A/N: Trigger!Warning. Alcohol use.

A/N: Ouch! There were quite a few typos in the last chapter. I went back and fixed them. I have to remind myself that I'm not allowed to edit and post chaps while it's late at night and I'm tired. Things always slip through the cracks.

Chapter 18

"Come down and waste away with me. Down with me," Hermione sang loudly into the blizzard as she walked back to the school. "Slow, how you wanted it to be. I'm over my head, out of her head. She sang. Na-na-na, na-na-na, na-na-na, na-na-na-nah!"

Hermione performed a dance, as best she could in knee-deep snow, to the beat within her head. She'd only had one more drink at Aberforth's- making it three total- before drinking a glass of water down and leaving the bar. Now, about halfway through her walk, almost fifteen minutes later, the Gryffindor witch was playing the air drums to the Foo Fighters on her hike back to the school.

The witch hadn't had that much to drink at one time since she'd been in Australia. She'd learned quite a bit about liquor while being down under. It had been winter, after all, so drinking and walking on the bleak, grey beaches was something that some people did to pass the time those days. It had been grey the day she'd spotted her parents on the boardwalk, but they'd been bright, like a lighthouse calling her home from sea.

"And I wonder, when I sing along with you, if everything could ever feel this real forever." She played the air drums, stumbling from the effort, but keeping her footing. "If anything could ever be this good again." More air drums. "The only thing I'll ever ask of you, you've got to promise not to stop when I say when. She sang."

The war heroine wasn't paying much mind to where she was going. She was trapped in her head, in memories and music, and did not notice that she'd strayed from the trail she would have otherwise been able to follow just fine, even with the ludicrous amount of snow and drifts.

She was thinking about things she shouldn't have, as all people do who find themselves alone after drinking too much: Hogwarts, further education, adoring schoolmates who stared in awe while asking for her autograph; Voldemort, Dark Marks, and the Death Eaters that were still out there; Harry and Ron training to capture the rest of the Death Eaters; Harry and Ginny being able to have a relationship after everything, while she'd been unable to commit to Ron right away. She wondered, randomly, if she should have ordered soup to go so she could eat it later in her room. Then she was back to her deeper thoughts, such as her parents' understanding while she continued to be selfish and separate herself from them, and how she'd have them over for weekend holidays after she grew warts, a crooked nose, and bought a cozy cottage to live stereotypically.

Then she was back to thinking of Draco.

With a great sigh, Hermione's imaginary drum kit disappeared and her shoulders slumped some while her mind's eyes showed her Draco's grey ones, and how soft and kind they'd been that day. Her mind filled with him saying, "My respect for you was strongest, and had come first."

She rolled her eyes at the feeling of her heart parttering, and she tried like hell to think of anything but. However, it took about ten seconds for her mind to go back to the Slytherin, and the feeling of his hand on her low back as she'd settled in his lap. Then she thought of the other hand, holding onto her own as they'd reluctantly part ways.

"What am I going to do?" She asked, snow entering her mouth as she continued to talk to herself, but she still wasn't paying any attention. "What am I doing? Thinking about Malfoy like this?... At least I'm not thinking of him naked."

Then, all of a sudden, she was. Her mind was brimming with images of shirtless Draco, then Draco in dark grey boxers. Next came the image of him with nothing on at all, his nice arse on display. Then she was imagining herself wearing nothing at all, and then they were together, kissing one another deeply; the witch on the edge of the library table they'd first studied at, her legs around his waist, his hands in her hair, her hands holding onto his forearms as he moved in and out of her.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" Hermione exclaimed as her brain played a dirty movie, while also tripping over what felt like a large rock hiding under two feet of snow, which caused her to fall over in the powder.

She could not believe she thought about him in such a way, but was endlessly grateful of the snow storm as the frozen blanket began to cool her hot body. Liquor and arousal were the devil when combined. The witch was sure she was making a Hermione-shaped steam imprint in the ice and grass below. Like in the cartoons when Wile E Coyote would fall off of a cliff and make it through two or three feet of the earth's surface.

Hermione was Wile E Coyote. She'd run off a cliff of sorts herself. Headlong, if one considered that she was imagining she and Draco starkers and shagging, when two days ago she'd been considering punching him and leaving their reunion at that.

She blinked up at the sky as the snow continued to fall, the fresh flakes melting on her lashes and cheeks, five or more minutes passing before she began to feel the cold seep in through her clothes. When the fabrics grew damp, she grabbed her wand from her cloak pocket and cast first a drying then warming charm on herself, then placed the bit of wood in her boot so that she could get back on her feet and start walking towards the school once more.

Brown eyes looked about, and saw the faint tracks of her journey behind her, being quickly erased by wind and fresh layers of snow. Then she looked ahead of her, then to her right and left, only for a frown to reach her lips as doubt touched her heart.

"Where the fuck am I?" She asked the blizzard, to which it gave no answer.