idea when it isn't!"
"I wasn't going to suggest it again!" She shrieked, rising to his ire and stomping her little foot, "I have an alternative suggestion if you'll stop and listen! The Head Dormitory is inter-sex, so the stairs won't refuse your entry. Harry and Ron were able to climb them this week– we could work in the privacy of my room."
"What the fuck, Granger? Your room?" He argued, his handsome face cracking with reluctant fascination at the suggestion.
"Yes, Malfoy, my room! Unless you prefer to work in the hallway?!" She gestured with a wild sweep of her arm to the drafty space, to Peeves' ghostly figure hovering several meters down the hall – a captive and cackling audience to their public argument.
Draco's jaw clicked as reality settled. He rolled his eyes heavenward and then closed them in a tight flutter. She watched with curiosity as he sucked in a deep breath that expanded his chest, his rigid posture deflating as he exhaled and addressed her.
"Fine," He sighed, staring over her head at the apparition with an unreadable expression, "We've wasted enough time."
She led them to the portrait of the regal Fat Lady and pulled out her wand, muttering Muffliato at Draco's head (to his irritated scowl) as she spoke the password to the Madame. The Guardian gave Draco a furious expression as she swung open her portrait, and the pair climbed through the hole without a word as Hermione gestured to the first winding stone staircase on the left that led to her private quarters.
They climbed the uneven stone steps in a single file and paused at the landing as Hermione retrieved her charmed key from her pocket to unlock the ancient door. Once inside her room, she used her wand to light the candle sconces on the stone walls. The sun was high in the sky this afternoon, but the lone window on her side of the tower provided insufficient light, and Hermione preferred the brightened ambiance.
With her room aglow with warm, shining light, she glanced over her shoulder at her partner and found him frozen in the doorway. Draco's irritated countenance had melted, and she watched with fascination as he hesitated to follow her steps, his reluctance to be alone with her evident in the way that he held his breath. His eyes traveled in fascinated sweeps around her dormitory– to the bookshelf that was filled to the brim with muggle novels and wizarding texts, to the dark oak desk that was stacked with odds and ends that he'd never seen, to the frozen portraits of smiling faces of people who must be her family – and finally, finally, to the bed in the center of the room that was covered in crimson and golden-hued blankets, the covers slightly askew from her sloppy bedmaking. He met her curious expression – his face stricken and his hands clenched into tight fists at his sides as he tried to control his breathing.
"Nothing's going to attack you, Malfoy. Step inside and close the door."
From where he gathered his courage, she didn't know, but suddenly the stormy boy was in her bedroom, and now she was nervous about being alone.
"You can, umm… just set your satchel – one moment," She mumbled under her breath as she transfigured her four-poster bed into a golden and crimson plaid squashy couch, "There."
No sooner had he moved to take a reluctant seat on the cushion did Hermione hear the whistling call of her best friend Ginny Weasley bounding up the stairs. Not now, Hermione thought in a panic, turning to block her friend from entering the doorway just a moment too late.
"Hermione? Did I hear you come in? Aren't you supposed to be in Potions?"
"Ginny, wait –"
And then suddenly – Ginny was in the doorway, her easy smile faltering on her lips and her green eyes narrowing with trepidation as she glanced over Hermione's shoulder at the surly Slytherin on the couch.
"Weaselette," Draco scowled in greeting, folding his arms over his chest at her intrusion. Ginny prickled at the nickname as her jaw clicked to the side, cheek and eyeball twitching. She sucked in a harrowing breath as she ignored Hermione's appeal to please just wait a second, turning her cheek over her shoulder and bellowing down the stairs in an echoing, sonorous shout, "Oi! Dean! There's a rat in Hermione's room!".
Dean's muffled voice rose up the stairwell, colored with laughing concern as he replied, "A rat?! I'll find Crookshanks –", and then suddenly Dean was on the landing too, reeling back in disgusted horror and dropping the half Kneazle-cat to the floor in a graceless, thudding heap of orange fluff.
"Oi, Hermione? What the fuck?" Dean spat with a bewildered expression plastered on his dark face, gesturing with an angry sweep of his arm at the snake on the couch who looked ready to strike. "The fuck is a Slytherin doing in our House?" He scowled, drawing his yew wand and pointing it at Draco's incensed face across the dormitory.
"The Golden Girl invited me, half-blood," Draco snarled, pulling his hawthorn wand from his robe pocket and pointing it steadily back.
"Why you-," Dean snarled, flying across the room in a launch of powerful fists as Ginny gasped into her hands from the doorway.
"Dean Thomas, stop this right now!" Hermione shrieked in a flurry of movement, dodging his fists and putting herself in his way as she blocked his advancement towards the couch, "Malfoy, shut the bloody hell up!" She seethed between her clenched teeth, knocking her hand backward and into Draco's wand to disarm him.
"Everyone but Malfoy, out of this room, now!" She bellowed, clapping her hands thrice above her head for emphasis, "I said OUT!"
She pushed Dean and Ginny none-too-gently onto the landing and slammed the door behind her with a crack of the wood, cutting off Draco's view of the spectacle. She was met by the wild stares of several dozen underclassmen hovering in a nervous titter at the bottom of the winding steps, their wands drawn at the ready and their voices murmuring in a thrum with active speculations.
"It must be a very big rat," marveled a first-year to her group of friends, wobbling on anxious toes as she tried to see over the heads of the older classmen for a better look.
"The whole bloody house on the first bloody day," Hermione muttered under her breath as she squeezed her eyes shut. She took a cooling breath – one deep inhalation in through her regal nose and one deep exhalation out through her mouth – and then intoned in her loudest, most professional Head Girl voice that could have only been more jarring if she'd spelled it with a Sonorous charm, "Please listen, as I will only say this once: I am brewing the Felix Felicis potion with my partner – Draco Malfoy – yes, yes, he's a Slytherin," she bellowed over the shocked protests below, "- in the Head Dormitory. And you will see him every Saturday," she checked her timepiece, "from approximately one-thirty until eight-thirty for the next six months. And if any of you have a bloody problem with that, bloody speak now or forever hold your tongue!" She shrieked, the last shreds of her professionalism leaving her body to disappear into the ether.
Colin Creevy raised his shaking, nervous hand in response and promptly dropped it to his side as Hermione's fiery glare cut to his position. "Nevermind," he amended with a quick apology, tripping backward down the winding stairs in his haste to escape from the front.
"You fucking should have asked, Hermione," Dean spat as he shouldered past her to join the remaining students on their descent, "Rats are riddled with disease."
Hermione watched as Dean stomped down the steps until he turned the corner, and then she leveled an upset glare at Ginny's bewildered expression.
"I'm sorry, Hermione. I didn't mean for this…," She waved her hand at the stairs as she swallowed. "I didn't mean to upset you," Ginny apologized in a quiet breath, running her freckled hand through her ginger locks as her lips twisted to the side in a frown, "I just wasn't expecting to see him in your room."
Hermione nodded her stiff head in response, feeling uninclined to forgive her friend just yet. She stomped into her room and slammed the door with another deafening crack, muttering a clipped silencing charm at the wood, and then immediately turned to round on Draco.
"How dare you use that word in my room!" She seethed, pushing her index finger into his hard sternum in an agitated, repeated motion until he scowled and smacked her hand away.
"Your Gryffindor saviors started it, Granger," He deflected, waving off her hand as she tried to poke him again.
"I don't care who started it!" She screamed in frustration at his startled expression, feeling the hot sting of unshed tears entering her eyes. She had an embarrassing habit of crying when she reached this level of irritability, and she hated that he would see it, "I care that you said a horrible, prejudiced word to my friend in my dormitory! Where I sleep! Where I write to my parents!"
She turned away from him and covered her eyes with the backs of her hands, feeling overcome with bitter emotion and angry at herself for falling apart.
For being weak, she thought.
She stomped to her private lavatory to compose herself and turned on the white porcelain sink, splashing her face with handfuls of frigid water as she stared at her disheveled reflection in the mirror. Several minutes passed before she felt that her face had chilled from its excess of color and that her eyes had dried of their tears. She gathered her Gryffindor courage and returned to her room to face her partner, her anxious feelings from working with her former bully settling low in her abdomen.
He hasn't changed at all, her subconscious whispered as she opened the door.
She found Draco deflated on the ensorcelled plaid couch, his pale hands fastened in a tight grip in the moonlight roots of his hair. He shuddered at the creaking sound of the lavatory door and then looked up at Hermione through his near-white lashes, his eyes guarded. She thought that he looked like a little boy in that position as he studied her from the couch, and she realized that she was staring and had missed what he said.
"What?" She sniffled, fiddling with the sleeve of her bulky sweater as he let loose another shaky breath, his posture straightening, and his expression earnest as he repeated himself, "I said I'm sorry, Granger. I won't say that… word you dislike."
She gave a stiff nod in response, surprise flooding her body at his apology, although she was still very peeved and didn't feel ready to forgive him. Draco grabbed his satchel and moved to the cauldron on the corner of her desk, muttering a quiet Aguamenti charm as a small jet of water erupted from the tip of his wand, filling the empty vat with tepid moisture pulled from the air. He carefully levitated the squill bulb and murtlap tentacle out of their enchanted containers and lowered the slimy ingredients into the cauldron with a poof of purple smoke.
When the smoke dissipated, he uncorked the tincture of thyme and poured the murky fluid into the water. Hermione watched as he sprinkled the occamy eggshell and powdered common rue on top of the mixture from her position at the doorway, his long fingers graceful in their quick movements.
A low hissing sound emitted into the quiet room as the last of the powder hit the water, and Hermione wrinkled her nose as a sharp smell greeted her nostrils. Hopefully, that will not last, she thought with an anxious fluster as she recalled from her text that the odor would soon dissipate.
At last, Draco levitated the final ingredient from his satchel: the Ashwender egg. The cauldron emitted another searing, noisy hiss as the frozen egg hit the mixture, green and purple smoke wafting in hazy spirals toward the rafters of her ceiling. He unlatched her ancient window and directed the smoke plume outside with a careful sweep of his wand.
He unscrewed the tin lid of the anti-explosion jar as he returned to the cauldron and placed it on the center-back of the desk with a rattle of glass.
Finally, Draco used a quick Incendio spell to bring the cauldron to a rolling boil and looked over his shoulder at Hermione, his face unreadable as he examined her where she stood in the doorway.
He's still a bloody prat, came Hermione's sour thought as she kicked off her loafers and rubbed one tired foot up her calf.
They'd wasted so much time this afternoon doing precisely what they'd agreed not to do.
"I'll go first," Draco called needlessly, his unreadable eyes glancing to her legs before he turned back to his task, beginning the first series of complicated wand maneuvers over the cauldron's boiling surface.
Why is he looking at my legs so much? Hermione thought with a slight scowl, setting a timer for thirty minutes with her own wand and retreating to the farthest end of the squashy couch – as far from Draco as she could possibly sit. She plopped onto the cushion and called a wordless Accio to her transfiguration text, crossing her legs at her knees and smacking the heavy text onto her lap. She yanked uselessly at the hem of her skirt for more modesty and resigned herself to showing a healthy view of her thighs.
When Draco finished the series of wand maneuvers, he remained facing away from her as his rigid shoulders straightened.
"I suppose you did it all correctly," she clipped in a prim tone to his back, her haughty nose buried in her text as she read lines over the page, "I wasn't watching."
Draco shrugged one sinewy shoulder and turned around to face her, his powerful arms crossing over his chest in a relaxed, confident pose and his trim hip leaning against the wood as his face contorted in mild shock. His eyes locked onto her dainty, stocking-clad foot and followed the line of her seam up her shapely calf, stalling where her skirt met her thighs. He cleared his throat as he relaxed his jaw, his cheeks lit with color as he replied in a gruff voice, "You'd know if I didn't. It would explode."
Hermione swallowed and flipped a page in her text as she dismissed him.
The afternoon continued in mutual silence, their wands spraying a shower of harmless golden sparks when it was time for someone to continue the next series of stirs. Draco removed his robe early in the afternoon and took a seat in the armchair across from the couch. He'd rolled up his shirtsleeves to Hermione's annoyance and fascination. She had never seen his bare forearms this close and thought that they were stupidly elegant and distracting. She filled her thoughts with pleasant visions of Viktor to soothe her mind.
Harry and Ron returned from the quidditch pitch around three o'clock and had obviously been briefed on the situation of the snake in the lion's den before they knocked on her door.
"We're just, uh – just stopping by to ask… what time you're going down for dinner." Harry enunciated in a slow rhythm, trying to peek around her shoulder as his head tilted to the side. She'd cracked the door and had angled half of her body through the sliver, trying to block their gaze from the Slytherin on the couch.
"It will probably be close to 9 o'clock," she whispered, glancing from Harry to Ron, "But I missed lunch. If you wouldn't mind bringing me a plate soon? I don't care what it is."
Ron nodded and tried to look over Harry's shoulder, as well. "Is he bothering you?" he asked in a quiet, warning tone, his cheeks burning with color.
She shook her head 'no' and their posture visibly relaxed.
"One word from you, and we'll hex him out the window," Harry warned.
And she knew that they meant it.
It was nearing 8:30 now, the end of their brew session. The sun had long settled beyond the western horizon and silvery strands of moonlight danced through the frosted panes of her window.
Hermione took one last look at the gently bubbling purple concoction and turned to address Draco. They'd taken turns alternating their positions on the couch and in the armchair. She'd studied her transfiguration text while he'd written an essay (of what – she wasn't sure). The side of his left hand was covered in dried ink from resting it against his parchment, and she imagined that his essay was illegible.
They hadn't spoken in hours.
Draco gathered his robe from the back of the armchair and swung his plain satchel over his shoulder, giving her a quick glance as he swallowed.
"I'll let myself out," was all that he said as he swept from her room, closing the door firmly behind him with a soft crack.
Hermione released the ensorcelled couch and threw herself onto the comfort of her bed, burying her tired face in her fluffy pillows and shuddering as a ragged breath escaped from her throat.
I can handle you, Malfoy. Can you handle me?
She groaned.